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Archive through December 20, 2007Melody30 12-20-07  3:25 pm
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Viziondetroit
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Username: Viziondetroit

Post Number: 1322
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 3:28 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Gingellgirl
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Username: Gingellgirl

Post Number: 106
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 3:29 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Viziondetroit
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Username: Viziondetroit

Post Number: 1323
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 3:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Fastcarsfreedom
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Username: Fastcarsfreedom

Post Number: 210
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 3:51 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Luckycar
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Username: Luckycar

Post Number: 61
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 3:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Fastcarsfreedom
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Username: Fastcarsfreedom

Post Number: 211
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 3:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Onthe405
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Username: Onthe405

Post Number: 24
Registered: 11-2007
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 4:02 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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?
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Upinottawa
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Username: Upinottawa

Post Number: 1041
Registered: 09-2005
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 4:21 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Gingellgirl
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Username: Gingellgirl

Post Number: 107
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:04 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Iheartthed
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Username: Iheartthed

Post Number: 2405
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:16 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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?
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Professorscott
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Username: Professorscott

Post Number: 976
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Detroitrise
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Username: Detroitrise

Post Number: 1168
Registered: 09-2007
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:28 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Professorscott
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Username: Professorscott

Post Number: 977
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:30 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Professorscott
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Username: Professorscott

Post Number: 978
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:34 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Onthe405
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Username: Onthe405

Post Number: 25
Registered: 11-2007
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 5:48 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Douglasm
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Username: Douglasm

Post Number: 993
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 6:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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'.
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Smogboy
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Username: Smogboy

Post Number: 6702
Registered: 11-2004
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 7:17 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Designerguy24, when you pony up the first million bucks & acquire the land to build this Hudson's, we'll be right behind you.
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Onthe405
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Username: Onthe405

Post Number: 26
Registered: 11-2007
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 7:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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)
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Fastcarsfreedom
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Username: Fastcarsfreedom

Post Number: 212
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 8:16 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Onthe405
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Username: Onthe405

Post Number: 27
Registered: 11-2007
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 8:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Fastcarsfreedom
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Username: Fastcarsfreedom

Post Number: 213
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 11:33 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Smogboy
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Username: Smogboy

Post Number: 6708
Registered: 11-2004
Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 1:40 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

What next? A petition to revive other things like the Packard? Cunningham Drugs? Farmer Jack's? Chatham's? Crowley's?
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Reddog289
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Username: Reddog289

Post Number: 149
Registered: 08-2007
Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 3:00 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Queensfinest
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Username: Queensfinest

Post Number: 137
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 6:03 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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...
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Gingellgirl
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Username: Gingellgirl

Post Number: 108
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 8:58 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I like living in the past. I feel more comfortable there.
;-}
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Kslice
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Username: Kslice

Post Number: 242
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 9:43 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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
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Gingellgirl
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Username: Gingellgirl

Post Number: 109
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 10:33 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

And for those of you with a jones for a Hudson's Maurice Salad, here ya go . . .
http://www.askyourneighbor.com /recipes/054.htm
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Upinthewoods
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Username: Upinthewoods

Post Number: 6
Registered: 12-2007
Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 12:43 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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
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Fastcarsfreedom
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Username: Fastcarsfreedom

Post Number: 214
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 10:08 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Huggybear
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Username: Huggybear

Post Number: 316
Registered: 08-2005
Posted on Sunday, December 23, 2007 - 10:10 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Kslice
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Username: Kslice

Post Number: 244
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Sunday, December 23, 2007 - 10:35 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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.
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Miketoronto
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Username: Miketoronto

Post Number: 753
Registered: 07-2004
Posted on Monday, December 24, 2007 - 11:43 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

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)

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