In other words, WeWork wants to control all aspects of their “employees” or whatever they call them by trying to isolate them from real life, real interaction with people “not in the Club.”
2
We Work. Yeah right. Until we work no more. The corroded, self-congratulating, small-mindedness of our current political-social existence is bearing down on us as the owners eliminate work (read: jobs) through automation and / or the destruction of traditional employment cultures like real-world retail - and we accept it. This is just another example.This lemming march can be modified. But only with enlightened courageous political leadership. And where might that be?
3
It is a little too late to bemoan the rise of work-as-life, instead of a means to having a life. Americans have been urged to forgo the latter as an unnecessary luxury. Truly valuable and important people, so goes the cultural stereotype, are always at work.
In the distant past, the people who were always at work were servants of the idle rich. Actually, when you think about it, it is still true. The difference is that we are not provided with room and board any more.
Folks, this is the life that unions fought to change. Union organizers wanted a life for themselves so they could spend time with family and friends, just like the idle rich. They fought for time as much as they fought for a living wage. They gave us the forty-hour work week, vacations, pensions, breaks during the workday, and a sense of self-worth. Their lives were more secure than ours.
We failed to understand and appreciate their hard-won benefits; we were seduced by lies and distortions promoted by those same idle rich that made workers not in unions envious of those who were. Instead of demanding the same benefits for themselves, non-union workers encouraged and participated in the destruction of unions. Well, we may have to do battle for those rights again if we want a decent life worth living for ourselves.
I truly doubt anyone dying ever said "I wish I had spent more time at work." So, value your own life; it will not come again.
16
Unless, you believe in reincarnation!
1
Forgive me for interrupting this aria of paradise lost, but for many of us, shopping was never an entertainment, either because we couldn't afford it or because we sought more lasting pleasures than the fleeting joy of a new cashmere sweater. Why not get your shopping done as quickly as possible so you have time to (1) take a class, (2) meet a friend, (3) become active in your local elections, (4) work out at the gym, (5) try out a new recipe, (6) go to a museum, (7) finally find the meditation community you've dreamed of...
6
Well, I will miss L&T as well but let's face it, if you don't support it, it will fail. People go into these places now like they are Museums of Retail and, in fact, that is not far from the truth. They have the audacity to stand in front of merchandise, pull out their phones and see where they can get a better deal. Someone is paying for the building, the employees and the merchandise you see. You folks have no right to get all weepy on this topic....stop it.
So before this typing of shopping experience vanishes from the face of the earth I suggest you go into a store that has actual, grown-up customer service and and experience it dies. Buying a piece of clothing from someone who understands fabric, fit and fashion is a valuable experience. It may not be for every day but at least you will understand why a Brooks Brothers suit and something off the rack at Century 21. Folded into the price is someone's experience and expertise and their desire to make you look their very best. This goes for all types of goods not just clothes; from shoes to electronics, support stores that have your back and want to see you truly happy with your purchase and, more importantly, want to see you back again.
Someone has to pay retail (or close to it) or it will all be a world of unhappy customers and returns.
5
Why, score one for the idle rich! They're the ones "carrying the day" at these locations!
Why the need to make these outlandish declarations? The death of leisure. The end of shopping as fun. And on and on. Calm down. Leisure lives. My wife just enjoyed a weekend shopping with friends. Wouldn't it be nice to declare the death of nonsensical proclamations?
2
This is really a pretty sorry commentary on modern society. People are being convinced they must be "on call" 24 hours a day, to the exclusion of family, friends, volunteering, or any other important relationship. I'm surprised We Work isn't turning part of the building into a dormitory and cafeteria. That way those toiling there would really never have to leave. Saying they want to allow people to "help people make a life, not just a living" is really kind of a sick joke if you ask me.
3
Because techies are workaholics and make work their lives, they seem to think that is what everyone else wants, too.
The narcissistic aspects of tech, social media, etc knows no bounds.
8
I pronounce tomorrow, Monday, October 30, 2017
"STAY HOME FROM WORK AND GO OUT AND SHOP DAY".
Have fun. Take the sales clerks a flower or coffee and thank them for being there to serve you. Just imagine you could not go out and mingle with other people and shop - just for the fun of it.
Tell the "market" Robber Barons they do not control us. WE THE PEOPLE are not robots and we must not let them treat us like robots or let their robots take over OUR world and lives.
Use your highly inflated drug money that is enriching a few Robber Barons and buy something nice for yourself. It will help probably help more than the drug.
3
The tech sensibility is merely an appropriation of what business has always wanted to do with its employees: keep them working all the time, 24/7. We are living and working all the time but there needs to be distinction between working for the job and working for ourselves (which is living as well.) In fact tech sensibility is not limited to techs or the tech industry. Given how pervasive cell phones are, instant messaging, etc., we need a stronger separation of our work lives and our private lives so we can LIVE.
2
But what are the products that these tens of thousands of companies are producing? How are they making our life better, easier, more convenient?
3
As a New Yorker, I am concerned that a store reducing its footprint 75% is likely to be reducing its workforce as well. This is alarming particularly because Lord & Taylor is still a place where people work long-term, even their whole careers. This is an increasingly rare phenomenon in retail, (and is one cause of L&T's famously good customer service) and I fear those let go will find it hard to a similarly good job. Particularly, I worry for those who are over 40 or 50 for whom the job market is particularly unwelcoming.
8
I worked at LORD & TAYLOR for one year in 1984/1985. I was in school at the time. I earned a little over $4 an hour. LORD & TAYLOR was beginning its long decline. It was beat. Not a lot of customers, but the management held onto excellent customize service. The quality of their merchandise was definitely middle of the road. But what I most remember about it was how L&T's loyal customers saw it though rose colored glasses of days gone by. Mrs. Thurston Howell III was often browsing the main floor - looking as if she had just stepped off of a soundstage. Natalie Schafer was the epitome of what L&T's clientele must have been in its day. But its day was long since gone. But the flagship store held on another 32 years. And it will continue to hold on with the rented lower floors it will keep...for a while. The truth is L&T was never Bergdof-Goodman but it somehow made its loyal customers feel as if they were in the best of the best. I guess it was the Scotch Broth Soup and the America Rose both of which this article failed to mention.
7
"Lovie" would never be seen at L & T, if Thurston wasn't such a tightwad! She was a Berfdorf kinda gal!
1
I was sad to hear about the demise of Lord and Taylor. It has been my go to department store ever since I moved to this area about 25 years ago. It's always seemed so civilized, with easily available helpful salespeople, no waits for dressing rooms and the immaculate bathrooms, and comfortable chairs where my husband could wait for me while I was shopping.
Sadly often when I've gone there I could count the other customers on the same floor, and I often worried that it wouldn't be long before it went out of business. I can't imagine that it will stay afloat much longer in its new incarnation, with 3 floors instead of 12, and its days are probably numbered. I don't know where I'll look first for clothes, since I hate the behemoth amazon, which seems to want to take over everything, from books to groceries to drug stores to newspapers and other media sources and department stores. I'm sorry for all the people who will lose their jobs and for the end another brick and mortar store. I only am sorry that the more things are bought and sold online, the more trees are needed for shipping boxes and the more packaging materials need to be desposed of. Is this really the best use of resources?
5
L&T came close to B. Altman. Close but no cigar.
2
Young people just don't know how to enjoy being alone any more. I mean, really alone: no phone, eating alone (read MFK Fisher on this), taking a hike alone or fishing alone, and especially going shopping alone--these are sensory wonderlands.
13
Hardly the death of leisure. More like the slow death of NYC.
12
While it is sad that L+T has to get right sized there are still other fantastic and glorious stores in our great city,Saks,Bloomingdales,Barneys,Bergdorfs and even Macy's. other mentions* Dover Street Market (the New Bendels?) Jeffrey New York,OC,all of the individual Designer Boutiques scattered all over the city,not to mention the chains,a special shout out to my personal fav Uniqlo.
At least the L+T structure can't be touched as it is protected. L+T will still have a presence unlike B Altman the store,which still stands but as another use entirely,as many many others.
The city is lined with former Department Store carcasses.
L+T will lose it's current grand home but has been losing for years, as the customer rules.
I'm laser focused on the Saks "re-invention" :) and the soon to open Nordstrom's.
3
There's a certain irony in reading about this on a tablet instead of scanning a broadsheet over breakfast and ending up with inky fingers. Or is that just me?
14
Very well written. Thank you.
3
These are essentially gimmicks to make the millennials hang out longer at work. I've seen this happen at other startups. They first stay back for the free food, the free booze and after sometime fewer and fewer people show up to these parties
Even millennials realize they need to get a life!
10
To RPh who hit an assertive denial at boomers who think today's hoodie-wearing 20-somethings look like slobs, well, yes, Hoodie-crats, you do look like slobs, and not just to boomers. I walk a lot in NYC as I head to work, dressed like a grownup with pride about my appearance, fit and in comfortable but not ugly shoes. What I see in too many young men and women are sloppy, slouching and, frankly, filthy clothes, ill-fitting, and all the better to accommodate bulges that go beyond "muffin tops." Leggings, sneakers, sweatshirts as work clothes; I wouldn't hire a single one of them. Ride an elevator with them, try to refrain from holding your nose at the unwashed hair crowding your oxygen supply. I cannot imagine how or why you would want to date people like this. Yet magazine covers feature morbidly obese TV stars as "role models" - one more endorsement for the complete lack of adult self-control, self-proclaimed activists against "fat-shaming," more strain on our healthcare situation in this country. Lord & Taylor lost their way when they tried to be hip to a younger target audience that wasn't interested in the L&T clothes or could not afford them. Meanwhile they ignored women of a certain age in dressing rooms and at the registers. Over the past year I walked out in frustration more times than staying. Avoidable mistakes, and from a female CEO. Inexcusable.
14
WeWork: temporary offices for disposable businesses. Forget about fake news. This is a fake economy.
17
Have you ever been inside a Wework location? It is an anthill. The half-height "privacy" glazing on the glass walls creates spots where you can stand and see a row of heads in front of, behind, to the left and right of you. Terrifying.
But hey... free non-alcoholic drinks!
14
I see it as a generation that insists it is breaking the mold. Amusingly, they do that by creating a new mold. lol. Every generation thinks they can massively improve on their parents generation.
2
Great essay. Thank you.
2
People, I really wonder about your reading comprehension. The store at 38th is not closing, the chain still has about 50 stores mostly on the East Coast and is not closing either. The chain will now actually survive and perhaps have some money to put into the website and other stores where foot traffic is heavier? Ever been to the store in Scarsdale? It sells as much as NYC and is only two floors. Can't get a parking space there at Holiday time. Let's lighten up here, it's a store not a monument. Save your time and energy for what Trump's government is doing to our country.
4
so when do we get to say bye bye to Macy's & Bloomingdale's?
2
The geographic inversion of putting workers in the highest priced real estate in the world is absurd and is a recipe for destroying cites, suburbs and the countryside. Watch, next is an urban garden in Macy's.
We have workers trying to reinvent the wheel instead of maximizing the fruits of the division of labor, and we have other workers moving boxes in suburban disuse factories instead of creating surplus value.
I cannot see the virtue of performing the entire scope of production by one's self: design, sourcing materials, making products, marketing, shipping, billing, etc, etc. All the while paying a premium rent for an office area at a group table in WeWork. This is a terrible outcome, and is really the Republican dream of everyone an entrepreneur. We cannot have entrepreneurs without a division of labor, and we cannot have dignified work in some warehouse moving nameless boxes from one pile to an other, nor sitting at a laptop Instagramming chocolate confections or bow-ties made at home.
This signals the end of the bourgeois era, an era in which we all had some taste of the attendant leisures of the middle class. That era gave us free time, labor unions, decent schools, entertainment etc. Now it's a monolith of non-stop labor that is laced with visits to Facebook as proxy and filtered entertainment. Doomed, cities are doomed.
11
Christmas on Fifth Ave was the best. The windows.
The problem for a lot of these stores is they tried to compete, lowering themselves to keep pace with what was gnawing at their businesses. What they offered was a relatively serene atmosphere, with helpful and trained employees, that gave the shopper a memorable experience, especially if that experience was for a special occasion, or once a year trip. Today, I hate going shopping, Malls are the worst. Overwhelming sensory attack. If there's no alternative in person, online feels like a good compromise. The department stores killed themselves, lowering their service and quality of goods offered to compete. They also had no choice once they became corporate entitles.
4
People predicted that humans would be overtaken by robots. I wonder if they would have believed that instead, humans would turn into robots.
10
At the entrance of Lord & Taylor is a plaque commemorating all the Lord & Taylor employees who died during WWII.
In this new modern "WeWork" work era, who will commemorate us if we die in a war? Would anyone even notice at a WeWork "shared workspace"?
11
Those with office space at WeWork don't serve in the armed forces. That's for the dispicables in fly-over country.
At Macy's 34 balcony level there was a plaque listing the Macy's WWII dead.
2
Sorry, but department stores started killing themselves long before online and TV shopping came along. I moonlighted in a now defunct department store at a mall in Cleveland in 1986. Don't take my girl card, but I don't like shopping and absolutely hate bargain hunting. However, after the 10 months I spent in that store, I learned to never buy anything that wasn't at least 20% toff the marked price unless it was an emergency, and these days I look for 40% off. As I said, I hate bargain hunting, but when I saw how pricing goes up close, I realized what a racket it is.
Also, as someone who spent much of their life plus-sized, the stores put their marked up plus sized items somewhere near Siberia. When the TV shopping networks seriously started selling clothing, the quickly included plus size stuff at the same prices as misses clothing and the showed it on plus sized models. This made me a loyal customer even when I no longer needed plus size clothes. (Before anyone says that extra material is needed for plus sizes which is true, the same is true for a size 8 vs a 0.) When shopping from TV or from Amazon, you don't have to put up with the segregation.
I've rarely shopped at L&T so I can't say I'll miss it, but you can't blame the downfall of traditional retail on millennials.
2
@Maloyo: I agree with you about plus sized clothing in bricks-and-mortar stores like L&T. More times than I can count, I've gone in and found a nice dress or top or outfit, only to be told "it doesn't come in that size." I have pointed out to saleswomen that the store's buyers have NO idea how many women come in ready to purchase, but walk out empty-handed due to what is basically "size discrimination."
I'm sure the salespeople are NOT keeping track; they're not reporting in at the end of the day or week, telling the buyer "Hey, this week 9 women were looking for this item in extended sizes, and walked out b/c we don't carry that size. We're losing sales we should have made!"
Beyond that, one need only look at what's on the clearance racks; I pointed out to one saleswoman that while the store didn't have my (larger) size, the clearance racks were bulging with items in size 0 or size 2. This is a clear indication that the buyers are purchasing the wrong amounts of clothes in those sizes.
I finally gave up buying in person b/c it's a waste of my time. And as much as I used to like L&T, they don't get a lot of sympathy from me b/c I'm now well aware that their buyers are persistently & block-headedly uninterested in stocking sizes that are actually in demand - and worse, they're uninterested in hearing what customers wish to buy. So, stock the store any way you like; you have lost me as a customer!
1
I can give the author a hint about what should count as a good time... It's not consumerism.
I hope everyone has an awesome Sunday. I'm going on a hike at Rocky Mountain National Park with my two dogs. It's going to be a great time!
8
Shopping isn't just wish fulfillment. It's where new wishes come from.
If I can't afford to fulfill the wishes I already have, shopping becomes a kind of self-inflicted torment. No thanks; I'd rather WeWork.
I still have a box from Lord and Taylor and another one from B. Altman's. When I open them, they still smell delicious and my memories go back to the days when I was young, pretty, and a student in New York.
These boxes are like the madeleine of Proust, their smell taking me back to those days of my youth, that through the telescope of time, I see with rose-tinted memories.
9
I, too, have a B. Altman box. And still can shop in Lord & Taylor's flagship store, until ... it won't be there anymore. I'm a New Yorker and find this so terribly sad. I'm so glad you have the memories I share of a different city than I live in now. Enjoy them forever!
2
This obsession with work is a national disease, responsible for the loss of more lives and broken families each year than cancer, heart-attacks, drug-abuse and vehicular accidents combined. To make matters worse, this incessant need to work all the time appears to be driven out of a fear and desire to distract ourselves from things that really matter like fostering personal, family, and community relationships and taking good care of oneself.
With more employees taking on the work and responsibilities that were once assigned to two or three individuals a few decades ago, it’s little wonder that we have so little time to enjoy small pleasures like shopping, taking a long walk or witnessing the growth and development of our children.
Funny thing is that there are plenty of people who would like to work and by hiring more of them and redistributing the load, current employees might be able to return to an eight-hour workday instead of the 16 and 18 hour grinds made possible thanks to email, Google docs, and other forms of technology. Ironically, technological advances have been sold as time-savers that would lead to increased leisure time. It hasn’t. American workers really are a sick lot.
12
I actually despise the hassle of shopping: going from store to store, sometimes miles apart, looking for just the right thing in just the right size; the parking; the crush of the crowds; noisy, rude teens roaming the malls in bands, not there to shop but as a release from boredom; rude clerks ( the customer is always right??); and the returns.......
The works moves on and new paradigms take shape. Give me on-line shopping any day.
2
I'm surprised no one mentioned their famous Scotch Broth soup. My mother and I would deliberately go to L & T on Saturdays for it's one of a kind delicious soup.
Many of the old department stores that are gone, focused on offering quality merchandise - today we live in a disposable generation. Buy it, then when it's past it's shelf life, toss it, then buy something new. How many clothes bought today will still be in closets 40 years from now? I remember all the stalwarts: Bonwit Teller, Mays, B. Altman, Wanamaker (my mother bought the most beautiful sheets & towels there - on sale) & Alexander's. Being a Brooklyn girl, my most favorite ones where: Abraham & Straus (now Macy's) and Martin's - who was renowned for gorgeous coats.
The middle class could afford love classy things bought in these defunct department stores. Now we shop for clothing that is subpar compared to clothing purchased from days gone by. Anything that's quality, would need an high class salary to afford it.
30
L&T opened a store in Albany, NY three years ago. I hope that one survives.
Oh please. Walk downtown and you will discover that in-person shopping has not gone out of favor. WHAT we shop for in-person has changed. The halls of Eataly are overflowing with the same people who might have gone to Lord & Taylor 50 years ago. Chelsea Markets and similar food halls are thrumming with tourists and locals. And the Union Square Farmers Market is now held almost every day, and its Friday and Saturday markets are The Place To Be when you’re not ordering your fall wardrobe on-line.
9
It's clear most people aren't shopping for clothes nowadays as most people look they they just rolled out of bed : )
2
I don't know which came first - loss of retail stores or Amazon selling everything - but I do know that the stores stopped competing long ago. They no longer even bothered to entice a customer to come in to the store. Sure some of the brands carried would have a promotional 'event' but even then it was all show and no substance i.e.. they never had enough inventory to fulfill demand.
Going to the mall or a certain store became and is a frustration of lack of inventory. Want to try that skirt on? It was a futile exercise to drive to the store.
I remember shopping with my daughters for their prom dress. That was in about 2008. Not anymore, they just go online.
It's not that we had unlimited funds or that we had any sort of shopping 'addiction' so to say. It was something fun to do. Like 'going' shopping for Christmas presents for your family and friends.
Now I swallow hard and get the laptop out, click away and in 60 minutes have 'shopped' for Christmas. Efficient maybe, but not fun at all. And then dealing with all the deliveries and boxes, it's just not satisfying. It's a chore now.
The only bright spot is that now I channel that longing to go 'shopping' locally.
On Long Island, we have many small towns and quite a few with a single downtown street where they still try with the decorations in the windows and on the lampposts.
6
I remember wandering around department stores, searching in vain for that perfect dress, gift, or whatever, and coming up empty. What I wanted was out of stock, or what was available was in the wrong size or color. Sometimes the product could be ordered, which necessitated another trip to pick it up, not always in a timely way. Online shopping eliminates many of the the unpleasant aspects of department store shopping, not the least of which is rude employees.
3
I grew up on Long Island, near the Manhasset branch of L&T. In the '60s my mother and I often went to L&T's Bird Cage for lunches when I had days off from school and needed a special dress or outfit. With its iron chairs and bird decorations, it was an iconic, unforgettable look, and helped bond us together. Shopping at L&T was always a good experience. Very sad to think of it gone.
6
Amazon is merely the symptom, not the cause, of the recent struggles of retail, if my experience is telling. Since the crash, I work 80 hours a week to keep my job and spend enormous sums on health insurance -- $20,000 a year, more than we pay for housing -- leaving no time or disposable income to shop.
16
This article made me think of the wise words of the 20th century statistician and management consultant, Dr. W. Edwards Deming... he said “Management’s overall aim should be to create a system in which everybody may take joy in his work.” This joy can be equally attained by employees of Lord & Taylor, the employees of companies using the WeWork spaces, and the WeWork employees themselves. We cannot stop "progress" (although we may disagree on the definition), but we surely have control over our own actions. I will drive to New York City this week and visit Lord & Taylor and Saks in person, as I often have over the years, because I want to know I did what I could to support beautiful stores and the wonderful people working there.
10
There have been so many changes in New York this week alone that's hard to keep up. The Rockaways finally got the Select Bus Service on the Q53 and the Q52 lines. I guess that's a small price to pay for getting those big double buses to take care of the overcrowding on the two lines from Rockaway going down Woodhaven Blvd. To add insult to injury came the news that the yellow Metro Cards have been ruled obsolete and will be gone for good by 2023. The irony of this story is that Metro Cards were considered a technological wonder when they were first introduced in the 1990's to replace the reliable metal token. Tokens, which have been used by generations of New Yorkers to ride the subways, just had to go in order to make way for the more fashionable Metro Card. Toll booths on the bridges and tunnels were torn down in favor of the new cashless tolling system.
What has this to do with Lord & Taylor? Plenty. Lord & Taylor is another iconic part of the New York landscape that has to be reconstructed to accommodate a 21st century company. Oh there will still be a Lord & Taylor on 38th street. But it will never be the same once WeWorks moves in
11
Ah, but we still have honking gridlocked traffic, hordes of homeless and overflowing trash cans to remind us we're in NYC.
3
Seventy years ago, "shopping downtown" was an event. Fifty years ago, it was "shopping at the Mall". Today, it's all in your hand. Leaving more time for leisure, "the gym", communing with nature ~ the shore, mountains, running.
And, of course, "Netflix" . . .
3
Why bemoan the end of shopping? Fundamentally, shopping is about commercialism, whether buying or not. Our species may be acquisitive and status seeking: just how appealing was walking around with a department store logo bag after shopping? And perhaps for many, department stores provided a museum-like experience, but one curated to appeal to them (and with objects available to touch). But in the end, stores, especially upmarket aspirational stores, want our money. And spending more money means doing more paid work.
As for shopping as pure entertainment, I can imagine an adult theme park, consisting of a large shopping mall connected to hotels and restaurants. Visitors can shop all day, with pauses to eat and relax, and then bring all their "purchases" back to their hotel rooms. Overnight, these items are returned to the shelves, so the guest can start again without any financial impact.
7
The experience is about so much more than just the shopping.
5
Every personal purchasing decision has long-term costs and consequences ... from the short- and long-term environmental impact of the product, its packaging, and its delivery to the potential impact on employment and the community. I wonder how many people might make different choices if this information was 100% transparent at the time of purchase.
8
I remember when I was a kid growing up in Queens that my mother would take me, once a year, to L&T in Manhattan, to get a winter coat. I was one of 5, the only girl with 4 brothers. It was our outing together and I loved it. Others have mentioned the dresses there - I agree. Whenever I need a dress I go there first - and that has included over the years bridesmaid dresses for my wedding, my son's bar mitzvah, etc. A great NY institution.
17
And more and more women aren’t even wearing dresses. I bet half the women who read this article have no dresses...or just one for weddings and funerals.
1
Just for funerals!
1
Isolation, is the norm among millenials. Even as they dine together they communicate with third parties who are not with them. Their Iphones and Ipads.
This and other groups in the current culture have adopted loner status, Facebook for real company. E-mails for phone calls. Human interaction is of no moment. We have become a nation of zombies; living life digitally. Sad
28
It's just safer now. It's hard to find people who are not cartoons of what a human can be. It's hard to find people who have a solid foundation to their being not rooted in a fantasy. Humane people are out there if you are willing the search.
1
Here is my experience with department stores and chain stores (working there and shopping there):
Those that still cater to the middle class are woefully understaffed, with high turnover, unpredictable hours, little training, and low pay. Employees have no time to learn the inventory or the register system or to keep the store even halfway orderly or clean. Lines are long, and the entire experience is squalid, chaotic, and depressing. Who wants to buy a dress they had to pick up off the floor under the rack and try on in a filthy dressing room staffed by a hostile, checked-out employee? It's an unpleasant experience, start to finish, that anyone would want to avoid.
The high-end stores are quite nice. Very calm and soothing, with nice, knowledgeable sales staff and lovely displays. If you have $900 to drop on a pair of shoes or $1300 for a nice everyday dress to wear to the office, these are dandy.
52
Exactly. Usually the trend toward online shopping is attributed to convenience of the digital type, when in fact (for some of us anyway) it has been a way to avoid a shopping experience that has become a race to the bottom for all but the most wealthy. Personally, I hate shopping online. But I hate department stores more.
3
It is sad that so many people shop on line. The experience of shopping and of trying on and actually touching the clothes seems no longer important.
Cities are made up of stores, restaurants, public transportation and people walking the streets; when store no longer exist a large part of city life will be gone. Very sad to think of that happening.
21
Unfortunately, corporations in their greed for unlimited amounts of money are getting rid of the physical intersections where human beings interact with their bodies. Universities promote the increase of online courses that most students don't want, even millennials. There's no substitute for the spontaneous interaction between students and professors. Stores are getting rid of their physical facilities where customers interact with each other and the products we want to touch and feel and discover. It's all about keeping more money in their pockets without giving something back: human warmth.
34
"stood not merely as a monument to turn-of-the-century commerce but also as the grand testament to what the sociologist Thorstein Veblen called the rising culture of 'conspicuous leisure.' "
Well that's one problem resolved.
12
I guess that's another experience for Gen-Xers that millenials missed out on, hitting the deparatment store when school is out while Mom had a 2 manhattan lunch...
6
Sooner or later folks will come to realize that there is value and pleasure in going to the store, feeling the suit fabric, trying it on, getting helpful advice from a knowledgeable salesperson on the shirt, shoes and tie to go with it. I will and do gladly pay a few bucks more for service and a pleasant environment.
53
Knowledgeable salesperson. As an expert in my field I cannot find any such person in my line of work. They are too busy ordering mochiatto low sodium frappes. The real world does not interest them.
2
WeWork is the canary in the financial "mind" that is preparing us for the next Bubble to burst. WeWork is based on the so called concept that work is just another form of entertainment and running a company that makes money is irrelevant.Its all about having a good time. Work is just like college ! Good luck with that.
43
Our first East coast family vacation in 1966 landed us in Washington D.C. where we toured the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Smithsonian and the Washington Monument. We then took the train to N.Y.C. and arrived in the middle of a heatwave, had a wild taxi cab ride to the Americana Hotel, toured by boat the Statue of Liberty, walked down Wall Street and toured the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My mother wanted to make sure we went to a proper New York City department store. That for her was Lord & Taylor where I purchased a red white and navy blue A line sleeveless wool dress. A half century later my experience at Lord & Taylor stands in my memory along side Lady Liberty and the Lincoln Memorial. Not bad for a mere department store.
39
What a lovely memory.
3
I no longer live in the NYC area; I really missed Lord & Taylor. I could always find a dress (I'm a dress girl) at L&T. The website does not reflect what is available in the actual store. I think L&T was the final holdout of the area department stores to put cash registers on the selling floor in front of the customer. For years after Macys, etc. had cash registers on the floor, the cash registers at L&T were in the "back room;" the salesperson took your money or credit card went to the back and brought back your receipt and change.
As far as the demise of the department store, remember during the 1990's & early 2000's when consolidation of major department chains happened? After that buying was done by a central office, not regional buyers. As a result, Macy's in NY sold the same clothing as Macy's in Florida, even in the winter! And they wonder why people stopping shopping there.
27
And not only that but all department stores started to carry all the same clothes so why go down to 38th Street when you'd find the same things and only the same things at Bloomingdales? Back in the day, I loved L&T. I bought my wedding dress there and an antique 1820 end table that reminds me of something out of Jane Austin. I remember shopping tnere with my husband when men were allowed to accompany their wives into the dressing rooms, roomy rooms that were equipped with upholstered easy chairs--and ashtrays. But during the last more than decade, the vast floor space, loaded with racks of all the same stuff, were mostly void of customers and I've wondered for a long time how they stayed in business.
17
After Macy's took over the May Company, Macy's divided itself up into regions and districts to remedy the sameness and sell appropriate clothing in the various regions of the country. This led to some duplication of back-office expenses, which led in turn to the inevitable cost-cutting and cutting back on the original regional configuration.
2
The craziest part is that the 'work' that happens in WeWork offices doesn't look anything like work: the people are dressed to play, in sneakers, jeans and t-shirts, and showing each other dog videos on their phones. The blurred line between work and play today has left everyone in a limbo - available to return email at all hours of the day, dressed for a day at the beach, never really stopping to do something 'unproductive' like shop, but not really getting a whole lot done in the workplace either.
44
Agreed. I saw another shared workspace in another city the other day and there was a whole bunch of kick- scooters in the entry way. I mean I like using a kick scooter; they're fun. But that's for time off. Hard to imagine using one at work to zip down the hallway to a meeting. But maybe if the lines are blurred between work and not-work, the millennials will just stay connected to the office 24/7 and not know the difference?
1
Leisure died the day some corporation issued cell phones and computers to its salaried employees and told them, "You're always on the clock now." Leisure died the day some corporation imposed the "open office" concept and told its employees, "Hey, we got free snacks and Cokes, a gym, and foosball tables. Oh, and by the way, we own you now." Leisure died the day some techno whiz kid decided that apps - in a generic sense - are so much more important, relevant, and valuable, than the people who use them.
40
Not only all of the above but Gimbels sold collectible stamps. Only in New York. What a way to live.
17
Yes, and Altman's sold antiquarian books and Macy's had many concessions. But this was when department stores sold everything including new books, magazines, eyewear and eyeglasses repair kits, sewing patterns and notions, food, etc.
7
Not only in New York! Lazarus (in Columbus, OH) and Marshall Fields (Chicago) had stamp and coin sales, located right next to very nice in-store book shops. Fields had an art and antiques store—I seem to remember that disappearing in the 80’s. Department stores used to feel quite elegant.
4
Didn’t Mr. Baker’s group buy Lord & Taylor for the value of the real estate? Saks too. This financial transaction should not surprise us.
6
That has been an aspect of investing for decades. Remember Alexander's, which in addition to its ubiquitous free-standing suburban stores had it's flagship a block from Bloomingdale's? Alexander's stores closed but the company still exists as a real estate holding company. Who did that deal? Nine other than DJT.
7
Well written Gina. Great style. You will be the chronicler of le temps perdu or the the lost domain of New York.
Saddened by the fall of L&T but cheered by the quality of the writing.
Don't stop.
17
The moral of this story is that the highly valued tech workers, part of the working masses, are toiling to make a living and generating profit for the owners of capital while "wanted to appear as if they were having fun."
12
This is terribly sad. I have visited that store during visits to Manhattan as I've always loved checking out the iconic stores of great cities. As an early Gen-Xer, I still have childhood memories of the twilight years of those great Downtown department stores. When visiting family in Chicago, it was, of course, Marshall Field's. Here in Los Angeles, it was Bullock's and JW Robinson's. And like any girl who loved fashion in the late70s/early 80s, my first job was as a salesgirl at Robinson's. I was even paid time and a half for working Sundays but I think that kind of deference to the day disappeared by the mid-80s. I still have my classic plum-colored wool Evan-Picone suit, bought with my discount and altered to a perfect fit by the in-house tailor, another long-gone part of the scene. I had to have it re-altered years later to let out the waist a bit so I can still wear it on occasion, but, thankfully, not by much. It's now become a still luxurious and treasured keepsake of a time and place that's all but disappeared.
30
If you want to have the same experience shopping as in the past (distinctive goods, attentive sales persons, pleasant atmosphere including a pianist playing soothing music, and free alterations by the in-house tailor) go to Von Maurs.
2
Worked fior J.W. Robinson's and Buffum's in CA. Always wanted to go to Marshall Fields in Chicago, and Lord & Taylor,Gimbals, etc. in NYC. Little bt little all of the reasons I wanted to go to new york are going away.
1
If you leave work and leisure to Business Enterprizes we are.soon looking at even leisure as work.
I don’t see any problem separating the two.
As Mark Twain said’ if you are enjoying work, it’s a sport ( leisure), if you are not enjoying sport (leisure) it’s work.
2
Lord & Taylor's on 39th was my first job out of college. Well, I majored in art so...After arriving out of the Midwest, I settled in the Barbizon Hotel for Women on Lexington at midnight. The next rainy morning I went straight to Thomas Hoving's office at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and asked for a job touting my new degree. The receptionist was polite but said I would need a Ph.D. There was always volunteer work for the Museum, she said. I was stunned that I wasn't hired---that's how naïve I was. I had told everyone back home I was going to work for the Metropolitan. It didn't occur to me that the Museum has a say in the matter. Chastened, I walked down Fifth and applied at the Whitney, on to the galleries, and over to the Museum of Modern Art ---turned down by everybody. Realism set in around 59th Street. I backtracked around noon and saw the doors of Lord & Taylor. And, yes, I did have "salesgirl" experience back in my hometown and, yes, they were hiring. Within two months, L&T told me I had the lowest sales of anyone in the store. They were nice about it and didn't fire me or try to humiliate me. My life took many turns over the decades since, but I still feel warmly about the two and a half months I was there.
38
That's a great reminiscence. I came back to NYC in 1973 and got jobs at a music publisher and then at a series of record stores. New York in those days was harsher in those days but much more forgiving. If you weren't killed you could get along with your life, or if not make mischief. There was a critical mass of "straight jobs" then which meant that thousand of people could come here from all over and get a start here.
11
I could always work in NYC... Even during the worst parts of the 2008/2009 bankster crash. It's been the exact opposite since I was stupid enough to move to Portland, OR. Turns out there is a REASON people put up with all the hardships of places like New York.
2
Department stores used to be places you visited maybe once a season - as many commenters here who mention back to school shopping remember dreading. I loved it. You could buy clothes that were well made, with better quality fabrics that would last, and the people I knew did not have vast wardrobes of cheaper disposable fashion that had a shorter life. Now the brick and mortar stores are packed, with an overwhelming mishmash that makes it difficult to find that one special item. Because styles must change so often to feed the appetite for a new look, we end up with some bizarre trends that are difficult to wear and far from flattering. And don’t even get me started on food courts. We have traded quality for questionable abundance. If online retail has done anything, it has discouraged me even further from shopping unless I absolutely have to.
24
Boy! I sure do love a snarky essay. A really fun read.
Regards,
Terry O'Neill
This was a lament for a loss of a historical tradition and the shift from a collective experience to atomization of life. There was no snark.
3
WHAT? more fun than amazon dot com?
8
Childhood memories 40 years ago of being dragged to Lord & Taylor by my mother to find clothes for the new school year or the spring/summer season. It was worse than going to the dentist or hebrew school. She and I always ended up getting a headache and a few overpriced ill-fitting articles of clothing. And it took so long to find a cashier and check out. Good times.
6
Fortunately, I still wear and treasure the lovely turquoise earrings and enjoy using antique expandable bar I bought there back in the 70’s - perfect for a studio apartment and now in the library. The clothes are long gone but I still recall some memorable dresses.
8
It's a shame that an iconic store like Lord & Taylor has decided to close it's doors, maybe the responsible parties should reconsider their decision...
5
They're not closing, just shrinking.
Ahem.
"Lord & Taylor will rent a quarter of the building, maintaining a smaller version of itself. "
Shame you didn't read the article.
2
Growing up in nearby NJ we went into the city frequently to visit family in Washington Heights. As an occasional treat, we took the train into the city for a shopping trip to Lord and Taylor. We didn't have a lot of money, but this was a real treat. The most memorable part for me was the Birdcage, the restaurant with little desk/tables that nested together for a wonderful lunch. I just turned 71 and the memories are fresh in my mind. And in order to save paying NYC taxes, we always had our purchases shipped home to NJ!
12
I took the train from Connecticut but otherwise my memories match up with yours -lunch at the Birdcage, shopping when the stores weren’t jam-packed with so much merchandise you can’t make a decision, and shipping packages home to save the taxes as well as lugging them to the train. Shopping expeditions are no longer a pleasure, and shopping online is dreary. Something has been lost indeed. I do look forward to seeing the Christmas windows on a trip to NY with grandchildren this year, but their pleasure domes are the new American Girl Doll store and the Lego store.
12
Where is a bubby to shop in Manhattan after this? B Altman's been gone for over 3 decades, Bonwit's and now Lord's. How to tell one's circle of acquaintances about the three you have in at Jefferson and oy, how exhausted this shopping has made you. Time for a break at Rumpelmeyer's...
18
I will not miss the department store. Now in my 30's I can recall many excruciating and boring trips to Macy's, Nordstrom, etc. We spent most of our time waiting on long lines as customers tried every coupon under the sun.
I think our generation cares less about who makes their sweater and cares more about comfort and functionality (ie. Mark Zuckerberg hoodie + T shirt). And no, boomers, we don't look like slobs.
7
This mirrors my sentiment as a late Gen Xer: time spent in department stores from the early '80s (as early as I can remember shopping trips) was torture. The era of leisure, social, department-store shopping mourned in this piece disappeared well before my birth in the late '70s. While I don't enjoy or approve the ever-meshing world between work and leisure, department stores willingly handed away their luxury draw decades ago.
9
I would not say slobs. Many of you, however, remind me of early photos of the Peoples Republic of China. And, comfort and functionality are okay but not everything. They are rather low levels on the hierarchy of needs. Learn what makes you, not Zuck. Find your own style in every facet of life. Then, you will know true comfort.
2
How many hoodies and t shirts can a person handle? The look is depressing and has become a uniform no one thinks about but just jumps into. Thinking the "uniform" hides a multitude of eyesores it only magnifies the visual gloom of overgrown street urchin types. Seems no respect for the occasion, location or self. Grunge is still with us and is not pretty. In the days of all the great department and specialty stores of Firth Avenue, one never saw this concept. The joy of looking respectable and acting appropriately has left us.....well..... not all of us fortunately.
1
Lord and Taylor had the Birdcage, where grandma took me to lunch, and the sandwiches had the CRUST CUT OFF! Really, nothing was more sophisticated to a gay boy from Jersey City than crustless sandwiches and a grandmother who wore white gloves to go shopping.
And also: Charleston Gardens at B. Altman. Heaven.
37
Yes thank you for bringing back memories of Altman's what a classy store. And as a little girl who sometimes got tired shlepping around the department stores with my mother, an avid shopper, it was all worth while when Mom took me to lunch at Charleston gardens or the birdcage. What a treat.
5
Another Jersey City girl here who remembers an annual trip to "the city" with my grandmother to Lord & Taylor and B. Altman and Schrafft's for a tuna fish sandwich... the same grandmother who bought her dresses on layaway in JC from stores at Journal Square or Downtown JC. I agree, it was heaven...
3
"Work as a way of life"?
More than it already is now?
[To heck with] that!
13
You said it correctly,this marks the end of "shopping" as fun!;Department stores like Lord & Taylor, Macy's 34th Street, were an outing for the day;A feast for the eyes, trying on clothes, shoes, until finding the perfect one & enjoying the family & or friends you shopped with; Lunch in the same store;If you shopped Macy's, you stopped at the first floor butcher shop on the way out to get something to cook for dinner;it was a butcher shop but it was THE butcher shop where the meat was beautiful;It's a mean world now, some "entrepeneur" aka "hustler" wants to monetize every move we make so they can make millions by killing jobs & replacing people & verbal exchanges &with algorithms:This is not a better world, it's a greedy world & Jeff Bezos is a madman who is destroying America with his hustler mentality& low wage distribution centers that everyone is dying to have in their hometown:The republican party is the biggest hustler, destroying democracy daily, undermining our healthcare, giving tax freebies to big corporations & the 1% so there is no money for any infrastructure spending;the republican plan is to privatize everything where those of us not in the 1% will forever be paying for things we pay our taxes for the government to supply like public education;Betsy DeVos is the worst of the worst, corrupting public education for her theocratic schools;once politicians were good,we knew they took a bribe or two,but they weren't out to kill democracy like the GOP is now
29
Hm...this is when work becomes away of life? When a retail dinosaur sells off a building? When only the label-divas (who often just use the shopping bag to look cool) could care?
Hey Ms. Bellafante, work as a way of life arrived long ago...! You know with Double income families...turned into triple, quadruple income families, and/or singles with 2-3 "gigs" (stupid term) - with or without kids!
Whatever Lord & Taylor WAS- it hasn't been in a long time. Whatever it did that WAS innovative is now just part of a past, that is only important to the Question/Answer writers on Jeopardy.
I'm sure most Millennial's think Lord & Taylor is a band that maybe they saw play at Coachella last season...on an alternate stage. With a gimmick, like a Tuba playing lead singer. Ohmpah!
And shopping - in brick and mortar locations - while declining, has long been a national past time since the Rise of the Mall. Where Americans spent a godawful amount of their free-time off from their dominating workLIFE. Where generations of American kids grew up thinking that Sbarro was good pizza, and good Chinese could be eaten at a food court.
So now the seasonal out-of-towners wont be able to get their Lord & Taylor shopping bags to take back home to Podunk to flaunt.
"Mom went to NYC and all I got was this L&T shopping bag."
Maybe someone should install one of those ubiquitous roadside/sidewalk memorials, lest we forget the era of the Nose in the Air, overpriced NYC shopping experience.
8
I think you are confusing Lord & Taylor with the rest of the Department Store pack. The place earned my loyalty precisely because it resisted the trends you talk about and tried hard to maintain some semblance of the old-style shopping experience, with a calms stately environment, a spacious layout with good public amenities, a good selection of things not seen everywhere, and, most of all, a long-term sales staff dedicated to the place and to customer service. That isn't "what it used to be," its what it is today, right on Fifth Avenue. Try it sometime.
2
Extremely interesting article: Very true that the Internet has delocalized us. The conventional notions of time and space are disappearing. But there is a tremendous social cost in this new order.
Quality of life is in a spiral; if work and leisure are benighted we can work all the time. WeWork - and others - are out to convince Millennials that a race to the bottom is winnable.
Of course our cut-throat capitalism apologists love that.
10
As a twelve year old boy in a company town in West Virginia, my grandfather worked 12-hour days, 6 days a week in a factory until he was sixteen. He felt it made him a better person and, still working full time at 70, couldn't understand the obsession with a 40-hour workweek. Like a rising middle class, the features of the Post War era were an aberration not a natural outcome. They resulted from artificial controls and union extortion and pandering officials and liberal theory. In an age where cell phones are cost-effective, there's no reason employees can't be available 24/7. When data is easily collected, analyzed and utilized, business and government are remiss if they don't maximize it's usefulness. There's nothing legitimate about the romanticising Luddite behavior.
Like your grandfather, Spanish peasants lined the roads crying "vivan las cadenas" (long live the chains) welcoming the absolutist king Fernando VII when he was returned to Spain by Wellington in 1812.
Like some laboratory reactions, capitalism is splendorous when controlled. Left to its own devices though, it runs amok.
1
So let's romanticize the "Sixteen Tons" workplace instead? Brilliant.
1
"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven..."
7
The striking wording "wanted to appear as if they were having fun" seems to sum up the misgiving of an entire generation of deluded techies. From the perspective of a fifty-something who prefers not to appear to have fun, but to have it without being observed, if at all possible, this work-for-fun spells the death of what is beautiful and good. Gone is the pleasure of working away at the local library, searching for truth in dusty old books. Public libraries today avoid academic books as it they were the plague and they indeed look like 'WeWork' spaces, where patrons 'appear to work', when in fact they should 'appear as if they were having fun'.
23
I think that most stories about this, including this one, miss two key points:
1. WeWork is a private company that is part of the current venture capital bubble.
2. Manhattan commercial real estate has become so out of whack that a successful buisness can not compete with the soaring value of their own building.
Enormous bubbles of capital have distorted many asset prices. Inequity funds the ridiculous capitalization of WeWork, driving their buying spree. Inequity funds the ridiculous Manhattan real estate market, driving the middle class and poor out.
The story here is not the death of middle class retail, but the death of the middle class.
39
And in that regard it's of a piece with the stories I continually read in The Times about beloved diners being pushed out for yet another Duane Reade.
1
My family's business for many years was giftwrap. Lord & Taylor was our first customer. Around Christmas there was naturally a rush for them to order more at the last minute and for us to get it on the floor to sell. That was back in the day when the Christmas department was on the first floor. I remember being a 12 year old and going there with my father after store hours to meet the buyer. We would walk on the first floor without any customers. It was a magical place, all marble and gild. I felt like the most special kid in the world!!! PB
29
That's a very nice memory. Congratulations on having that experience.
9
I remember as a kid going into large department stores that had sound proof booths where you could listen to records. Maybe it's just me, but I believe that things were better in those days.
33
its just you
1
Ignore joelibacsi. It's not just you.
Some things were better, some not. But the great department store experience was definitely one of the better things.
12
Some things actually were better. Not every thing, to be sure, but some things. Why besmirch the treasure that is someone else's memory?
10
At least they're not tearing down the beautiful building for another glass tower like Trump did to Bonwit's.
NYC has been eating its own department stores for generations. The best one ever was Takashinaya NY, which tragically bit the dust after the crash.
There's a reason the remaining department stores & malls die off, they're typically hideous.
May all the big-box stores meet a similar fate & be converted to creative places to work for self-starters.
It's an interesting model, just not so much everyone working in one giant room, that sounds like a school lunchroom & no way to get anything done.
Starting a business you work for 3 people all the time anyway, might as well spend it doing business than building your first location.
The city should develop a related model & make move-in-ready units for more types of businesses than offices. Affordable live-work workshops exclusively for artisans & craftspeople, for example.
If the goal is to bring production back to the USA, supporting artisans with a place to ply their craft is a way to do it.
If the goal is to reinvent a reason to shop retail, build something beyond the same department store planned-obsolescence mega-designer brand departments & big-box imports.
Focus on the self-made makers, include mini-storefronts in each artisan's or independent business-person's workspace.
That would be a real department store worth spending time shopping in!
6
So, in the new economy of high tech, you become an instant billionaire doing what exactly? Do you cure cancer or muscular dystrophy? No. Do you invent some new wonderful scientific process or substance? No.
You buy out a brick and mortar business employing people, to do what exactly? Don't real estate brokers already list loft space and/or vacant office space in commercial buildings? Why do we need smug millennials with computers to do that?
As to department stores, and those commenters singing the praises (shilling for?) Amazon, I'd note the stores have their own online shopping with the ability to buy clothing or objects in various colors and sizes or varieties.
7
Its the housing bubble created by your generation that has created the need for affordable office space AKA WeWork.
1
Does the Lord and Taylor site allow me to purchase a pair of dress slacks, a 75-piece peg board hook kit, a 24-pack of Keurig cups, replacement springs for my garage door, a case for my new cell phone and concentrated ammonia to dilute as a weed killer in one sitting with delivery in two days, including Sundays?
2
$20 billion dollar valuation for a real estate ponzi scheme. Sounds legit.
9
During the 30 years I lived in New York City, in the 80's, 90's and the first decade of this century, I shopped at Lord & Taylor. It became my store of choice through accretion: Bloomingdales was too large, Altman's and Bonwit Teller had closed, and eventually, Saks became too expensive.
When I lived in NYC for a year in my late teens (my first home away from home) I shopped at Saks. I had no money at the time, but I shopped wisely. I still have in my possession a beaver fur hat I bought for my father for $18 that he would have worn on his deathbed if the hospital had permitted it, plus a camisole that I still wear today.
Over time Lord & Taylor's, along with Macy's, became my stores. The L & T buyers had a bead into my brain. I always found what I was looking for -- always. Just park yourself in the right department and search. What you needed would surface. I'm not one of the "Ladies Who Lunch" and shop crowd, but one needs what one needs.
Another reason that Lord & Taylor, along with Macy's, remained my department store of choice were the Christmas windows. I considered the windows a great civic gesture. Sure they may have brought buyers into the store, so you could consider it a mercantile choice. But much like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade sponsorship, I considered these events an example of how commercial enterprises could enrich city life.
A scaled down Lord & Taylor is not a bad idea. May it thrive. I hope it's not just another nail in a coffin.
62
"Christmas windows." What a wonderful tradition! And, very hard to have those on-line.
12
The Chicago Lord & Taylor had the best dress & coat buyers! It was my go-to store whenever I needed a dress. I still have 2 coats I purchased from them in the 90s. Much better selection than Marshall Fields which unfortunately went thru its own demise.
6
The first job I had out of college paid me my first "real" money. I remember going to Lord and Taylor and Bloomingdales and spending hours looking at things and so excited because I could buy something in these wonderful places. Ok not a designer dress, but it still came from those magical places...
14
Crunchbase says we are past peak VC so that should be interesting. Also, NY is not the best market for startups. I was thinking of going back to CA but may use Colorado as a platform. Startups these days only need a core tech team and staffing in a few other areas. They can be virtual for a period. So why even pay for space.
Ah, yes. And, what about your leisure time again?
3
I have always worked towards a balance and efficiency. I build leisure time into my life and encourage folks who work for me to do so as well. I prefer to work with happy and motivated people unlike the Night King. I managed projects and engagements that way and do so in business as well. Conference calls from the dog park, discussions on a Mountain Bike (good for your wind) or these days on a high mountain hike.
I office out of a WeWork and it is literally the best thing that could have happened to our small business. Traditional office space is prohibitively expensive, so having the ability to congregate in an office space and not break the bank means more flexibility and creative use of time and space. In this new economy, it's all about work-life integration vs. work-life balance. Entrepreneurs have longed for a way to strike that balance for time immemorial since entrepreneurial life is a 24-7 endeavour.
Technology has gone a long way to facilitate this integration in countless ways; WeWork is a natural extension of this change in the tides. It's not ideal for those invested in the traditional idea of leaving work at work. But for those of us who cannot do that - by choice or otherwise - spaces like WeWork combined with powerful new tech allow for a smoother experience of integrating work into life and vice versa.
As for the loss of the bulk of space for L&T in Midtown Manhattan? I honestly cannot see the problem. Who, under 40, would ever seriously go to a department store to hang out? I'd much rather hang out at my WeWork office where I'm surrounded with other entrepreneurial-minded people doing interesting things. It's inspiring vs. simply passing time.
7
I'm so happy for you, and hope that you can always work 24/7. Living is so overrated.
9
You "office"? At the end of the day, if there is an end, do you loft, or restaurant for a while, and maybe bar?
17
Point missed. I work and live and both are always happening. In short: I'm in control of all of my time, not just a few hours a day before or after work when I'm not asleep. I.e. work-life /integration/. (and it's the future)
So the new economy is no economy at all for most of those engaged in it. No career to pursue; when the training ground existed to pass along organizational norms and expectations. No office to aspire to, whether the corner, or with a window, or even with a secretary, shared or otherwise. There's any emptiness to all this that lacks the poetry of staff meetings, office parties and the daily collective challenge of winning and losing.
5
That whole issue over paying compensation for working overtime with vacation time instead of money in my experience is a ruse. I've experienced how an employer can control that you'll never get a chance to see that vacation time for working overtime with magic deadlines and just making sure your workload is never sees a gap for any relief. Then, if they can prolong the strategy till years end they get to start over with that time having expired. I know of an engineer who put in months in advance for a determined amount of vacation that was agreed on but when it came around his boss suddenly told him he forgot and the project had to be finished and there was no other way. There may be honest brokers with it but don't assume they all are.
13
As my boss puts it, "If I can do without you for one week, I can do without you for fifty two." And he's right. Business doesn't stop at five o'clock or wait a week until you come back. Not to mention, the dollar cost of that vacation is effectively coming out of his pocket.
1
I’ve always hated department stores.
Too big, too congested, too distracting, too much useless, generic, tacky stuff.
Running the gauntlet of toxic perFUMES just to get into and out of the places. Unbearable! Good riddance.
I prefer small, interesting, focused stores. Preferably owned and run by locals.
For clothing, which I LOATHE shopping for, I do it online or while wandering the streets of Europe, stumbling across interesting things.
Trading the misery of big box shopping for being held hostage to endless 365/24/7 work is certainly no gain either. Phony, work-centric socialization is a rather pathetic thing to settle for.
What have we become?
20
You cleearly never shopped in the 5th Ave Lord & Taylor. It was much smaller than any other department stores and had a specific style. The escalators were easy to find and you could hang out for hours in the enormous upper floor ladies lounge. No Macy's or Saks. No divided up Bergdorf's where you couldn't tell how to get to where in the store. L&T had clearly marked floors and a good lunch with single-seat tables so you didn't feel odd eating alone. It will be missed.
20
I also loathe any clothes that I did not find while wandering the streets of Europe. This holds true for other items as well: France for groceries, Germany for dishes, Sweden for glass, Denmark for furniture, Italy for ANYTHING. For the life of me, I cannot imagine why anyone would shop any other way.
4
Am well acquainted with those who "make a living" via Instagram. I knew a woman, a self-appointed "healer," who never put a meal on the table that she didn't photograph and upload. Then one morning I woke up to find she'd put all the details of my stage four cancer on Facebook--to promote her "business." If this is the new way of making a living, you can have it!!!
10
Did she get specific permission from you and or were you in a public space. If not see an IP lawyer as she cannot legally profit from your image and story unless you gave her permission.
8
Great article. Thanks for making me laugh.
People like to believe that the soul of America, it’s blood and sinew, is democracy, that America does democracy and democratic principles better than any other country in the world , and that Democracy is defined as: the people running their own country for themselves in the manner they think best for everyone . It’s a bold faced lie, there are many countries that do Democracy as well as the United States and many do it better. The true heart and soul of America is capitalism, that nasty sort of “ buyer beware “ capitalism that generates great profits without care of ramifications or even the welfare of the greater good.
In America it’s all about making money, and for the working class, better known as the working poor, it means working at your job to your too old too enjoy retirement , or looking for work after you retire, because we live in a country where it is drummed intonyour head to take no handouts, or expect nothing from the government , to ignore the fact that every other country grants its citizens free health care, free education and treats all citizens basicly the same , rich and poor, afterall deferments to get out of militar service is a uniquely American invention.
So if you want to stamp on tradition and the cultural heritage of a city what does it matter, it’s all about the money not memories ... or people.
31
I remember being at Lord&Taylor at opening time. The staff gathered around, an American flag was unfurl, music played and we recited the Pledge of Allegiance. I have so many great memories of L&T, especially the shoe dept and the restaurants.
9
Well said.
I worked at Lord & Taylor as a seasonal employee one year a few decades back. Everyday before opening the doors, the national anthem was played over the loud speakers as we held hands to heart. Working or even moving during the ceremony was asking for censure and even dismissal. Old school, sure, but effective culture and team building that set a tone for the day and your work.
1
Lord and Taylor's garish Christmas window displays always sickens me conjuring a fictional world where there are no poor people, hungry people, homeless people and where everyone is white. So an antiquated, over priced over privileged department store bites the dust. Who cares.
4
You sure your last name isn't Scrooge?
13
Wow, you sound like loads of fun during the holidays. What time is Christmas dinner, and what can I bring?
13
H.L. Mencken's take on Veblen:
(In) "The Theory of the Leisure Class" Veblen .. (discusses) .. problem(s) of the domestic hearth. First, why do we have lawns around our country houses? Secondly, why don't we employ cows to keep them clipped, instead of importing Italians, Croatians and (blacks)? The first question is answered by an appeal to ethnology: we delight in lawns because we are the descendants of "a pastoral people inhabiting a region with a humid climate." True enough, there is in a well-kept lawn "an element of sensuous beauty," but that is secondary: the main thing is that our ... ancestors had flocks, and thus took a keen professional interest in grass... But why don't we keep flocks? Why do we renounce cows and hire Jugo-Slavs? Because to the average popular apprehension a herd of cattle so pointedly suggests thrift and usefulness that their presence...would be intolerably cheap." With the highest veneration, Bosh! Plowing through a bad book from end to end, I can find nothing sillier than this. Here, indeed, the whole "theory of conspicuous waste" is exposed for precisely what it is: one percent platitude and ninety-nine percent nonsense.
Has the genial professor, pondering his great problems, ever taken a walk in the country? And has he, in the course of that walk, ever crossed a pasture inhabited by a cow (Bos taurus)? And has he, making that crossing, ever passed astern of the cow herself? And has he, thus passing astern, ever stepped carelessly, and ----.
1
We Work cannibalized the cubicle with start up jargon. The dirty landlord may as well put up the emperor's invisible clothes for sale in the windows of the new 5th Avenue digs.
8
I don't understand the title, "the death of leisure." Work has intensified by use of internet (home working), but most people have some leisure time (even if they waste it). We still need stores to see if shoes or clothing fits. We can't see the quality of a product on the internet. The real problem is that downtown real estate is under-regulated. It might have been better if this property were transferred to the city which then established a consumer cooperative with a retail display function. If some of these assets were land banked, then they would not be gobbled up by super rich tycoons. I don't accept a landscape work environment or mini office as a terribly wonderful work environment; that's just a mythology perpetuated by those seeking to reproduce hierarchy in architectural space.
6
I'm sorry Mr. Feldman, but in fact it is increasingly not that case that "most people have leisure." Leisure requires both time and disposable income (because even free activities have opportunity costs) and most people in the U.S. have seen both decline significantly in the last 40 years. There are still strata and enclaves. Some of the wealthiest people in the United States live in New York City (indeed, by far the biggest concentration of America's financially secure), but they are not everybody even here.
Likewise, some other societies, such as Sweden, have made different choices in response to globalization and the Information Revolution that have allowed them to maintain more of the post-war mass leisure lifestyle. I know from personal experience that Stockholm, combines these two exceptions, being both wealthy and Swedish. In my experience, going there is a bracing reminder of how Americans used to live.
2
Trying to shop local, I've tried the Macy's in Corte Madera, CA, many times.
They rarely have the size/style I need and the clerk's main focus seems to be trying to sell you a Macy's credit card. I use Macy's online or Amazon.
Other than their store in Union Square, SF, the satellite stores always feel like they will be going out of business soon.
11
Everything is on sale, reduced or marked down. Ever notice this?
4
There is one overriding difference between WeWork and Lord and Taylor. Lord and Taylor was open to the public. WeWork is open to whomever rents the office space, or is invited inside. In other words, people with a lot more money or connections.
This is an absolute tragedy,
23
As a kid traveling from Brooklyn to the stores in Manhattan to buy clothes, especially for school, was a task I really hated. For me, having to shop for clothes, is torture, even many years later. It is not a leisure undertaking but miserable work.
5
I honestly don’t understand the attraction of old school shopping. When my youngest was in his teens, we used to joke about “wasting valuable shopping time” as we drove out for a day on the slopes. We’d sometimes pass highway exits with long streams of cars could be seen heading into malls. We would mock, but I think we also felt a little sad, like watching a lineup of homeless men filing into a food bank.
Firms like Lord and Taylor once stood at the pinnacle of the consumerist system. In the They taught people to value the acquisition of things over the sharing of experience, an ideology that now cripples America, as the landfills slowly fill up with shopping waste. The era of Lord and Taylor has come and gone.
4
So, I gather you "share the experience" by giving away lift-tickets to homeless skiers? That's so generous.
11
Recall the excited crowds at the After X'mas sales ?
Some people used to shop in great stores as therapy.
Now they go to twitter or social media or online sales instead.
3
while I personally never set foot in L&T, I mourn the loss. just as I lament the NYT as I type this with my inkless fingertips.
4
Many commenters are bemoaning the loss of department stores, leisure shopping, and many are blaming "techies". But have any of you been in a department store or a mall lately? It is not a pleasant experience, especially in Manhattan. Racks are packed with a mish mash of clothes that are often wrinkled, sales help is either completely missing or completely intrusive, and the flagship stores (Macy's Herald Square?) feel like Times Square on New Year's Eve. These stores haven't been our mothers' department stores for a very long time. Maybe the retailers are partly to blame for their demise. If it were in fact a pleasant, social, relaxing, pampering experience, I for one would happily indulge. But it is not. I'd rather sit in my pjs and shop than deal with the mess that is brick and mortar retail right now.
21
I understand what you're saying, Rachel, but L&T was not like Macy's. I work near there so often drop by. Compared to Macy's, L&T was austere and proper, organized and neat. Of course, Macy's has its own tumultuous charm.
1
Very perceptive as usual. Ms. Bellafante writes consistently interesting articles week in and out. I do like the ease of Internet shopping but miss the aimless browsing of the old department, record and book stores. Aimless browsing is essential to city life - now we only have crammed coffee shops with small tables.
16
Aimless browsing is the Universe saying "You might also like..", rather than an Amazon algorithm based on the buying habits of strangers. I'd rather trust the Universe.
7
Now men and women comprise the workforce. Homemaking is only fun for the very wealthy and chaotic for the rest of us. The culture of middle class wives enjoying shopping is dying out. I just hope they are enjoying their careers.
3
They're probably reserving "leisure" for when they're forcibly early-retired when it is to be hoped they have enough money saved to retire and are healthy enough in mind and body to enjoy it.
7
This is such a negative story about WeWork. I work in an nyc WeWork site for a small business, and I am nowhere close to being a millennial. While there are some people there who seem like trust fund babies, there are many people who genuinely want to run their business in a fun environment. Ever since I first entered one of the buildings, I thought it was a revolutionary concept - who doesn't like to bring their dog to work and have a relatively affordable space in an upscale part of the city to run your business, get mail delivery, free coffee/beer and happy hour events? This article seems to be rather snobbish in its seemingly apocalyptic cultural critique of a successful and fun concept.
9
It sounds like a fun place to work, but many people are allergic to dogs. I have no idea how they deal with their coworkers bringing their "fur babies" to work.
Spending an afternoon and Lord & Taylor with my now-91 year-old aunt was equal to an afternoon at any great museum.... and we did that, too! We have decided not to tell her about WeWork's takeover ......Too much loss.
11
I bought my first two mother of the bride dresses at Lord & Taylor. They didn't have what I wanted for child #3, so I had to go to a branch on Long Island. The rental car cost more than the dress. And then, they didn't have it in a wedding-appropriate color, so I had to buy it on line anyway. But I did get to try the dresses on. At L&T, I could try swimsuits on, critical, as labelled sizes don't seem to mean much nowadays. As for sales help? L&T was good, but not fabulous. There just weren't enough. Bloomingdale's is a ripoff, and at Macy's, the salespeople view customers as a nuisance distracting them from their friends
and phones. And you can no longer look at and compare similar items by different designers. Each designer has a separate section, which is extremely annoying. By ignoring their customers and catering to the designers, the stores dug their own graves. Thank heavens I don't have more weddings in the immediate future.
10
Decades ago my mother-in-law eagerly awaited the day-after-Christmas sales at L&T to buy my two small children their winter coats. We so anticipated the joy of opening the large boxes and never failed to exclaim at the luxurious quality of the clothes. Alas, yet another victim of Jeff Bezos' megalomania. Sad, indeed.
9
WeWork, like Uber, is the poster for atomizing American life. You don't own a taxi company, you give people the chance to rent your neighbor to take you places. You don't rent out office suites, you rent out desks.
People won't have jobs, they will have little tiny contracts that they will cobble together. They will work for themselves, taking all the risk, and paying some franchiser or facilitator for the opportunity to play. Think of it as intellectual sharecropping.
And the experience of wandering into a store, feeling the fabric or the heft of the watch, or the fit of the boot? Well, why bother when you can just ship it back to the warehouse if you hate it. There's an idea that won't reduce our carbon footprint.
19
"Intellectual sharecropping"... Outstanding! From an unwilling conscript to "the gig economy," thank you for a spot-on and indelible image.
12
I like "intellectual sharecropping," too.
And, you can extend the metaphor to the plantation-like status of companies like WeWork, amazon, etc. It's the opportunity to work 24/7 with very little leisure time to enjoy the fruits of your labors. And, just remember to check your messages and emails regularly when you're on "vacation."
9
What's the point in working hard if not to have the time and income for the Lord & Taylors of the world? The death of retail is not something that I welcome at all. It's the shops and restaurants of our cities that make them habitable, when they go, so will the vibrancy and humanity of our cities.
11
Change is inevitable. Things come and go. It's just a fact of life. It's clinging to memories of an earlier life. I get that. However, as a lifelong New Yorker I occasionally have a good laugh at all the outpourings of sadness and complaints when a vintage New York City establishment closes. I remember years ago when J&R finally ceased it's brick and mortar operation and all the online outrage that followed, and it repeats when other businesses close. Most of it came from people that I know had not set foot inside these places in twenty years and were shopping online. When you get your head around that fact and that it's not a sustainable business model, the change becomes more palatable.
The upside to all this is the building survives and doesn't get replaced with some ugly, glass tower devoid of design or architecture. That is something we should be striving for in New York City.
7
Exactly! My favorite is a Facebook friend who mourns every local closing as another nail in the city's coffin of personality. After he wrote the same about a men's store in Hell's Kitchen, I told him that I really doubted if a store selling men's briefs for $38 (believe it) being gone would not afflict the locals in Hell's Kitchen abominably.
2
The move from buying in stores to buying on line has as least as much to do with service as with price. As the quality of retail employees has gotten worse, due largely to poor wages, dealing with their incompetence and unpleasant attitudes made shopping a chore rather than the joy the author looks wistfully back at. Combine that with the joy of Amazon next day delivery and game over.
7
Shopping at big department stores is work. Not my idea of leisure whether conspicuous or discreet. The departure of these palaces of perfumed opulence does not seem an occasion for mourning.
4
i guess i am out of touch with the typical reader here. why should a gigantic store play such a big role in our culture?
In his work The Arcades Project, about the great shopping walkways of Paris, the philosopher Walter Benjamin argued that fashion and shopping are really about desperately denying our own mortality. We constantly fixate on the new, in order to forget what little time left. In Walter Benjamin's eyes, the clothes mannequins were really like our own skeletons.
I have no particular love for WeWork, but maybe moving workers into prime location will make the jobs better. Maybe more people can walk or bike to work, and build community by moving among their neighbors and coworkers. (Instead of their fellow shoppers.)
4
While I enjoyed the trip down memory lane, businesses have to be practical nowadays. Many Lord & Taylor patrons now do their shopping online. I would argue that the majority people who actually stepped foot into this store were tourists or did not intend to actually buy anything. WeWork is an incredibly successful business that, for the time being, can afford the 5th Avenue price tag.
2
Well, I actually shop frequently at Lord & Taylor and one of the things I appreciate about it is that it IS NOT full of tourists, a la Macy's, Bloomingdale's or Sak's. So, while I accept the economics of the store's decision, the part about tourists suggests to me you aren't really familiar with the place.
Not fair. L&T is not cutting back because of WeWork. It's downsizing because of a lack of shoppers. So blame the shoppers. There are still crowds of them at places like Walmart & Costco or Trader Joe's. The reason people shop on Amazon is convenience & economics. And customer reviews. Department stores were wonderful emporia - of the 19th century. 3 dining rooms & a manicure salon indeed. The best thing department stores brought to the public (& which most shoppers are unaware of) was standard pricing of goods.
6
I don't think the author was blaming WeWork, so much as making a cultural observation. Yes, people shop at Amazon.com for all the reasons you mention. And, some of that they do while they're in their offices ... at work. That, I think, was her point -- the decline of leisure time. True leisure time far from work.
Regardless of how many air-hockey tables, soda machines, and "events' you have in your "work space," you're still always at work.
5
I shopped at Lord & Taylor in the 1960s as a child and worked there briefly on Thursday nights and Saturdays for a few months in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Compared to other large department stores like Bloomingdales, B. Altman, and Macy's, it wasn't very exciting and I'm not that surprised by its semi-demise.
As for the intrusion of work into life, that's been the case for at least 35 years. Am I really the only one who noticed?
4
The transition of the Lord & Taylor building from shopping/leisure to WeWork (work with leisure combined) is one way to look at it. Another is that WeWork (along with other similar startups and corps like Google, Microsoft etc) are more like that historical throwback: company towns -- where the company owns the worker, pays in its own currency and supplies the "community." It's fun until the employees want something the corporation doesn't.
9
Precisely. And, I wonder why, as I read this piece, I remembered a recent article about working at Amazon. People crying at their desks, lots of turn-over, working horrendous hours to meet demanding quotas, etc. Sounded just wonderful.
8
I will miss Lord & Taylor greatly! It was a wonderful place to relax and be distracted on a Saturday afternoon in the 70's and 80's. I would try on all possible garments and imagine myself in all of sorts of venues in NYC and of course Paris. Thank you to all the Lord Taylor Sales Staff for joining me in discovering beautiful and well designed clothes. I valued your advice and your capacity to join me in fantasy - if even if just for a Saturday afternoon of play.
14
A few weeks ago Amazon confirmed that it would be leasing the top six floors of the downtown Seattle Macy's building. I can easily picture a variation on this theme where they go to a metro area like Detroit and take over the entirety of one or two of the dying 1950s shopping malls and turn it into HQ2. Good bones, lots of room, parking, transportation options, thousands of nearby 1920s-50s homes that can be rehabbed, community and cultural opportunities, winter and water recreation, just the kind of retro/modern thing that Amazon employees from top to bottom would find attractive.
3
Revitalizing an entire metro area such as Detroit would have been a worthwhile capstone for Jeff Bezos and HQ2 and might begin to balance his quest for the heights.
5
Leisure is not dead, it is now at your fingertips. Who doesn't sprinkle their workday with online shopping?
You could say we are victims of our desire for convenience along with our desire to be tethered to our devices. I'm not surprised that millennials see little reason to raise their eyes above their WeWork screens for a shopping experience. The experiences they seek out of their workday are different now. This is only a shift in what gets defined as a leisure activity.
2
Tethered to our devices calibrated with planned obsolescence seems but another form of addiction. Big Pharma and Health Insurance has it down to a fine science why not capture all disposable income? By not recognizing the "shift" when it started to move allowed a cavalcade of corporate monopoly schemes. Enjoy becoming a worker bee for the corporate state.
4
It is an addiction. As was shopping.
1
Retail used to be run by entrepreneurs who offered originality and value. Our city was crammed with options. Gimbels, B.Altman, Arnold Constable, Bonwit Teller, Orbachs, Alexanders, Korvettes, and many others existed because each offered something different from it's competitor.
Variety is something that no longer exists in retail with inexperienced buyers dependent on fashion and trend forecasters who service the all the industry and leave little room for individuality. Most stores now offer merchandise one can find anywhere and probably at a better price especially on line or at stores like TJ Maxx and other off-price retailers.
The other most important aspect of retail is service. With the exception of some older high-end stores who still have trained, dedicated staff whose jobs depend on sales, this is a concept that was done away with by cost saving companies who's mergers and acquisitions left them little option than to cut staff and hire only the greenest of management.
With so many mergers and acquisitions which resulted in a myriad of cost-cutting measures and fewer options retailers have contributed in a big way to their own demise.
32
I still remember shopping with my mother at the Alexander's on Fordham Road in the Bronx during the 1960s. It has been ages since Alexander's closed but it is still unsettling to me. I was in the Bronx over the summer and found that whole Fordham Road-Grand Concourse-Valentine Avenue area to be completely unrecognizable. Oh well, I guess change is good.
1
Each of the wonderful stores of NYC offered a different selection of women's clothing. Those were the days that clothing was made in the USA, at one time 75% manufactured in NYC. Each store could cater to the specific tastes and purses of their customers. When women's clothing was outsourced outside the USA the race to be cheaper in cut, finish and materials began, a race to the bottom. Why go to Altman's or Lord & Taylor when all clothing became cheap disposable junk and nobody made classic clothes to last? Cheap disposable clothes don't need older experienced sales person to sell them and provide service to the fitting room and keep the racks beautiful. Since everything is cheap junk, might as well buy it online. I used to work at Saks and Macy's in the 60s & 70s. The shopping world was much better then.
1
Well, thanks, Hudson's Bay, for recognizing (maybe!) that we New Yorkers didn't need another high-rise-condo on Fifth Avenue! So it could have been much worse. Even a petite L&T - with Christmas displayed windows - will remind us that a bit of Manhattan is still with us to enjoy.
24
I have tried to support local businesses but so many times I have been made to feel like I was interrupting the bored sales person's smart phone reading by asking a question only to be vaguely directed with the swipe of a hand to an aisle that did not have the item I was looking for. Then back home on Amazon I had my choice of dozens of varieties of the item I was looking for along with multiple reviews and feedback from previous purchasers.
So I ask you - what do you think I do now?
42
You've actually found a living, breathing sales person?
7
The article presents a fairly simplistic view of shopping experience boiled down to schlepping through a retail outfit (like L&T), or browsing reviews on Amazon. I was not a big fan of brick and mortar department stores even before the experience started to feel like visiting a distant relative in a hospice (been to Sears lately?). Limited variety of offerings, spotty availability of colors, sizes, and features make for fairly inefficient and disappointing activity. Amazon manages to aggregate vast inventory and makes finding out if this is available in girls size S much faster. So I get my targeted shopping done fast, with orders comprising cargo pants, garden knife, tire inflator, Dior perfume, Calico critters, shower head, and Air1 filters in under 10 minutes. For shopping experience I go to Shakespeare, where a WWII edition of Blackout in Gretley spends its days after being discarded by Wisconsin State Library in La Cross. There are chairs, a somewhat cat-worn sofa, and a cat or three - things you don't find at Lord and Taylor or on Amazon.
14
Wow, I haven't thought about Lord & Taylor for years. Reading this brings back memories.
As a child on Long Island in the 1960's, my mother took me there every year before school started to get new clothes. It was considered an annual treat and we would take the train to Manhattan and spend the day shopping and maybe even splurge on a restaurant if we didn't spend too much on clothes.
It's certainly a different era now. Thanks for the memories...
58
I never got the whole gestalt of shopping being a leisure-time activity, fun, a pleasant way to spend time. Ever since I was a kid, it was more of a chore. Better than most chores, but still a chore. I'm the kind of person who has in his mind's eye what he wants, and, once he sees it realized somewhere, buys it without a second thought — which is why, I confess, shopping online is so much easier.
10
It’s truly sad. It reminds me of a long ago Twilight Zone Program. The story line showed a couple of people trying to imagine a future where you didn’t have to leave the comfort of your home in order to shop for the essentials and/or luxuries. The premise was that it was going to be an exciting future. Now this is our world. Be careful what you wish for.
21
I'm going to a dance recital tonight, then have a drink at a bar. I get out plenty, but to do real things, not walk around planning to buy something I probably don't need.
4
Wow, even the simple need to see and be around other people is devalued by the techies. Shopping can be a social event, sharing the need to be with our families and friends while not always making a purchase. My mother had a great eye for fashion and shopping with her was a pleasure when you wore what was purchased and looked wonderful. While it was not every week, those days were glorious and those clothes were kept for a long time, not disposable like today.
Perhaps the demise of the pleasures of being in one of the wonderful emporiums of yesteryear was the addition of Sunday shopping. I remember walking through the city on a Sunday, looking at the windows, having hot chocolate at the Automat and calling it a wonderful day. It’s sad we cannot recreate these days again. We are not “richer” in the wallet or souls for our modern thinking.
59
Lord & Taylor is the only department store I can stand to go to. And they always have what I'm looking for. I can't tell you how sad this makes me.
55
a thoughtful article. and the thought that the new leisure is simply the accumulation of wealth should be alarming.
32
My grandfather was a clerk at Lord and Taylor's at a time when the wealthy New Yorkers had credit at the upscale retail stores. This was before credit cards. One of his jobs was to personally visit the customer's home and receive payment for goods purchased during the month. During the Great Depression his hours were reduced as even the wealthy had the discretionary income for shopping. Yes, an end of an era in more ways than one.
26
While keeping the building in place during multiple transitions is a win, it is a mighty slim one but will hopefully retain the charming windows at Christmas, a long standing tradition, that bring joy to so many.
The diverse and seemingly endless lineup of unique stores along Firth Avenue met the beginning of its demise when Herr Trump took the wrecking ball to Bonwit's. Promised preservation of the two 1929 bas relief stone sculptures sought by The Metropolitan Museum, as well as the 20 x 30' geometric grillwork at the entrance was singlehandedly extinguished by Trump who offered highly exaggerated claims of their cost to remove despite the $56 million tax incentives recently received from the city. The value of his word then is much like its value today.
The landslide has continued and entitles us to endless shopping online for merchandise of often questionable value emanating from the multiple production lines in China without any benefit of the social fabric created by personal interaction. Each store had its own character of style regardless of price and invariably attentive customer service. Many are now all too busy and too consumed by the act of consumption to enjoy the fleeting qualities of life and sense of place. We are also too busy and consumed to recognize what has and is consuming us. Herr T continues to lead the charge.
91
Dont Blame Trump.
This is a Global causation.
This is what the High tech community an the high tech community and the left wing globalization crowd wanted for the past decade and a half.
now you've got it. don't turn this into a Trump issue. He was a businessman at the time. Not the president.
1
That news of the destruction of the artwork at Bonwit's reached the West Coast and was an outrageously vindictive assault on history, art, and culture by an odious, small-minded, petty cretinous waste of humanity who would rightly never be accepted by the society from which he so desperately sought approval.
I was doing okay today, decidedly avoiding any political news, until I read your comment. Is there no escape from him?! I can't wait for the sense of relief I'll feel when I see his obituary, whether it's sooner or later just as long as I outlast him long enough to to see a world without him.
1
“WeWork’s mission is to help people make a life, not just a living,’’ as one of its executives recently explained in a news release.
Mindless gibberish has truly become the new norm
296
Bravo! And shorthand for - we work ALL the time and make believe that having a pool table in our space makes up for the lack of moderation in our lives.
7
What about "the virtue-and-shell-game ethos of 21st century capitalism"?
2
Gibberish indeed. The quoted statement reduces “making a living” to a chore, déclassé; unless, of course, you become self-absorbed through WeWork’s in an endless quest to “make a life.”
3
Sigh. This article makes me sad. While I am not a great shopper or buyer, L&T was a little gem that was always a pleasure to go to.
98
Once upon time, long ago...The husband, the man, would get in his car or board the train and subway and head off to work. While the husband was working and the kids were at school, millions of housewives could spend there leisure time visiting L&T or Nieman Marcus or Macy's. Perhaps on a cold December Day, the husband would get off the couch or out of the garage and off the family would go to do a bit of christmas shopping and see the windows....Well..today it's much more likely that both the husband and wife get in their cars to head off work...and those kids...well, they're not free to play in the backyard...they need to be driven to soccer practice, violin lessons and whatever else they can do to help them get in Harvard or Yale or wherever.....The days of casual shopping trips through L&T for most people is long since gone..
111
Growing up inNYC, in the 1950's and '60's, Lord & Taylor was one of the great middle-class luxury outings. Tea or lunch in the Birdcage restaurant, sometimes with an accompanying fashion show,seemed the epitome of glamor and graceful living, to a child. Fond memories, and sadness that it is all gone, now.
164
How will this affect Lord and Taylor's branch and suburban stores?
8
It might actually help, as they will command a larger share of the business (and, presumably) attention. But in the long run, probably insignificant.
Is the men's department still going to be around? Lord and Taylor is truly my one stop shop for everything I've bought over the last decade and I'd hate to see them go. I like shopping in person you get better bargains than online shopping.
Are there any other New York locations remaining?
Bah,humbug Mr.K. Shopping is a pleasant experience .
A meet and greet not provided by Amazon. The colorful
displays and merchandise to view and try on are part
of what we shoppers enjoy.
I am sad to see the great stores slip away.
72
The "tech sensibility" is not that distinctions between work and private life should be blurred, but that they should be eliminated altogether. There is no room for private life, as life devoted to private pursuits is life not devoted to work and therefore a lack of efficiency. Wasting a few hours in luxury is decadence; using those hours for work is diligence. That is the life that the new tech sensibility promises. After all, you will soon not even be able to use the excuse of driving as a reason not to do work.
134
@CV Danes: You're right, except that the people at the very *top* of the tech/silicon valley hierarchy have TONS of hours to waste. For example, once one's personal wealth reaches a certain level - generally due to one's stock options being worth a ton of money - then you'll find a lot of those tech leaders "wasting their time" on a rented luxury yacht cruising around somewhere gorgeous, etc.
I think what the new tech "sensibility" shows is that the grunt workers are not in a much better position than workers were back at the beginning of the industrial revolution: they're all cogs in the machine, and it doesn't matter to top management if the cogs have "leisure" time, or if they work themselves to death at a young age.
Meanwhile, their bosses (their "betters") are enjoying the huge sums of money that flow to them due to the grunt workers' efforts.
Today, the grunt workers are mollified by foosball tables, free sodas/beers and food, etc. The idea is much the same as what's used to keep gamblers entrenched in casinos - give them a free dinner, a comped room, etc. so that they don't leave the building.
The middle class is dead (or at least dying) and this split between the people who are essentially *always* working vs. their CEO's wealth and free time just widens the gap a little more every day.
11
Yes, I could not agree more. I find myself wondering when will this madness ever end?
3
The rise of work as a way of life?! So, Veblen is quoted! Big deal! Don't see anywhere in the article, that a valid case is made for such a spin!!!
9
Bloomingdale's is a madhouse, Macy's is a zoo, Lord & Taylor is a pleasure that too few realized.
169
As a native New Yorker, I grew up with Lord & Taylor (and Best & Co., B. Altman, Arnold Constable, and so many other stores that are now just memories). On a recent visit home, I spent little time at Macy's (where I worked holiday seasons as a college student), which has become more of a whirl of a tourist destination where it was difficult to find a cashier. I did my successful shopping at L&T, and it struck me that it was a place where New Yorkers still shopped. It's sad to hear that it will be so diminished.
26
would like to read an article on that!
1
That's because far fewer shopped there than Macy's or Bloomingdale's.
Hence the sale.
1
Shopping, in person, is fast becoming an activity NOT for the middle class.
The Rich will shop for luxury goods at these temples of capitalism, with their personal shoppers, assistants, valets and assorted lackeys. The Poor will shop at neighborhood bodegas, dollar stores and Walmarts. The middle class is being hallowed out, at an exponential rate. Sure, the time stressed will use Amazon, because they can. For NOW.
68
The babysitters and caregivers do online shopping while changing diapers or pushing wheelchairs.
3
Yep, "hallowed out". (Ah for the days of the middle class!)
These sprawling chai hives remind me of a lousy sci-fi movie from the 70's "Logan's Run" where everyone has a grand old time but you are liquidated at age 30. Has anyone studied millennials as they age out of this "workers paradise"? Ageism is so baked into our culture that 40 is the new 60. Add to that the realization that gradually dawns on most working fools that they have been raised on a pack of lies, stoked by omnipresent advertising, vacuous celebrity culture, and curated Facebook pages about what kind of life they are supposed to be living. Once you wake up one morning with that epiphany, the world will never be the same.
230
Has it not been ever thus, tho? I like your name, BTW.
2
"Add to that the realization that gradually dawns on most working fools that they have been raised on a pack of lies, stoked by omnipresent advertising, vacuous celebrity culture, and curated Facebook pages about what kind of life they are supposed to be living"
Stan must be a writer , this is exactly what I would have written if I had been a writer.........this is perfect.
5
As a millenial, it utterly mind boggles me that anyone would want to center their lives around working. It's one thing to have a job you enjoy, but even then it shouldn't be your number one priority. And, I'm sorry, but if you hate your job no amount lemon infused water is going to make you feel better.
262
As a boomer, I totally agree with you.
7
Some of us did not grow up with economic advantages and have to work to exist in America's cash economy.
4
Have you tried skeeball?
My grandfather is likely turning over in his grave. He was an executive at L&T from the mid 1930’s to about 1964. It really is the passing of an era. It was probably inevitable. For me, the Christmas windows was a childhood ritual—a wonderful one. My parents patronized the Westchester store, but I was awed by the New York flagship store whenever I went there. Lord & Taylor was also a little ahead of its time, boasting as President Dorothy Shaver in the 1950’s—a very gracious person and good executive. But it was the ambience—the feeling—of the store, and of the great shopping emporia, that has been slipping away for a long time. I hope contemporaries remember, and that future generations find at least a few minutes to read about, the great shopping palaces that emerged after the Civil War and continued well into the twentieth Century.
112
When Dorothy Shaver was President of L&T, she was among many women that were skilled and highly accomplished executives....not a new concept. She actually was the first woman to head a multi-million dollar firm. All the fuss now about women must be recognized as this and that is pointless. People rise to their level of competence or incompetence as the case may be. They knew what was personally and professionally acceptable and had integrity. Integrity often seems to be the vanishing ingredient.
3
Once shopping was not so much buying things as just strolling around; watching people, looking at goods, enjoying the effort that stores made to look pretty. The actual buying was just an excuse for a social outing. No online experience will ever replace what us oldies still remember.
205
I grew in Manhattan and as I child I often accompanied my parents to Lord and Taylor, SFA, FAO, and the other big retailers. They were elegant and carefully crafted retail spaces. But we shouldn't romanticize them beyond what they were - carefully constructed and merchandised retail purveyors. Wandering their aisles was just a high-end version of the American mall crawling that New Yorkers so often look down on when the rest of the country does it. It didn't have inherent cultural value, it wasn't educational, and it was effectively just participating in a commercial space. When I order from Amazon today rather than going to a retail store, I do it because it allows me to spend my time doing things *other* than traipsing through someone's store. This is why both the luxury retailers and the run-of-the-mill malls are dying; at the end of the day, once we can buy what we need without all that walking around, the rest of the experience just isn't very fulfilling.
16
To GvN
So true. Wonderful times were spent walking through Lord&Taylors,B.Altmans,Peck and Peck, Henri Bendels etc. then having lunch and continuing with more of the same or perhaps a museum visit. Sure we worked, but no all the time. We might even go to the theater in the evening. It was a very full life then.
1
How do you know things aren't just fine at Bergdorf's? LOL
"There is nothing to immortalize unless you are a writer or artist moved to render the image of an exhausted-looking middle-aged woman staring at a screen-full of Amazon reviews."
Best line in this fantastic piece.
The corporate control of not only our work-time, but now our "personal" time as well is nearly complete. That so many young people will grow up never knowing that there was once a difference between the two is very sad, but has probably been inevitable since the Reagan '80's sanctified the Corporation Man (Woman) as the ultimate in the American experience.
127
Lord & Taylor was a wonderful and very special store. At one time it had the best furniture department of any store in the city. Sad to see it decline and whittle down to its new incarnation. It's the end of an era. Glad to hear the wonderful Christmas windows will survive though.
40
America, too, is at the end of an era...an era of greatness.
87
Interesting that you see a reflection of the end of the American era in the idea of work replacing leisure. The Chinese culture that is forecasted to replace us has been portrayed as obsessed and possessed by work.
1
Couldn't agree more George.
Shopping is necessary, but it should not be a pleasure. Nor should it take more than the minimum required time or money.
10
And just how do you minimize spending of both time & money?
You can get exactly what's right, not something that proves unsatisfactory.
You can pay the lowest price.
You can spend a minimum of time.
You can do any two of these, at best; but certainly not all three.
And you are free to find it unpleasant, but telling others to do so seems both imperious and futile.
16
Yours may be the single most depressing comment I've read in a long time.
If you had simply stated, "I don't really enjoy shopping," that would be one thing. But to proclaim that shopping, "Should Not Be about pleasure," is as if you are arguing that the very concept of leisure itself, divorced from efficiency, has no merit whatsoever, and cannot and Should Not be defended. Yours is the philosophy of the human-as-drone, the soulless authoritarian impulse, and is ultimately one of the prerequisites for fascism.
75
Bah humbug.
22
The day after Thanksgiving used to be our family shopping day. We would go to the downtown Minneapolis Dayton’s. It was for people who liked to shop, look around, people watch and try nice food. Then the door buster sales came, along with pushing, shoving, swearing and no sale items in stock. Thank goodness for Amazon! Though I would prefer the kinder, gentler shopping days.
26