The man behind downtown Seattle Macy’s endangered holiday star
Sep 30, 2019, 6:22 AM | Updated: 3:16 pm
KIRO Radio resident historian Feliks Banel produced a 2007 Seattle Channel video profile of Bob James (above), the Seattle man who designed the original Bon Marché/Macy’s holiday star in the 1950s.
Report: The downtown Seattle Macy’s is closing
It was announced over the weekend that Macy’s is closing its historic downtown store, and that the holiday star is in need of repair and will not be displayed this year.
The Seattle Times reports that clearance sales for the locations are slated for January 2020. The store will close for good in February. Employees were notified of the closure on Friday, and about Macy’s intention to sell the building.
Locals are quite familiar with the corner of 3rd Avenue and Pine Street. The store was previously the site of Seattle-founded Bon Marche. Macy’s took over the downtown retail location in 2003.
The unlikely lasting legacy, melody from the Bon Marché
Little is known about the reasons for the closure, though many retail stores have strained under the rise of online shopping. The Times notes that while Macy’s occupies three floors of the downtown building, Amazon has offices in the top six.
MyNorthwest’s Dyer Oxley contributed to this report. Featured image from Tracie Howe on Flickr Creative Commons
