Goodbye Historic Department Stores

One of the saddest trends of the last 20 years has been the decline of the grand old department stores in many downtowns. Nearly everyone over 40 can remember the trek downtown at Christmas to see the decorations and sit on Santa's lap. (If you can't remember it, rent the movie "Miracle on 34th Street" and you'll get the idea.) Almost as sad as the stores' decline: Where downtown stores have hung on, they've been renamed. The latest great old retail name to disappear: Marshall Field's in Chicago.

Marshall Field's wasn't just a big store. It was the big store in Chicago, a place so familiar and cherished that, if you wanted to be sure to meet someone, you told them to stand "under the Field's clock" on State Street. Field's didn't invent the department store (the first true department store was Bon Marche in Paris in the 1850s), nor was it the first in America (there was one in New York by the early 1860s, but none was more beloved. Field's motto was, "Give the Lady What She Wants," and it was in customer service that the store made its mark.

It was also appreciated for its longevity. Rebuilt after the Chicago fire of 1871, the downtown Marshall Field's store was rebuilt again after a second fire and eventually located at Washington and State, an intersection it still commands like a fortress. But come next year, the fortress will have a new name, Macy's. As you can imagine, this does not sit well with many Chicagoans. "Macy's should stay in New York, and Field's should stay in Chicago," one shopper told the Chicago Tribune. Some of the sales people in the store weren't pleased either. "People really come here for the name," one told the Tribune. "It's a Chicago icon."

Don't take it personally, Chicago. Other cities have lost cherished retail names: Rich's in Atlanta, Lazarus in Cincinnati, Goldsmith's in Memphis, Burdines in Miami. All are now known as Macy's. Why the changes? The owner of these stores, Federated Department Stores, thinks having the same name on all its stores will help with marketing and other costs.

And what do Chicago's political leaders think of losing the Marshall Field's name? Actually, they've been uncharacteristically calm about it. "Retailing has changed and lifestyles have changed and business has changed," Mayor Richard M. Daley said. "But we should never be afraid of change."