7. The Corner Building was a Ploy to Stop the Store From Becoming the Largest in the World
That red shopping back sign is built on a five-story building that remained when Macy and Co. attempted to expand the store’s 34th Street Location. The corner building was Robert H. Smith, a New York businessman, in 1900 for $375,000 in un-inflated dollars. Smith is largely believed to have been working under the orders of Siegel-Cooper, a competitor dry goods store who boasted that they were the largest store in the world a few years ago in 1896. Smith bought the property hoping to use it as leverage to Siegel-Cooper could get Macy’s 14th street location.Ignoring the building altogether, Macy and Co. built its 2.2 million square foot department store around it, making the corner one of the city’s holdout buildings. The shopping bag sign is a lease agreement made between the company and the current owners of the building. In case you were wondering, it was the largest store in the world for quite some time until 2009, when the South Korean department store chain Shinsegae opened a 3.2 million square foot store in Korea.