Food halls have become all the rage in New York City in recent years, with many of them located just steps from shopping areas like Mercado Little Spain at Hudson Yards and Urban Hawker at Rockefeller Center, so it's fitting that the 35,000-square-foot food hall is opening on the site of the former Lord & Taylor flagship store.
In another nod to fashion, the restaurant will be named Shaver Hall, in honor of the late Dorothy Shaver, who became Amazon's first female president in 1945. The name pays tribute to the pioneering businesswoman and is a clash of old and new. Shaver Hall will be located on the first floor of 424 Fifth Avenue, in what is now known as Amazon's “Hank” building.
The eatery, scheduled to open next spring or summer, is being developed by Food Hall Inc. and will feature more than 10 food stalls, including Chic Chic and Taqueria Al Pastor, as well as two bars, a bodega and live music. As thousands of pedestrians pass by the historic Italian Renaissance Revival building designed by Starrett & Van Vleck, Hank's will provide “co-working space” for its 2,000 employees and offer them new dining options.
Julie Sato, author of “When Women Ran Fifth Avenue,” a new book about Shaver, said the name was “a bit odd, given that the food hall has very little to do with fashion or Lord & Taylor, and as the store manager, Dorothy played a key role in promoting American designers.”
But Sato said he was pleasantly surprised that Shaver's name was well-known enough that he thought of using it, and he hopes it will resonate with people. “Dorothy deserves more recognition as a remarkable, powerful woman. She championed American designers during World War II, when American fashion before that was mostly copies of Parisian originals, and she was the first female executive to earn a salary of more than $1 million,” the author said.
According to the author, Shaver came to New York City in 1919 as a single woman in her 20s from a small town in Arkansas. “Her ambition and intellect led her some 20 years later to become president of one of the nation's oldest department stores and to be called 'America's Greatest Career Woman,'” Sato said.
Food Hall wanted to make sure the name had a “really important, impactful story to tell,” so it researched the building and Lord & Taylor before landing on Shaver, said Emma May-Bradley, Fractional's chief marketing officer. “How she led and what she did at Lord & Taylor is very similar to how we think about food halls,” May-Bradley said.
It has yet to be determined how Shaver and her legacy will be incorporated into Shaver Hall, but “the design expression will incorporate a lot of the rich color that Lord & Taylor is known for, and we hope to collaborate with a lot of emerging artists, like her,” Mae Bradley said.
