Viziondetroit Member Username: Viziondetroit
Post Number: 1322 Registered: 11-2003
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 3:28 pm: | |
So you want to change Macys to Hudsons in this region only? Hudsons was only known in this region and the idea makes no sense to rebrand a store in the state which has NATIONAL recognition. |
Gingellgirl Member Username: Gingellgirl
Post Number: 106 Registered: 04-2007
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 3:29 pm: | |
In the 1960's, Pontiac made a car they called the Tempest.
It's a classic. In the 1990's, Pontiac brought back the nameplate for a badge-engineered Korean-built vehicle.
I rest my case. You can call it Hudson's if you'd like, but it will never be Hudson's again. |
Viziondetroit Member Username: Viziondetroit
Post Number: 1323 Registered: 11-2003
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 3:46 pm: | |
I'd rather see an effort to enforce the codes on these vacant buildings downtown vs a futile attempt to go chance a name which goes back two acquisitions ago. |
Fastcarsfreedom Member Username: Fastcarsfreedom
Post Number: 210 Registered: 11-2005
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 3:51 pm: | |
Not to split hairs, but the Pontiac Tempest and Chevrolet Corsica/Beretta were built in Wilmington, Delaware. The 1990s version of the Pontiac LeMans was built by Daewoo in Korea. |
Luckycar Member Username: Luckycar
Post Number: 61 Registered: 02-2007
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 3:54 pm: | |
I think the Corsica was renamed the Tempest for Canada.The LeMans was the Korean piece of work.Hudson's wasn't so great before they went with Dayton's. |
Fastcarsfreedom Member Username: Fastcarsfreedom
Post Number: 211 Registered: 11-2005
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 3:54 pm: | |
I'd also like to point out that although "The Bay" stores in Canada are a little upmarket of macy*s, HBC has devoured and eliminated it's own share of "venerable" nameplates over the years--Simpsons in Toronto, Robinsons in Hamilton, Morgan's in Montreal, Woodward's in Vancouver, etc...and in the U.S. Dillard has been just as "guilty" as Federated. |
Onthe405 Member Username: Onthe405
Post Number: 24 Registered: 11-2007
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 4:02 pm: | |
To expand on what Wolverine & Gingellgirl brought up: reviving JLH (or Field's) is not just about bringing back a name. It's about the cultural, architectural, and historical legacy of the institution. Macy's simply changing the name (in Chicago or Detroit) would not suffice. In order to preserve the original level of service & product, an investor in Detroit would have to buy the name/logo from Target and start from scratch with one store and build. What really rankles the folks I've talked to from Chicago is not the name change. It's the arrogance of the Macy executives in Cincinnati (for those who don't already know Macy's is not even based in NYC anymore). Every effort (including the 60k signature petition) to preserve the superior quality service, products, & heritage of their store on State St was met with "We don't care. Macy's will be better than Field's ever was. You're getting it and you'll like it" Given that attitude, who wouldn't boycott? |
Upinottawa Member Username: Upinottawa
Post Number: 1041 Registered: 09-2005
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 4:21 pm: | |
Chevrolet Corsica Pontiac Tempest They were the Chevy/Pontiac version of the same car. The Beretta was the 2-door version of Chevy's Corsica. |
Gingellgirl Member Username: Gingellgirl
Post Number: 107 Registered: 04-2007
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:04 pm: | |
My bad. Tempest/LeMans. Great names. Bad remakes. As a former Hudson's employee (and so was my mother), I agree with Onthe405. It's not just the name. It's the service, products and the experience of shopping at Hudson's. I'm glad I had the chance to work there. |
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 2405 Registered: 04-2006
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:16 pm: | |
quote:"We don't care. Macy's will be better than Field's ever was. You're getting it and you'll like it" Sounds like sabotage to me... Maybe they're fishing for an excuse to close it? |
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 976 Registered: 12-2006
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:25 pm: | |
Macy's just is what Macy's is. It's not intentional sabotage, don't give them that much credit. Macy's used to be a pretty decent store, but I'm dating myself. Now it's just another Mostly Clothing With Some Other Crap Traditional Style Department Store, exactly the kind of place whose collective ass is being kicked by Wal Mart, Target, big box and specialty stores. It has upscale prices and downscale service. R. H. Macy is spinning in his grave. |
Detroitrise Member Username: Detroitrise
Post Number: 1168 Registered: 09-2007
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:28 pm: | |
It's too late for any of this. If anything, you guys should have been begging your parents or been thinking when you we're younger to support Hudson's, the flagship store and everything while it was still around and thriving instead of waiting 7 years later after its disappearance. That's what Chicagoens have been doing and Detroiters haven't. |
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 977 Registered: 12-2006
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:30 pm: | |
By the way, up in this thread there is talk about petitions. People need to understand, except in a few very specific instances (like trying to get some issue placed on a ballot), petitions are a complete waste of everyone's time and effort. I used to be in City government, and people would bring us petitions, and we were neither required nor inclined to pay any attention to them at all. Having ten individuals write a letter to us about an issue meant much more to us than one organizer bringing in a petition with five hundred signatures. The former situation meant at least ten people felt strongly enough about a thing to take the time to write and mail a letter; the latter only meant one person cared, and was charismatic enough to get a bunch of people to sign something. By the way, "letter" means a thing on paper, sent by post with a stamp. E-mail carries about 1/100 the weight of a letter with me and many of my former colleagues. I suppose a phone call would be pretty meaningful as well, but I'm hard of hearing and don't like to communicate by telephone. |
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 978 Registered: 12-2006
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:34 pm: | |
Rise, we supported Hudson's the company, but we preferred to drive to the store near our house where parking was free rather than the downtown store where it was a much farther drive and parking was expensive. We would have taken rapid transit (as we did in my NY days with Macy's) but there wasn't and isn't any. Buses from the suburbs to downtown are infrequent and slow. It was the 850,000 people who moved out of Detroit between the time Hudson's opened the Northland store in 1954 or so and the time they closed the Detroit store in 1982 that killed the Detroit store. People don't want to go too far out of their way to shop, so stores live near where people live. Bring the people back, and the stores will magically reappear. |
Onthe405 Member Username: Onthe405
Post Number: 25 Registered: 11-2007
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:48 pm: | |
lheartthed, In their arrogance, Macy's committed the mortal sin of retailing: under-estimating the power of the consumer. They assumed the petition signers & protesters were a small, vocal, narrow-minded minority, and that the average Chicagoland shopper would be dazzled with the arrival of a New York institution. That would be fine, except that it's the equivalent of renaming Wrigley Field to Shea Stadium. Field's was already an institution, and a much better store than Macy's ever was or hoped to be. Regardless of ownership, Field's was always maintained impeccably. 34th St is big, but it's a dump, and has been for 10 years. However, you are correct there has long been speculation that Macy's has intended right from the time of the May Co acquisition to put only a lukewarm effort into State St, as it is more valuable as a piece of real estate than it is as a retail establishment. |
Douglasm Member Username: Douglasm
Post Number: 993 Registered: 10-2003
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 6:45 pm: | |
At least they didn't do to you guys what they did to us in the NorthLeft with The Bon Marche. Bon Marche is French for "good market", and had been called "The Bon" or "The Good", which doesn't make sense. After making a big show of "restoring" the full name, Federated started calling it The Bon-Macy's, then just Macy's. Feel lucky. Federated just killed the Hudson's and Marshall Field's name, not torture it to death like they did to the Bon Marche and Lasaurs'. |
Smogboy Member Username: Smogboy
Post Number: 6702 Registered: 11-2004
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 7:17 pm: | |
Designerguy24, when you pony up the first million bucks & acquire the land to build this Hudson's, we'll be right behind you. |
Onthe405 Member Username: Onthe405
Post Number: 26 Registered: 11-2007
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 7:55 pm: | |
Several posters have hit the nail on the head: don't shop there, and they will go away. Between YTD lackluster sales, the Chicago boycott, and the enormous amount of debt they accumulated in order to buy out May Co, it won't take long either. The heat is on. Macy's stock has been in a free fall since the launch of their "coast-to-coast dep't store" empire in 2006, so investors aren't too encouraged at the long term prospects either. Watch for a store closing near you coming soon. My guess is that they will have to break it up and sell off all but the most profitable geographical divisions. FL, NY & CA will probably be retained. Not because customers love the store. Rather, the market by sheer numbers of population are there to support at least some locations. The Midwest/Detroit is a big question mark. What would fill in the void? Field's or Hudson's could possibly return, but it would take capital & commitment on the part of investors. Sadly, my concern for Detroit is that both of these would be difficult to come by, since times are tough as it is. I think things would work out fine in Seattle, Boston, and Chicago. However, in Detroit it could easily result in Oakland and Eastland turning into Universal & Summit Place malls. (Message edited by onthe405 on December 20, 2007) |
Fastcarsfreedom Member Username: Fastcarsfreedom
Post Number: 212 Registered: 11-2005
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 8:16 pm: | |
macy*s presence in those markets mentioned goes back furthest. If you look at macy*s pre-Federated they made several aborted attempts to expand outside of NYC, and all failed--and that's back when macy*s was a "moderate-to-better" store, as opposed to a glitzy version of Penney's, which it's now trying to be. macy*s has a reasonably long history in California going back to the Bullock's and Emporium takeovers--but even at that, Californians have never truly "warmed" to macy*s and favored the local Robinsons-May chain, which now has also been macyed. A point about State Street in Chicago...its current ad campaign to attract business to the flagship doesn't even mention that macy*s name anymore--the tagline is something like "Come to State Street" while no longer mentioning the macy*s name. Don't forget, for historical purposes the GIANT brass Marshall Field & Co plaques had to remain on the outside of the building--as did the Field's clock. |
Onthe405 Member Username: Onthe405
Post Number: 27 Registered: 11-2007
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 8:36 pm: | |
You're absolutely correct. Macy's, during its old Bullock's incarnation in LA and the Union Square store in SF were very nice right through the mid 90s. I cut up my card around 1998, as the clothes I bought began to fall apart within a year or two. Regarding Chicagoland, I also read that the Lake Forest city council refused Macy's permission to change the color of the awnings from "Field's green" to black (which they did successfully at State St). The most recent rumour is that the Lake Forest store is slated for closure due to lack of patronage. I believe Von Mauer is in talks to take it over. |
Fastcarsfreedom Member Username: Fastcarsfreedom
Post Number: 213 Registered: 11-2005
| Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 11:33 pm: | |
Von Maur is a great store--never been disappointed and their focus on service is, for lack of a better description--old fashioned...in a good way. Von Maur has been slowly working it's way into the Chicago market--presumably with some success at poaching ex-Field's clients from macy*s. Last I heard they were also fixing to go into the vacant L&T space at Water Tower Place. Some of Field's suburban Chicago stores held almost semi-flagship status--including Lake Forest, Old Orchard and Woodfield. |
Smogboy Member Username: Smogboy
Post Number: 6708 Registered: 11-2004
| Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 1:40 am: | |
What next? A petition to revive other things like the Packard? Cunningham Drugs? Farmer Jack's? Chatham's? Crowley's? |
Reddog289 Member Username: Reddog289
Post Number: 149 Registered: 08-2007
| Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 3:00 am: | |
if you brought back the old hudsons, the green trucks would add to global warming. both parents of mine worked for hudson,s. went to fields in chicago liked the state street store, as for macy,s well one gift bought from them in the time that they showed up. shop at meijer mostly. hudson,s crowley,s and federals are all resting in everyone,s memories. |
Queensfinest Member Username: Queensfinest
Post Number: 137 Registered: 08-2006
| Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 6:03 am: | |
For the most part, it seems that 90% of the posts on this forum are from people that seem to be living in the past. Very interesting indeed... |
Gingellgirl Member Username: Gingellgirl
Post Number: 108 Registered: 04-2007
| Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 8:58 am: | |
I like living in the past. I feel more comfortable there. ;-} |
Kslice Member Username: Kslice
Post Number: 242 Registered: 04-2007
| Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 9:43 am: | |
I hear ya Gingellgirl. Here's a link for all those who want to petition Macy's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M arshall_Field%27s#Conversion_t o_Macy.27s_.26_Customer_Boycot t |
Gingellgirl Member Username: Gingellgirl
Post Number: 109 Registered: 04-2007
| Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 10:33 am: | |
And for those of you with a jones for a Hudson's Maurice Salad, here ya go . . . http://www.askyourneighbor.com /recipes/054.htm |
Upinthewoods Member Username: Upinthewoods
Post Number: 6 Registered: 12-2007
| Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 12:43 pm: | |
I used to shop at the hudson's in pontiac back when I had a taste for expensive clothes. Then one day I went back and discovered it was now "marshall fields" my friend refused to go in because marshall's was a women's store. heh |
Fastcarsfreedom Member Username: Fastcarsfreedom
Post Number: 214 Registered: 11-2005
| Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 10:08 pm: | |
For those of you with an interest in Hudson's past--just discovered a bit of intact memorabilia at Lakeside. On the main level of the "main" Lakeside store (not the Men's location in the old Crowley's)--there is a "wall of fame" near the restrooms showing years of plaques honoring "Hudson's Finest" and later "Field's Finest"--many of the older posters show the Hudson's, Dayton's and Field's names side-by-each. Interesting stuff. |
Huggybear Member Username: Huggybear
Post Number: 316 Registered: 08-2005
| Posted on Sunday, December 23, 2007 - 10:10 am: | |
Gingellgirl, not to detract from your point, but you are talking about the Pontiac LeMans, not the Tempest, being an old musclecar that came back as a Korean subcompact. And the second picture you show is a Chevy Corsica, which was a US-built car. Separately, the Tempest/GTO came back as an Australian-built car. |
Kslice Member Username: Kslice
Post Number: 244 Registered: 04-2007
| Posted on Sunday, December 23, 2007 - 10:35 am: | |
Well I'm going to the Lions game today so I'll get to see some of the old Hudson's warehouse turned luxury boxes. |
Miketoronto Member Username: Miketoronto
Post Number: 753 Registered: 07-2004
| Posted on Monday, December 24, 2007 - 11:43 pm: | |
What is the point of bringing back the Hudson's name now? Hudson's died in 1982 when the downtown store closed. That was Hudson's. The suburban stores no matter what could never match the downtown store in history, culture, etc. It is these grand old stores that made these stores what they are. And once the grand old dame goes, you might as well just right off the chains. And as for Marshall Fields. I am sorry, but I for one min do not believe that a boycott is the main reason for the State Street store's troubles. The State Street store even before the MACY'S takeover, was pulling in half the sales a store that size should be pulling in. State Street in Chicago is not the grand shopping place it was, and you can see that in the sales troubles that MF State Street had before the takover, and now with MACY'S. A boycott may be part of the puzzle, but a bigger part of MACY'S troubles in Chicago is the "Loop" which has very little energy once the office workers go home. (Message edited by miketoronto on December 24, 2007) |