History made new
Find nostalgia on the racks at the refurbished Macy’s on South Lake Avenue
By Joanna Beresford 11/26/2008
“Nothing is left anymore — except, thank God, Marshall Field’s.”
— a Chicago woman reeling from
the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor
Following a six-month seismic upgrade and renovation project, the historic Macy’s department store on South Lake Avenue reopened its doors last week to throngs of shoppers.
Originally launched as part of the Bullock’s chain in 1947, the store was designed by Wurdeman & Becket, the Los Angeles-based architectural firm responsible for the Capitol Records building and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The Streamline Moderne structure, which prominently features elegant undulating lines and recessed lighting, was received with instant popular acclaim, including an eight-page spread in Architectural Digest that year.
In 1947, Harry Truman was president, the Marshall Plan was on the drawing board, India and Pakistan gained independence from Great Britain, Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, a first class stamp cost three cents and “A Streetcar Named Desire” opened on Broadway. Also that year, Pasadena Heritage Executive Director Sue Mossman was born in Michigan.
Within days of Mossman’s later arrival in Pasadena as a young military bride, she visited Bullock’s and fell in love with it.
“When I moved here, my dad said I had to see Caltech. My brother told me to go to the Rose Bowl. And my aunt, who lived in Los Angeles on the west side, said, ‘You have to go to Bullock’s of Pasadena.’ She actually took me there herself. We bought shoes, and we ate lunch in the Tea Room. I’ve always loved that store, and it’s always been my favorite place to shop,” said Mossman.
As time went on, Mossman was saddened over the years to see the gradual decline in the store’s appearance and vitality. But now, as head of Pasadena’s top preservation group, she’s thrilled to have been involved in the building’s restoration, having already successfully petitioned to have it placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“Macy’s could have walked away from this project, but once they made the decision to invest in seismic work they chose to go in the direction of restoring the historic integrity and respecting the original architecture, beauty and uniqueness of the place,” said Mossman, who consulted with Macy’s from the project’s start.
The store inspires in me a ravenous sense of nostalgia and an intense longing — and not just for the dazzling china, flowing dresses, 57,000 pairs of shoes and cashmere men’s sweaters that practically melt in your hands, all of which fill the store now. I yearn for those things, but more notably I get this almost painful hunger to see the hands that passed over the worn and polished rails, to smell the vintage talcum left in the shoppers’ wake, to hear the coins plink into the water that once spilled from the grand fountain that formed the physical and spiritual center of the store.
“Early department stores reassured Americans, by their very existence, that life was good, that beauty mattered and that order and stability prevailed,” writes Jan Whitaker, author of “Service and Style: How the American Department Store Fashioned the Middle Class.” I don’t know about anybody else, but I want to feel that reassurance today — that deep, sleepy, undeserved sense of security that I felt as a child following my own mother around department stores in the Midwest.
My favorite part of the new/old Macy’s on South Lake is the Boat Room, with its children’s apparel, giant globe, heavy nautical doors and windows and map of the world sprawled across the ceiling. There’s also a children’s barber shop adjacent to it, and holiday decorations adorning the walls.
Everybody’s rich here, even me. I can just feel it. Which brings us to my second-favorite part, the verse painted across a wall on the second floor: “Believe … Let the Festivities Begin!”
Contact Joanna Dehn Beresford at truewrite@yahoo.com.
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