Macy’s Brooklyn store, once an iconic Abraham & Straus, is closing

Macy’s is closing 10 stores in the New York-New Jersey area — including its storied Fulton Street location — as part of the company’s effort to turn a profit after years of slouching sales.

Macy’s took over the historic Fulton St. store in 1994 when it merged with the Abraham & Straus department stores — which city records show built the building at 422 Fulton St. 1920, and which long maintained its own flagship location there. It was once a part of “Department Store Row” along other retail giants that have long since fallen.

But Macy’s, also founded in New York City, has struggled to adapt its department store business model in the age of online retail. Investors have long suspected the value of its real estate is worth at least as much as the company’s retail business.

Macy’s sold the Brooklyn location to a group of investors in early December that said it could eventually become a location for experience-driven retail, like Legoland, according to reports at the time.

In a statement this week, Macy’s said it anticipated closings across the country would happen sometime after clearance sales lasting eight to 12 weeks. In total, Macy’s announced closures of 66 stores including ones in Sheepshead Bay, Elmhurst, Staten Island, the Bronx, Rochester, Nassau and Orange, New Jersey.

The company did not say what would happen to workers at these stores.

“Closing any store is never easy,” Tony Spring, chairman and chief executive officer of Macy’s, said in the statement. “We are closing underproductive Macy’s stores to allow us to focus our resources and prioritize investments in our go-forward stores, where customers are already responding positively to better product offerings and elevated service.”

The company used the term “go-forward” to describe 350 locations that will remain open. It said it’s ultimately closing about 150 stores over a three-year period.

Elected officials bemoaned the closing of Macy’s in Brooklyn and its impact on shoppers and workers.

“It’s a sad day for Brooklynites who’ve made countless memories here,” Councilmember Lincoln Restler wrote on social media. “We’ll push to ensure this iconic space continues to maintain a retail presence.”

According to Brooklyn historian Ron Schweiger, the closing of Macy’s Fulton Street location completes a series of department store closings that started in the 1950s and accelerated in the 1980s along Fulton Street.

“ All along Fulton Street were major department stores,” he said, listing E. J. Korvette, Martin’s, May, McCrory’s and A. I. Namm & Son. “All these were department stores, all lining Fulton Street.”

Holding company Federated Department Stores — of which Abraham & Straus had been a founding member — ultimately consolidated many of those stores under the Macy’s brand.

“ Federated closed Abraham & Straus and turned it into Macy’s and it never was the same,” Schweiger said. “ My wife was fit to be tied because it was our favorite. It was the most wonderful department store.”