The Solitary Shopper (An Ode to Lord & Taylor, RIP)
Say it ain't so!
Lord & Taylor's Fifth Avenue store, the sanest place to shop in New York City, is closing its doors in early 2019, thanks to a sluggish sales, an online economy that it cannot compete with, and an $850 million purchase of its landmarked building. It's been around for more than 100 years. The lack of crowds led to its demise. Perhaps in another 20 years, when someone has the brilliant idea that we should shop in department stores, will we see it again.
Three generations of my family shopped there. My grandmother, my mother, and me. We traveled into
"the city" for school clothes where we each picked out a few outfits. I remember eating at the Bird Cage restaurant which has seen a few incarnations as a place for a bite for the weary shopper. We would wait for my father to bring the car around as we waited at the front, on the inside, where the Clinique displays are now set up. The shoe department has expanded to almost three fourths of a floor and…
Lord & Taylor's Fifth Avenue store, the sanest place to shop in New York City, is closing its doors in early 2019, thanks to a sluggish sales, an online economy that it cannot compete with, and an $850 million purchase of its landmarked building. It's been around for more than 100 years. The lack of crowds led to its demise. Perhaps in another 20 years, when someone has the brilliant idea that we should shop in department stores, will we see it again.
Three generations of my family shopped there. My grandmother, my mother, and me. We traveled into
"the city" for school clothes where we each picked out a few outfits. I remember eating at the Bird Cage restaurant which has seen a few incarnations as a place for a bite for the weary shopper. We would wait for my father to bring the car around as we waited at the front, on the inside, where the Clinique displays are now set up. The shoe department has expanded to almost three fourths of a floor and…
