40°45′0.55″N 73°59′17.3″W / 40.7501528°N 73.988139°W / 40.7501528; -73.988139

The building, upper floors covered with Macy's billboard, in 2010
The building, fully visible, in 1907

The Million Dollar Corner is a small building next to Macy's Herald Square at 1313 Broadway, at the corner with 34th Street, in Herald Square, Manhattan, New York City. On December 6, 1911, the five-story building sold for a then-record $1 million (equivalent to $31.4 million in 2022).[1]

The building had been purchased by Robert H. Smith in 1900 for $375,000 (equivalent to $13.2 million in 2022). The idea had been to keep Macy's, which had announced plans to start construction on the block in 1901, from becoming the largest store in the world. It is largely supposed that Smith, who was a neighbor of the Macy's store on 14th Street, was acting on behalf of Siegel-Cooper, which had built what they thought was the world's largest store on Sixth Avenue in 1896. Macy's ignored the tactic and built around the building, but later struck a deal whereby the building began to carry a large Macy's billboard, generally a "shopping bag" sign (proclaiming Macy's the "world's largest store"), by lease arrangement.[2]

In September 2021, Macy's accused the billboard's owner Kaufman Realty of negotiating to lease the space to an online retailer before Macy's most recent lease expired that August. Macy's claimed that the lessee was almost certainly Amazon and filed for an injunction preventing Kaufman from leasing the space to a competitor. Macy's claimed that a 1963 agreement prohibited such a lease "forever" and that an Amazon billboard would be highly visible during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.[3][4] Kaufman denied that it had communicated with Amazon but did not otherwise dispute the claim it was trying to lease the space to a Macy's competitor.[5]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ "THE REAL ESTATE FIELD; $1,000,000 Paid for Small Broadway and 34th Street Corner". The New York Times. December 7, 1911. ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. Retrieved April 28, 2012.
  2. ↑ White, Norval & Willensky, Elliot (2000). AIA Guide to New York City (4th ed.). New York: Three Rivers Press. pp. 225–226. ISBN 978-0-8129-3107-5.
  3. ↑ Hsu, Tiffany (September 29, 2021). "Macy's sues to block Amazon from taking over the billboard at its Herald Square flagship". The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2021.
  4. ↑ "Macy's Wants To Block Amazon Ads From A Giant Billboard Next To Its Flagship Store". NPR. September 29, 2021. Retrieved September 30, 2021.
  5. ↑ Rizzi, Nicholas (September 29, 2021). "Macy's Sues to Block Amazon Billboard at Its Herald Square Flagship". Commercial Observer. Retrieved September 30, 2021.

Sources

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