The Memorial Entrance

For half a century, one of New York's quietest memorials was hidden inside the world's largest store. In the late 1960s, Macy's sealed the Memorial Entrance on 34th Street — a marquee went up over the two-story granite arch, and an office was built inside the vestibule, walling the memorial plaques out of view. Generations of New Yorkers walked past without knowing they were there.

When we renovated the store, the question was not what to add. Herald Square receives more visitors in a day than most buildings receive in a year. The question was what the crowds deserved to see again.

The office came out of the vestibule, and the marquee came off the arch. Within the restored granite we set a new storefront, deep in the stonework, topped by a tripartite arched window. The new doors are bronze, finished in dark statuary patina, and the steel of the window walls is finished to read as the same bronze, so the whole composition keeps one material voice.

Inside, a short flight of steps rises to the retail floor. We kept as much of the original marble as possible and limited the new palette to black granite, because the vestibule has one purpose: to frame the two bronze plaques on its flanking walls. One, dedicated in 1918 by the Macy Men's Club, honors the employees who died in the First World War — "We honor those who do us honor." The other commemorates Isidor and Ida Straus, who were lost on the Titanic in 1912.

On the store side, the reopened entrance anchors a new cross aisle. A pair of stairs rises symmetrically to a mezzanine balcony centered on the arch, where a new interior arched window echoes the exterior one — from the balcony, the view runs down through the vestibule and out to 34th Street.

A department store is a civic building. It holds the city's mornings, its holidays, its first jobs and its first gloves — and its memory. The easy choice would have been to leave the office where it stood. Macy's chose to give the memorial back to the street — and the store is having its best year ever. Honoring history is good business.

What has your city covered up that deserves to be seen again?