40°45′0.55″N73°59′17.3″W / 40.7501528°N 73.988139°W /40.7501528; -73.988139
TheMillion Dollar Corner is a small building next toMacy's Herald Square at 1313Broadway, at the corner with34th Street, inHerald Square,Manhattan,New York City. On December 6, 1911, the five-story building sold for a then-record $1 million (equivalent to $33.7 million in 2024).[1]
The building had been purchased by Robert H. Smith in 1900 for $375,000 (equivalent to $14.2 million in 2024). The idea had been to keepMacy's, which had announced plans to start construction on the block in 1901, from becoming the largest store in the world. It is largely supposed that Smith, who was a neighbor of the Macy's store on 14th Street, was acting on behalf ofSiegel-Cooper, which had built what they thought was the world's largest store on Sixth Avenue in 1896. Macy's ignored the tactic and built around the building, but later struck a deal whereby the building began to carry a large Macy's billboard, generally a "shopping bag" sign (proclaiming Macy's the "world's largest store"), by lease arrangement.[2]
In September 2021, Macy's accused the billboard's owner Kaufman Realty of negotiating to lease the space to an online retailer before Macy's most recent lease expired that August. Macy's claimed that the lessee was almost certainlyAmazon and filed for aninjunction preventing Kaufman from leasing the space to a competitor. Macy's claimed that a 1963 agreement prohibited such a lease "forever" and that an Amazon billboard would be highly visible during theMacy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.[3][4] Kaufman denied that he had communicated with Amazon but did not otherwise dispute the claim it was trying to lease the space to a Macy's competitor.[5]
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Sources
Media related toMillion Dollar Corner (New York City) at Wikimedia Commons