The "fortress"on 34th Street catches up
The 1977 Christmas buying season started officially last week, with millions of shoppers surging through department-store aisles on the Friday after Thanksgiving. In New York City, the ritual began as it has for the past 50 years, with the balloons, floats and marching bands of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Without Dino the Dinosaur (the 20-ft.-tall balloon was retired after 13 years and sent back to maker Goodyear), the parade moved, as always, down Central Park West, ending at Macy's flagship Herald Square store on 34th Street.
Inside the fortress-like structure, however, everything was different. In a...