Daily photographs by HANS VON RITTERN, with humorous, artistic and social commentary on life in the big city.

Posts tagged “first escalator

Photo of the day: MACY’S STAIRWAY TO PARADISE

MACY'S ESCALATOR

STAIRWAY TO PARADISE: In a year where we have suffered a great amount of closings of iconic landmark stores, restaurants and shops in New York City due to the voracious greed of the landlords, there is one thing we can still count on…the clickety clack of the wonderful wooden escalator at Macy*s.
Macy*s is paying tribute to those glorious wooden moving stairs in their main Christmas window this year, featuring fashions of the past fifty decades. The escalators will take women to the largest ladies shoe department in the world – shoegasm!
The Otis (as in elevator) escalator has been lifting shoppers to all heights since 1927. My favorite memory: in the 1960’s when women wore those thin stiletto heels they would always get caught between the wide slats of the escalator. One day mom and I were ascending to the second floor – mom got off the escalator – her shoes didn’t…that almost became routine. Women had to stand on their tippy toes as to not get caught.  Since the stilettos were made of a primitive plastic, they would either break off or get sliced off by the notorious escalators. Limping women was a common sight in 1960’s.Clickety clack, clickety clack  buy another pair off the rack!”
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