Macy’s vs Gimbels - Showdown over Manhattan | 3

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2019

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s nearing the turn of the 19th century, and the Straus Brothers now run Macy’s emporium out of a dozen cobbled together stores in lower Manhattan. The next generation of Straus’s pressure the old guard to build a huge new Macy’s flagship on 34th street, in the still seedy red light district of Herald Square. It will take some persuading. And by the time the new venture reaps its reward, the family will be famous for a new reason; the heroism of one of the store’s founding fathers and his wife on the fateful voyage of the Titanic.

Gimbels now has mammoth enterprises in Milwaukee and Philadelphia, and one of Adam’s sons also has greater ambitions. He urges the Gimbel elders to ride the wave of Macy’s high profile and build an even bigger store right on the rival’s doorstep. And when they balk, he comes up with a dastardly plan.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to business wars at free on Amazon music.
0:04.6	Download the app today.
0:07.0	It's early evening on April 15, 1912 aboard the RMS Titanic, some 440 miles off the coast
0:21.4	of Newfoundland.
0:23.6	The ship's butler sounds the call to dinner.
0:26.3	Other passengers turn to watch as Isadora Strauss and his wife Ida walk into the ship's
0:31.0	first-class dining room.
0:33.5	Isadora and his brother Nathan have taken over the business from their father Lazarus Strauss.
0:38.6	They've gone from leasing the basement of Macy's to selling fine glassware in China to
0:44.2	acquiring the department store.
0:47.1	At 67, Isadora is dapper in his tuxedo, a salt and pepper beard and a pink carnation
0:52.7	on his lapel.
0:54.4	Ida's shivering in her sleeveless black gown.
0:57.7	Isadora lifts her fox stole from her elbows and drapes it snugly around her shoulders and
1:03.2	gives her a playful squeeze.
1:05.5	They've been married for 40 years and are still very much in love.
1:10.6	Ornate's scrollwork covers the walls and ceiling, all painted brilliant white.
1:15.3	Isadora catches a whiff of roast beef and dorkshire pudding in the cold sea air.
1:20.7	His table made on his right, Colonel Archibald Gracie, picks up a conversation they were having
1:25.6	earlier on deck.
1:27.1	Isadora you were saying, Gimbal's brothers moved in across the street from you.
1:31.9	Is that hurting business?
	...

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