Retail Names

September 8, 2006, will bring an event emblematic of the best and worst of the United States.  On that day, Federated Department Stores will complete its acquisition of the May Company by formally changing the name of several hundred stores to Macy's, Federated's primary store brand.  Gone on that morning will be venerated retailing names such as Famous-Barr, Rich's, Filene's, Hecht's, Marshall Field, Foley's, and Meier & Frank.  In their places will be a name celebrated in film and an annual holiday parade: Macy's. 

Macy's promises to bring a little bit of New York cache (the flagship Macy's is, after all, in Manhattan's Herald Square) to the hinterland.  That may be mostly positive, but one can't help wondering if there will be something just a little less special--less unique--about Atlanta without Rich's or Chicago without Marshall Fields.  It would be unimaginable for Federated to acquire, say, Galleries Lafayette or Printemps in Paris.  Paris with a Macy's instead would be something a bit less.

Not that I want to stand in the way of progress.  If Federated combined with May makes for a network of stronger and more viable stores in the face of vicious competition from WalMart, then I'm all for the change.  Anyway, mergers and acquisitions, not to mention outright bankruptcies, have been happening in retail for decades.  Auerbach's and The Paris Company (Salt Lake City) gave way a long time ago.  So did Stix, Baer & Fuller (St. Louis) and Bonwit Teller (NY).  This is nothing new.

Still, come the morning of September 8, even as I enter the mall beneath the Macy's star, some part of me will wax nostalgic for what it replaces: a time when places were distinct, and while Salt Lake was certainly not Paris, part of its distinction was in having its own unique mix of stores.