The Coronavirus continues in it’s quest to cause as much disruption as possible. Two giants of a New York Shopping Weekend have had to throw in the white towel.

Admittedly one of these well known names was going to out of some folks budget but the other was almost an attraction of New York in it’s own right.

Lord & Taylor of 5th Avenue closed it’s flagship store last year so was already in trouble before the pandemic arrived. The eleven storey building is being renovated by Amazon who purchased the property for it’s tech team.

Lord & Taylor of 5th Avenue filed for bankruptcy last month. It was founded way back in 1826 and opened as a dry goods store. There were 38 other stores with the Lord & Taylor name that will also be closing. 

The other big news is that Century 21 is closing all it’s 13 stores. Located almost next door to the Freedom Tower and badly effected by the 9/11 tragedy this bargain store was a must do on the shopping trip of a lifetime. In fact when visiting the Freedom Tower discount coupons were issued for Century 21 enticing visitors to the multi-level store.

I visited in 1986 and had never heard of it but a hotel porter told us about it. It seemed like a jumble sale on that occasion but when I visited in 2018 it was a very organised store and a pleasure to shop in.

Macys and Bloomingdales are apparently planning smaller stand alone stores outside of Malls in an attempt to buck the trend of shopping on line. Macys has confirmed the closure of 125 stores across America over the next three years. All this activity will affect the margins of Malls and their attempts to have new tenants taking up the empty space.