This isn't a thread about Marshall Field's being aquired by Federated and converted to Macy's; that one has been batted around sufficiently that we know all about it.
No, this really isn't even about Marshall Field's, except how it serves as a metaphor for an instiution that if not past its time is on the cusp of it.
It's about "letting go" and realizing that time changes and each era has its own landmarks....and hall marks.
I remember the death of a great newspaper, many years ago. It was the Chicago Daily News and in its time (when the Tribune was far more conservative and limited than it is today), arguably Chicago's best paper, a paper where Mike Royko was just one of a series of great writers, well written, witty, sophisticated. But the Daily News died and I can't blame the Field family that owned it for shutting it down. The News was a PM paper and it got caught up with the fact that too many people were driving to work and were not going to read it on the way home on the bus, train, el. Sadly one era ended, but another was just beginning.
The Chicago Theatre today stands as a legitamite (albeit excessively large) theatre, a place for live performances, albeit not as many as we would wish. But its true glory days was as a movie palace, a time when you dressed to go downtown and the theatre's architectue and screen were larger than life, co-starring with the movie itself. It was sad to see it go, but could you even imagine it operating in an age of multi-plexes? And what type of movies do we create today like "The Godfather" that were themselves legitimately larger than life?
Along the way, Chicago has lost restaurants like Fritzel's and Hencricis (to go along with the current loss of Berghoff's), great clubs like Chez Paris and Mr. Kelly's, a beloved amusement park in Riverview...all victims of changing times and changing ways.
The Marshall Field's that federated aquired and is converting to Macy's is not the Field's of Marshall Field himself. It is not even the Field's of the 20th century, an independent company calling the shots for its own insitution. It's not the Field's that, in our memory, actually gave "the woman what she wants". It's not the Field's with promotinal fairs and store wide events that added an excitement and buzz to the city. Nor is it the Marshall Field's where State Street was the sole store, rather than a part of a generic, faceless string of stores with names like Springhill or Fox Valley or Orland Square. And mostly it is not the Marshall Field's of a time when retailing was local, when national chains were minimal, when stores like C&B and the Gap and Nike and Sharper Image could grab their niche in a special area of retailing and outstrip the department stores.
If Field's isn't a dinosaur today, it is turning into one. As are Macy's. And Bloomingdale's. And Sears. THeir era is over. If Marshall Field's were the real[b] Marshall Field's, Federated would not take the name off of the door.
The Macy's takeover was just one more step in the winding down proces of a great institution. Perhaps in its own way, no bigger than Field's being bought by Dayton Hudson....and basically being turned into a Dayton Hudson. And perhaps irrelevant as the winding down would be going on with or without Federated.
If we mourn (and this traditonally based city that loves all things Chicago mourn we surely do), it is for the Field's of the past, the Field's of memory, the Field's of lore. It is not for the current store and the current chain which were mere shaddows of their former selves even before Federated entered the picture.
Times change. Things we love leave the scene and new things that will become the traditons of future generations replace them. That's reality.> |
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