To the mind of the novice there immediately flashes the thought: why not use ramps--long, sloping driveways--from the street level to the basement? Long ago the architects of the new building asked themselves that very question. It was, in this particular case at least, rather hard to answer. The main basement of Macy's is very high. To install a ramp--double-tracked, of course, for vehicles both ascending and descending--of any easy practical grade would therefore have required a great deal of valuable floor-space. So, for the moment, they dismissed the ramp idea for motor trucks and held to that of elevators. The Boston Store in Chicago solved the problem. It is the same store that has successfully installed descending escalators, floor upon floor. Out of the sub-basement of that Chicago store the Macy investigators saw thirty-two cars come, all inside of eight minutes; and all upon elevators. That settled the question for the big shop in Herald Square. Elevators it should have for this service, and elevators it will have, even for the big five-ton trucks that go into the deep sub-basement for the hampers for suburban delivery as well as large special packages. Furniture, however, as in the present store, will be both sold and packed and shipped from an upper floor of its own, the large truck elevators to the eleventh floor being also used for this purpose. The sub-basement of the new plan is in so many respects a replica of the main basement delivery service that it requires no special description here. It, too, has been designed, not only amply large enough for the present needs of Macy's, but for that mythical traffic of 1932, which we now know is really not mythical at all, but a matter of rather exact scientific reckoning. Architects' drawings are indeed fascinating things; doubly fascinating when one comes to consider all the infinite thought and labor and patience which have entered into their fabrication. I shall not, however, carry you further into the details of the plans for the new Macy's. You now have seen enough to give you at least a fair idea of the main structure for the enlarged store. You have seen how carefully and how ingeniously the great main traffic streams through the huge edifice are to be carried--to be brought together, when they needs must be brought together, and kept apart when properly they should be kept apart. Add, in your own mind, to this fundamental structure, all of the refinements which you expect to find in the modern retail establishment today and you may begin to depict for yourself the Macy's that is to come--to construct for yourself at least a partial vision of the year 1932 in Herald Square. II. L'Envoi Yesterday Milady of Manhattan in her hoopskirt and crinoline; today Milady in thick furs above her knees and thin silk stockings and high-heeled pumps below them: tomorrow....