The 13th Street building that used to be Macy’s

Just east of Sixth Avenue is 55 West 13th Street, a turn-of-the-century beauty owned by the New School.

Like so many city buildings, it has a fascinating past. High above the building’s name on the facade are five emblems with faded red stars painted inside.

The (admittedly very faded) red stars? They’re all that remains of what once was a Macy’s department store, completed in the early 1890s.

It was one of 11 buildings the R.H. Macy Company constructed near the original Macy’s Dry Goods Store on Sixth Avenue and 14th Street, which opened in 1858.

In the boom years after the Civil War, Macy’s became a huge success, spawning other Macy’s stores and many dry-goods imitators along the block and turning this stretch of 14th Street into a shopping mecca (below).

Foreseeing the future of retail farther uptown, Macy’s wisely relocated to Herald Square in 1902 and consolidated all of their 13th and 14th Street stores into one massive building.

From the very beginning to the present day, Macy’s has used a red star as its logo—reportedly inspired by founder Rowland Hussey Macy’s red star tattoo, which he got while working aboard a whaling ship before becoming a wealthy retailer.

[Bottom photo of 14th Street: By Alice Austen, from the Alice Austen House]