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NOTES FROM THE WORKING-CLASS: The Last Star

Downtown Seattle is about to lose its Macy’s. The Macy’s building on Third Avenue and Pine Street was first occupied by the iconic Bon Marché that opened in 1890 to serve the working-class. Through a complex series of corporate mergers & acquisitions, the Bon Marché morphed into Bon-Macy’s and eventually became Macy’s flagship store in Seattle. When Macy’s closes its doors on February 28, 2020, the end of this era will signal the death knell for the way the working-class used to shop.


BLACK FRIDAY IS BUY NOTHING DAY

Black Friday is coming.  You’d have to have been living in a hole not to know that means the day after Thanksgiving, when most businesses are closed but all the stores are open for business.  It’s when the big holiday sales used to begin—now they begin on Thanksgiving itself; it seems we can’t take a single day just to be with each other and refrain from shopping. 

But Black Friday is when the crush comes, when, some years,...