A comment on the May-Macy's merger--from retail as theater to a third or fourth run movie house?

Mall-based cinemas supplanted the old grand downtown theaters in the 1960s and 1970s.

This comment is from a discussion on the website www.retailwire.com:

Merging bland, promotional, regional chains into a national bland, promotional chain isn't going to take much expertise; just follow the Federated Five Point Plan so skillfully applied at Lazarus, Rich's, Burdine's, Bon Marche, and others:

1) Shutter the downtown stores
2) Close all the restaurants and similar customer amenities
3) Carry nothing not available at any other department store
4) Eliminate all professional sales people
5) Advertise and promote nothing but discounts, never fashion

I was in Chicago this week and nearly cried while shopping in Marshall Field's State Street to envision what havoc Federated is going to wreak with that iconic store and brand. The nation's last grand department store, doomed. Are we going to have to go to London to shop?
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The first "retail as theater" establishments were the grand old department stores. I still remember going to see Santa Claus at J.L. Hudson's in downtown Detroit. Making department stores "mass market" institutions destroyed their uniqueness. Yes, I still remember eating in the restaurant at Hudson's and trying to learn how to pronounce "mezzanine." And I enjoyed prime rib at the restaurant in Marshall Fields on State Street in Chicago...

I still believe that downtown department stores don't have to be an ananchronism, that they can be jewels, "retail theaters" capable of anchoring distinctively different downtown shopping experiences.

We'll see.

Metropolitan Theater on F Street in the 1950s, Washington DC. Image: www.restonpaths.com

Are department stores going through the same cycle of decline and industrialization experienced in the cinema-movie industry?