Within the world’s largest department store which has called 34th St ‘home’ since 1902 are twenty wooden escalator’s made of oak and ash.
Department stores have become somewhat of a ritual for me. If I am out-and-about and near one, I may go in and soothe my neurosis by walking and looking, wading through the seas of retail. At Macy’s, riding the wooden moving staircases is a hallmark of my ritualistic outing. They were installed in the roaring 1920s as new technology and like playing an old violin, they connect their passenger with a not-so-distant, but very different time.
The unassuming escalators are a ridable symbol of constancy and longevity. I find them incredibly charming.