Macy's move angering Chicagoans Macy's move angering Chicagoans (December 02, 2005)

by Jeb Bing

I'm just back from a brief trip to Chicago, where dazzling holiday lights and window decorations always make this the most festive time to visit the Windy City. From the Loop and downtown's State Street to the "Magnificent Mile" along North Michigan Avenue, where many of the country's best-known retailers are within easy walking distance from each other crowds filled every store and restaurant. It's truly a shoppers' paradise that seems to get better every year, even as the city's population declines and more in Greater Chicagoland, as it's called, shop at even glitzier suburban malls. A number of large employers have also left. Sears' headquarters is gone, along with Montgomery Ward's earlier. Standard Oil, after building its 98-story white marble tower, was sold to BP Petroleum, which moved the business to the UK.

Now other landmark businesses - two of the city's oldest institutions - are in the news. The locally-fabled Marshall Field's, which opened in the mid-1850s and pioneered the department store business, has been sold to Macy's. The Cincinatti-based Federated Department Store chain, which owns Macy's, just announced that it will take the Field's name off that store and its products by next fall, converting it into a Macy's and making this the last Christmas for shopping at Field's, a Chicago tradition. Across the river, the Chicago Tribune, where I worked as a reporter and editor for 13 years, finds itself losing readers, although revenue for its owner, Tribune Company, soars as it focuses on its TV holdings and syndication. The newspaper, founded in 1847, announced two weeks ago that it would eliminate nearly 100 positions amid declining circulation, with its recent audit showing a 6.6 percent drop in its daily circulation over the last 12 months to 573,744. That's less than half what it used to be when it called itself the "Voice of the Midwest." It's not alone. The Tribune's drop is part of a national trend of declining circulation among daily newspapers as readers turn to television and the Internet for regional, national and global news, and to weekly newspapers like this one for the strictly local news that can't be found on the broadcast and Internet media. But as daily newspapers face a loss of readers, Marshall Field's is facing extinction, which has Chicagoans downright angry. And they showed it as I joined them shopping for "anything-Fields" in the store's final Christmas sale, from buying the famous Frango Mints to asking for extra Field's shopping bags to waiting in long lines to eat under the Christmas tree in the Walnut Room. Online bloggers like Bob Cook and his fellow Chicago White Sox fans say the Macy's takeover is like being told to start putting ketchup on their hot dogs. Historically, Chicagoans have had an aversion to all things New York, including Chicago's Second City nickname. Most have never shopped at a Macy's store, with some vowing they never will. Their vision of Macy's is the flagship store shown behind the balloons during the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade that they watch on TV.

Despite the emotions, the fact is that Marshall Field's hasn't been locally owned for 20 years, and has been slipping ever since someone from the Field family was no longer at its helm. Sold to the Target Corp., out of Minneapolis, and later to the May Department Stores, it lost its high-end appeal, shuttering glamour and specialty departments, such as the 28 Shop, Men's Grill and a saddle and harness shop. Next year, when the store's name is changed to Macy's, Marshall Field's will join the dust bin of other retail giants where many of us may have shopped: Robinson-May, Emporium Capwell, Hecht's, Hess's, Rich's, Lazarus, Kaufmann's, Famous-Barr and Filene's. Actually, not a bad group to belong to if only they were still in business.

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