Fulton Street Flagship Store
From the beginning, the company had high aspirations. In 1885, the company hired architect George L. Morse to work on the Fulton Street store in Downtown Brooklyn. For their 1928 to 1930 renovations and additions, the company hired architects Starrett & van Vleck to build an Art Deco addition that faces Fulton, Hoyt and Livingston Streets. In 2003, the Brooklyn Heights Association and the Municipal Art Society put the building on a list of 28 historic buildings in downtown Brooklyn that needed to be protected.
In the mid-1970s, Abraham & Straus Flagship Store made Mannequin Modeling famous. Linda Timmins, head of the division, selected one juvenile and ingénue with "The Editorial Look" from each of the High Schools across the Brooklyn and Manhattan area. The schools and its students were also selected for high academic standing; Manhattan's Performing Arts High School Yvette Post and Metropolitan Opera Juvenile Star Robert Westin and Brooklyn's Abraham Lincoln High School's Alan Jay Kahm and its Head Cheerleader Paula Gallo as well as Maria Russo of Catherine McAuley High School (Brooklyn) were some of the few selected to represent the youth of New York. These "Mannequin Models" would pose for up to an hour at a time in the windows of the store as "Living Mannequins" wearing classic designer clothes and current fashions designed by Nik Nik and Pierre Cardin.
The store had to stop Mannequin Modeling in their store front windows as crowds would stop traffic and became a safety hazard. Abraham & Straus had to move the Living Mannequins to inside the store or face a stiff penalty from the city. The crowds still came. Each season, the young Mannequin Models would be allowed to move in order to do an in-store runway show for the Designer de Jour. Although it was the 1970s, the store did not feature polyester suits or non-designer outfits in these shows.
However, unlike countless numbers of downtown Department Stores that have closed throughout the nation, this historic location continues as a Macy's. At 1,012,000 sq ft (94,000 m2), it is the second-largest Macy's in the New York City area. Macy's utilizes the Lower level through 5th floor for retail departments, the 6th floor for seasonal merchandise, and a beauty salon, and upper floors for a number of corporate departments. Display windows continued to be maintained along Fulton Street, and the elevator bank in the middle of the street floor continues to evoke hints of this building's elegant past. The passenger elevators at this location were among the last in all of New York City to be converted from manual operator to automatic use. Macy's has continued to reaffirm its commitment to this location, and increased residential building in the downtown area should lead to increased utilization.
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