The Million Dollar Corner is a small building next to

Macy's Herald Square Macy's Herald Square (originally named the R. H. Macy and Company Store) is a department store building on West 34th Street (Manhattan), 34th Street at Herald Square in New York City, New York (state), New York, United States. It was designed b ...

at 1313

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...

, at the corner with

34th Street 34th Street most commonly refers to 34th Street (Manhattan) 34th Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs the width of Manhattan Island from the West Side Highway on the West Side to FDR Drive on t ...

, in

Herald Square Herald Square is a major commercial intersection in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, formed by the intersection of Broadway, Sixth Avenue (officially Avenue of the Americas), and 34th Street. Named for the now-defunct ''New ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. On December 6, 1911, the five-story building sold for a then-record $1 million (equivalent to $ million in ). The building had been purchased by Robert H. Smith in 1900 for $375,000 (equivalent to $ million in ). The idea had been to keep

Macy's Macy's is an American department store chain founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. The first store was located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, south of the present-day flagship store at Herald Square on West 34 ...

, 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 The Siegel-Cooper Company was a department store that opened in Chicago in 1887 and expanded into New York City in 1896. At the time of its opening, the New York store was the largest in the world. First store in Chicago Siegel-Cooper began ...

, 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. 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 Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

and filed for an

injunction An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable rem ...

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 The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is an annual parade in New York City presented by the American-based department store chain Macy's. The Parade first took place in 1924, tying it for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States ...

. Kaufman denied that he had communicated with Amazon but did not otherwise dispute the claim it was trying to lease the space to a Macy's competitor.

References

Notes Sources
N.Y.C. street scenes--million dollar corner, 34th St. & Broadway. Small plot which sold for a million dollars
Publisher: 1911 Dec 21., OCLC: 51123555

External links

* Geography of Manhattan Buildings and structures in Manhattan History of New York City Real estate holdout Broadway (Manhattan) 34th Street (Manhattan) {{Manhattan-struct-stub

See also

References

External links