Downtown T.'s HBCs to close?

[miketoronto]

badga416, the Closing of Filenes is not a small thing. Yes the excuse is there is a MACY's across the street.

However Filenes was the achor of Downtown Crossing(Boston's main shopping area). And instead of keeping the larger store with more history and events that draw people downtown, federated has decided to close the store and keep open a much smaller city that is hardly a regional draw that Filenes was.

These companies do not know how to deep downtown retail strong.

And Zucker turning the Queen Street store into some kind of Sasks Fifth Ave that only the rich of Toronto can shop at, does not help at all. We have Holt Renfrew for that.


Amazing how department stores in other countries don't have the problems we have.

David Jones in Sydney is much larger then the HBC store on Queen Street. And here we have a new takeover wanting to downsize it. Makes no sense.

David Jones, Downtown Sydney. This store actually has two buildings. One building features a food hall.

 

[MetroMan1000]

"Today's Special" was filmed at The Bay?? wow... I used to watch that show religiously!

So nobody's had any luck locating any interior shots? I remember seeing some hung on the wall in the Arcadian Court but they're rotating old historical photos occasionally and right now none of the interior pics are there.

 

[adma]

As far as 80s-type improvements go (perhaps spilling into late 70s and early 90s), the main things were the gouging-out of the diagonal Queen + Yonge passageway and the two-storey "perfume court" atrium. (And the smooth granite ground-floor exterior facings were a 70sish thing, too.) All things considered, the 80s didn't actually *take away* much--the store's innards were already pretty neutral IIRC.

If there was any likely moment when "interesting" interiors were effaced, it would have been the 60s, the Simpson Tower era. (Indeed, the rather paradoxical argument might presently be made that the biggest 80s "loss" was the Arcadian Court's late 60s extreme makeover--ah, how retro taste comes around.)

One exception, though: Toronto's archetypal streamlined 30s/40s escalator, just off the subway entrance, was walled off in the 90s for overzealous safety reasons. (I think--I *hope*--it still may be in there somewhere, entombed...)

 

[allabootmatt]

Downtown Crossing is hardly Boston's main shopping area...that's on the other side of the park along Newbury.

 

[MetroMan1000]

One exception, though: Toronto's archetypal streamlined 30s/40s escalator, just off the subway entrance, was walled off in the 90s for overzealous safety reasons. (I think--I *hope*--it still may be in there somewhere, entombed...)

Now that you mention it, there's a wall on that end of the store that doesn't follow the street lineup, as if there were a large room behind it... but from outside there are no windows and to be honest, I don't recall seeing a door there either. They must have just closed it off with drywall.

 

[samsonyuen]

^^One could argue that the Macy's building (formerly Jordan Marsh) is as important and historic building as the Filene's buildling.

Have you been to David Jones? Except for the main store, they're pretty much like the Bay. So do you or do you not want Holt Renfrew-type stores, mike?