Bergdorf Goodman

Herman Bergdorf's tailoring shop, joined and soon led by Edwin Goodman, evolved into the store that has anchored the corner of Fifth Avenue and 58th Street since 1928, on the site of a Vanderbilt mansion — a single-location institution that never franchised its mystique. Bergdorf's is American luxury's editing room: the designer floors and the shoe salon are industry references, the seventh-floor home and gift floor a cabinet of curiosities, and the men's store across the avenue a complete world of its own. The violet-grey boxes and the windows — especially the holiday windows, an annual Manhattan pilgrimage — carry the store's identity. BG Restaurant overlooks Central Park from the seventh floor through Kelly Wearstler interiors. It remains the American department store most worth visiting purely for point of view: one corner, one store, total conviction.

See the holiday windows at night when the avenue empties, and take tea at BG overlooking the park — the seventh floor is the store's best-kept ritual.