It’s the most contentious corner in New York.
On 34th Street and Broadway, the perfect symmetry of Macy’s Herald Square is broken up by a small building, currently occupied by a Sunglass Hut.
This minuscule slice of Manhattan, known as the “Million Dollar Corner,” has been a thorn in Macy’s side for 120 years. It was the center of a retail war at the beginning of last century, and threatens to be an even bigger problem today.
The fight started in 1900, when Macy’s planned to move its flagship store from West 14th Street to 34th. The Siegel-Cooper Company, which owned the then-world’s largest store on 18th Street, operated near the original Macy’s in the Ladies’ Mile Shopping District. When Macy’s exited its 14th Street location, founder Henry Siegel sought to take over the lease on the building to capture customers unaware of Macy’s move. When he was rejected, he put a cunning plan into play.
Robert “Pop” Smith, the owner of a nearby “cloak and suit firm” was also concerned that Macy’s move would draw customers away from the downtown shopping district. Acting on behalf of Siegel, Smith met the owner of the small 34th Street building in the corner of Macy’s planned lot and offered him $375,000 — the rough equivalent of $12 million today. Macy’s had only bid $250,000. Seigel hoped to use the building as wedge to score the lease on the 14th Street building, but Macy’s wouldn’t negotiate.
“Macy’s built around them to spite the corner store,” said architectural historian Andrew Alpern, 82, author of “Holdouts!: The Buildings That Got in the Way.” “They cut into their own building.”
In 1911, Smith sold the store — but not to Macy’s — for $1 million, a record for city real estate at the time, which earned the 31 feet of Broadway frontage its nickname.
For decades, Macy’s turned lemons into lemonade, buying advertising that turned the small holdout into a massive 2,200 square foot shopping bag, which proclaims Macy’s as “The World’s Largest Store.” But they never bought the building itself, which is owned by Kaufman Realty. Now, Amazon, the online retail giant, has reportedly outbid Macy’s for the advertising space — and plans to put up signage that will upstage Macy’s during its own Thanksgiving Day Parade. Last week, Macy’s filed a complaint in State Supreme court in Manhattan to stop their No. 1 competitor.
“Since the early 1960s Macy’s has placed a billboard sign on the building adjacent to our flagship store,” Orlando Veras, a spokesperson for Macy’s, said in a statement. “Macy’s continues to have rights relating to advertisements at that location.”
That’s up to the courts. But Alpern says Macy’s executives must be kicking themselves that they didn’t buy the Million Dollar Corner years ago.
“It’s a funny irony that a building with this kind of history would come back and be a problem more than a century later,” he said. “Macy’s has not had a good record with holdouts. They just don’t seem to be too good at negotiating with their neighbors.”