Henri Bendel Is Gone Now, Taking My Yellow Dress With It

Henri Bendel’s flagship store closed last week. It’s not the first New York City department store to close, nor if rumors are true, will it be the last.

But it was my department store, and to lose it is to say goodbye to the retail epicenter of my New York.

Growing up in Michigan, I was transfixed by department stores. In Detroit, we had J.L. Hudson’s, which soared into an often-sooty sky not far from the city’s riverfront.

A trip to Hudson’s was an occasion, for Christmas or back to school shopping. Decades later, I can still close my eyes and see the children’s section, the collector coin booth and the lounge where we waited for family members to gather.

Much closer to home, in Ann Arbor, we had Goodyear’s on Main Street (printed in green ink on white boxes) and Jacobson’s, a fixture at 612 E. Liberty, with its embossed silver foil.

Last year, I wrote about working at Jacobson’s, which we called Jake’s, for the Washington Post.

But even before I took my first retail job, I was already punching my department store ticket. In Chicago, we’d visit the original Marshall Field in the Loop, where my mother worked, and anglicized her last name in order to blend more easily.