In summer, New Yorkers head to Coney Island to ride the Cyclone, delighting in the rattles and creaks of the roller coaster’s wooden trestle as they hurtle through its turns and drops. For wooden-ride aficionados looking for some mellower ups and downs in the off-season, I recommend Macy’s escalators, about the same age as the Cyclone but, as it turns out, a bit harder to find.
You enter the department store on the Seventh Avenue side and follow some encouraging signs.
Your hopes rise when you glimpse the handsome wooden escalator bank, hewn from original oak and ash in the 1920s and ’30s, when they were constructed by the Otis Escalator Company. But you quickly find that the treads themselves are made of aluminum, and utter hardly more than a mechanical purr.
You mount one metal escalator after another, climbing, with dwindling hope, into the aerie of one of the largest stores on earth. You glide past Better Sportswear, the Fur Salon, Hosiery, Pinkberry, trailing your fingers along the wooden slopes, which still have evenly spaced bumps to catch stray handbags, packages, and children. Cupping your hand around these worn knobs in passing offers reassurance that maybe the full handrailfanning experience is to come.
And finally, as you round the bend onto the eighth floor (Housewares, Bridal Salon, De Gustibus Cooking School), you hear it: the rattling, clattering ba-bump, ba-bump. As it turns out, there are only two wooden escalators left in the store, shuttling passengers between the eighth and ninth floors.
It’s a chewy, bumpy sound, the hardwood creaking as the wooden treads slide from between the teeth of the comb plate. The stairs are bordered on each side by a length of bristles, intended to keep debris from falling through the cracks—but which also provide a shoeshine en route.
A sign from Schindler Elevator Corporation indicated that the metal escalator had potential hazards involving its “pinch points” and “moving equipment,” and that work would be needed to help it “maintain control.”
Sense & the City is a monthly blog exploring the hidden corners of New York City. Each month’s post is devoted to one of the five senses. Receive daily sensory impressions via Instagram @senseandthecity.
