Culture
Bringing Christmas Back Downtown
Shoppers once flocked to the centers of American cities during the holidays. Today, boosters are using the season to spur urban revival.
For the first half of the 20th century, Christmas happened downtown.
Take Detroit: The Hudson’s department store, which stood at the corner of Woodward and Gratiot Avenues, was the tallest in the world. As Detroit’s industry boomed, so did the store. Shoppers—as many as 100,000 a day—browsed 49 acres of space spread across more than 25 floors. At its peak, the store stocked 600,000 wares. The enormous building was especially mind-boggling at Christmas, when it served as the epicenter of the city’s festivities.