THE MURDER OF MARSHALL FIELD'S

Chicagoan Sylvia DeKlimber is really upset as she stares out her condo window. The weather is putrid, the Cubs are losing, Sammy has deserted, and Macy's is about to murder Marshall Field's.

The owners of Macy's and Marshall Field's department store chains have decided to convert Marshall Field's stores into Macy's stores. And horrors upon horrors, they mean to make the Marshall Field's State Street flagship store into a lowly, common Macy's. For Sylvia and millions of others, it's like being told that your favorite limo company is now going to start running you about in Yellow Cabs.

Sylvia remembers what a great store Marshall Field's was. Every bit as good as London's Harrods, and far better than flashy upstarts like New York's Bloomingdales, a store that sells women's panties with “Bloomies” printed across the bottoms. And Dallas's Nieman Marcus was all gaudy and bad taste, appealing as it did to those cotton farming yokels who happened to discover oil under their boll weevils.

Sylvia dreams of the days when just going to Marshall Field's was an incredible experience, far more exciting than riding to the Loop to watch a stage play. The exquisitely finished wood and glass display cases contained the finest of goods, meticulously arranged to delight the eye. The grand ceilings and floral displays on the main floor made any grand ballroom look mundane by comparison.

And rich or poor, you were always treated with impeccable courtesy. The expression, "The customer is always right" probably started at Marshall Field's.

The Marshall Field's elevators were a delight to ride. Prim ladies, well turned out and wearing clean white gloves, opened the gates and doors while announcing the offerings of each floor. You rode up in hushed quietude, admiring the carriage paneling and better able to hear the quiet refined voices of the operating ladies.

For those with a sophisticated sweet tooth, you could delight in Marshall Field's exclusive Frango Mints -- which set the standard for high quality chocolates, Godiva and the imported chocolate brands which would come later.

The Marshall Field's label was so prestigious that even poor people would skip a few movies, eat macaroni and cheese instead of meat, and lower the thermostat a few degrees in order to save up enough to buy something, anything, that carried a Marshall Field label.

College girls entering Northwestern University, just to the north of Chicago in Evanston, discovered that the Marshall Field's label was a big help in getting pledged by the really snooty sororities like Delta Delta Delta. So many a girl would cut the Marshall Field's labels out of her mother's clothing and sew them into her Carson Pirie Scott sweaters so as to make the "right" impression at pledge time.

Sylvia is remembering that the store wasn't just elegance and good taste. There was a lot of fun connected with it, too. At Christmas, there was a huge, beautifully decorated Marshall Field's Christmas tree which seemed three or four stories tall. Families would bring their children to have breakfast under the tree, which was surrounded by a restaurant with linen tablecloths.

During the Christmas season, Marshall Field's front windows told beautiful children's stories that were so well done that parents and kids alike would stand for an hour or two in weather that often tortured with wind chills of 20 to minus 10.

Sylvia still remembers the day she and her husband, Gordon, took their small children for the big treat of breakfast under the tree. The kids stared about in wide eyed-wonder at all the lights, bulbs and decorations. Everything went beautifully until dessert was served, ice cream in the form of little Santa Claus figures. Little Bryan and Cheryl pulled back and refused to eat their ice cream. Finally, Sylvia's husband took his spoon and scooped Santa's head off. With that, both children started crying and screaming, Daddy killed Santa! Daddy killed Santa! They had to pick up the kids and run out of the restaurant.

All the Sylvias of the world remember Marshall Field's as an incredible experience in shopping. There was great theater to it. Located in the center of the "City of Broad Shoulders" (and hairy knuckles), Marshall Field's was an oasis of culture and refinement. A place where the martini-sipping bluebloods of Lake Forest could actually see a shot-and-beer drinker from Mayor Richard Daley's Sout' Side. It was difficult to believe the wonder that was Marshall Field's could exist just two or three miles of that putrid slaughterhouse known as the Chicago stockyards.

How could anyone think that the prestige and elegance of Marshall Field's could be replaced by the common commercial clutter of a mere Macy's?

Why couldn't the powers that be have decided to restore Marshall Field's to its former glory, instead of going the more common, cheaper route?

Well, now Chicago's world-famed stockyards are long gone.

And so, soon shall Marshall Field's disappear.

Murdered by that corporate fraternity which knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.