The Macy's in the historic Wanamaker Building in Center City once held gleaming counters of perfume, racks of evening wear and heaping shelves of home goods. But as the store cleared house in its final week, the grand shopping center began to resemble a horror movie.
MORE: March Madness, Pennsylvania-style: 64 locally-made products compete in bracket-style tournament again
The department store will shutter Sunday after 19 years in the landmark building, located on the corner of 13th and Market streets. Macy's massive closing sales had wiped out much of the inventory by Thursday. Heaps of area rugs, a few pieces of office furniture and scattered racks of women's clothing dotted corners of the cavernous space. The jewelry counter on the ground floor that still held merchandise required a customer sign-up sheet.
Scattered crowds still gathered in the afternoon to hear the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ play its final concerts for the foreseeable future. The 28,500-pipe instrument, the largest functional organ in the world, has long pumped out melodies at noon and 5:30 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. While being on the city's register of historic places affords it some protections, the future of the organ remains a bit murky. Spectators took up spaces by the second-floor railing and bronze Eagle statue, another protected historical object, on the ground level to record video of its music.
But the tunes took on a sinister quality set against the empty halls and blinking lights. The Wanamaker Building was a magnificent monument to consumerism when it opened in 1911, the only department store dedicated by a sitting U.S. president. (A bronze star in the ground floor's "grand court" marks the spot where William H. Taft did the honors.) The gilded Corinthian columns, waterleaf moldings and white marble walls, preserved to this day, lent it a grandeur normally reserved for temples. Devoid of furnishings and customers, however, they resemble a ruin – or deleted scene from the zombie mall classic "Dawn of the Dead."
The many disrobed and disfigured mannequins didn't help. Macy's offered some for sale, pricing partial forms with bases at $75 and ones with wheels at $85. Others merely haunted the space, forgotten on a table or spying from a shelf. At least one was posed in a suggestive stance, seemingly by a merry prankster.
Shoppers still have the weekend to cruise the floors for a desk chair or mannequin torso – or catch the organ's all-day concert Saturday – but the Macy's they once knew is already dead. And its skeleton has some truly cursed vibes.
Follow Kristin & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @kristin_hunt
| @thePhillyVoice
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice
Have a news tip? Let us know.