Free previewStop 3 of Rockefeller Center Christmas Walk: The Tree, the Windows and Fifth Avenue
The Store That Moved Uptown
You're on Fifth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, standing in front of Saks Fifth Avenue. Rockefeller Center is right across the avenue, and St. Patrick's Cathedral sits just across 50th Street. Look at the tall display windows at street level: big sheets of plate glass in bronze frames, with narrow slivers of marble wall between them. On Fifth Avenue they span the block, interrupted only by two entrances. Each year from October to December they fill with holiday decorations, and they're why the crowd you're standing in is here.
But the building came first, and so did a gamble. In the early 1920s, Horace Saks ran Saks and Company, a department store with its flagship down at Herald Square. He planned something bolder: a Fifth Avenue store, built as a joint venture with his cousin, Bernard Gimbel.
That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 3 of Rockefeller Center Christmas Walk: The Tree, the Windows and Fifth Avenue (3 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.
