Do you know why Marshall Field’s was renamed Macy’s? Federated could have kept the Field’s name after the 2005 acquisition — it’s still on plaques on the downtown flagship store anyway. I happened to be on the editorial board when the new owners came by to ballyhoo the change.
To save money on bags. If they kept “Field’s,” they’d need separate Field’s bags, plus distinct advertising. That would cost money. Changing Field’s to Macy’s was simpler and cheaper.
For them. For us, well, if it left customers alienated and heartbroken, welcome to capitalism.
This came to mind as the Chicago Bears edge closer to moving to Hammond, Indiana. Prestige is trumped by parsimony. Sears fled the tallest building in the world in the heart of Chicago for a sprawling business park in Hoffman Estates. In the end, it didn’t save them.
I was resigned to accept Arlington Heights, even to welcome it. I myself am a suburbanite with city pretensions, the Chicago newspaper columnist living in a leafy suburban paradise. Life happens.
But Hammond? I’m reluctant to register an opinion about Hammond, since it is filled with fine people, including loyal Chicago Sun-Times subscribers, all with interesting, rich lives. Laudable individuals, fully capable of writing angry letters to newspaper editors, explaining how wounded they are by the opinions of some clueless hack.
So let me stipulate that I visited Hammond once, nearly five years ago, for two hours, and my opinion is based entirely on that visit. I am not the Jedi Council, nor the all-seeing eye. It was an initial impression.
A… young man of my acquaintance was about to spend a year working as a humble clerk for the federal judiciary in Hammond. Taking a preliminary trip with this unnamed person to the city in question seemed the act of a loving… umm… associate. So I volunteered. He was planning to live on the near South Side of Chicago and commute.
“Why not live in Hammond?” I suggested, breezily, as we drove. On my blog, I described our arrival this way:
“Now Hammond, Indiana is not a garden spot of the world. Modest apartment buildings and town houses, low industrial buildings, a trailer park as soon as you exit the freeway. A lot of liquor stores and cigarette stores and fireworks stores. Not poor, exactly, not prosperous either. Proudly hanging on. My mission was to go to the federal courthouse, a large brutalist gray concrete structure that could be used in a James Bond movie for the secret police headquarters in Bulgaria and the audience wouldn’t blink.”
Looking for a spot to eat lunch near the courthouse, a sense of the area started to sink in.
“What I said about living in Hammond, I retract,” I said. “I don’t even want you stopping for gas here.”
A suggestion, I rush to add, that we immediately ignored. A promising roadhouse presented itself, the 18th Street Brewery, and we pulled in.
I loved the 18th Street Brewery. A biker bar vibe with great graphics, plus all sorts of cool ephemera. As I write this, my coffee cup is resting on an 18th Street Brewery coaster. Try the pulled pork sandwich.
It’s a chain. The Hammond location has recently moved — wanderlust isn’t confined to the Bears. (I was inspired to check after lauding Artopolis bakery Friday, only to discover the place closed two years ago.)
Viewed online, the new location still seems to retain the original’s charm. If indeed the Bears move to Hammond, and this isn’t just another feint trying to pry tax dollars out of Springfield, before we start lauding ourselves over the place, remember that Hammond just got significantly better while Chicago got significantly worse. Hammond might grow on us.
Chicago icons don’t need to dwell within city borders. The Chicago Botanic Garden is in Glencoe. National Book Award-winning Chicago poet Patricia Smith lives in New Jersey. Home Run Inn Pizza has a plant in Woodridge.
Nor do you have to be in Chicago to bear the name. North, West and East Chicago are, respectively, in Lake and DuPage counties, and in Indiana.
Remember: The Bears aren’t the first football team to escape a place while retaining its name. The New York Giants actually played in New York City before moving to the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey in 1976. Since then, they have won four Super Bowls.
While I have not assessed the entirety of verbiage spilled over that quartet of victories, I would bet that very few fans, as the Vince Lombardi Trophy was hoisted in joy, pouted that if only the team still played at Yankee Stadium, this would be really special. As Sartre once said, “The victor is always right.”