Still another ascending and descending escalator; this time for the
store's own family. Remember that here is a second stream, whose prompt
and efficient handling is quite as important as that of the shoppers.
The broad stair in Thirty-fourth Street at which the majority of the
family arrives, between eight-thirty and eight-forty-five of the
business morning, is frequently choked with the rush of incoming
employees. It will never be choked once the new Macy's is done. For then
the workers will be handled in great volume upon a double escalator, not
merely double-file, but double in the sense that ascent and descent are
handled simultaneously and in compact space, very much as the double
stairways that are installed in modern school-houses and industrial
plants.
In the enlarged building the locker rooms and the other facilities of
the arrival of the store's employees will be placed upon the second
floor and the first and second mezzanines; retained from the present
plan, but very greatly enlarged. The Macy worker comes to them by means
of the escalator, quickly and easily, and in a similar fashion ascends
or descends to his or her department. It sounds simple and easy but it
is not quite so easy when one comes to plan for a maximum of 8,800
employees--in 1932.
A third traffic stream remains for our consideration--and the
architect's. In many respects it is the most difficult. Human beings, to
a large extent at least, can move themselves. Goods cannot. Yet
obviously the great stream of merchandise into the building and then out
again must never be permitted to clog its arteries--not for a day, nor
even for an hour. This means that there must be not only plenty of
channels and conduits for it, but ample reservoir space as well. Which,
being translated, means of course generous warehousing rooms, of one
sort or another.
Perhaps it would be well before we come to the ingenious plans for
making this inanimate stream most animate indeed, to consider the
general plan of Macy's as it will be after its structural renaissance.
The exterior of the present great building will remain practically
unchanged. Just back of it and to the west of it on the new plot, one
hundred and twenty-five feet in depth in both Thirty-fourth and
Thirty-fifth Streets, and extending the full two hundred feet between
them, will be erected a new steel and concrete building, harmonizing in
its façade and of the most modern type of construction; as we have
already seen, nineteen stories in height with two sub-basements in
addition. The first ten stories of this structure, at the exact floor
levels of the old, will be thrown into the existing building and the
lower seven of them used for selling purposes. The uppermost three
stories of the combined building--covering the entire Macy site--will be
used, as we shall see in a moment or two, for the reception and the
warehousing of the merchandise, and other non-selling activities of the
store.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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