Lifestyle

Ready to glow! NYC’s best holiday windows and Christmas light displays

By
Alex Mitchell
Published Nov. 24, 2022, 7:00 a.m. ET
Call it the most window-ful time of the year. NYC's department stores are back with their annual holiday displays. Getty Images/iStockphoto

It’s glow time!

This holiday season, NYC’s most iconic stores are decking out their displays with the kind of show-stopping magic usually reserved for elaborate Broadway sets.

“This is show business, it’s not the display business!” David Hoey, senior director of visual presentation for Bergdorf Goodman, told The Post.

This year the luxury Fifth Avenue department store offers a riotous spin on an “arts and crafts” theme — including a glam-punk mannequin amidst a cacophony of musical instruments.

Over on Lexington Avenue, Bloomingdale’s has recruited Broadway costume designers to celebrate its 150th anniversary. The kaleidoscopic scene even features a massive flashbulb camera snapping shots of the fanciful figures in its windows — and those passing by as well.

But perhaps the biggest spectacle of all is at Saks Fifth Avenue, which unveiled its stunning displays — complete with its annual holiday light show — with a performance by Elton John on Tuesday night.

“He’s letting us borrow some of his most incredible show costumes to display in our windows and his music will be integrated into the light show,” Andrew Winton, senior vice president of creative at Saks, told The Post.

Read on for all of the merry and bright details.

Bergdorf Goodman

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Bergdorf celebrates the craftmanship that goes into the holidays with seven spectacular window getups for its “Magic in the Making” campaign. In one extravagant scene, you’ll spy a jeweler dripping in gems, an architect comprised of Doric columns and an upholsterer with a brocade chair for a midsection, to name a few. Another wild window gives viewers the sensation of peering down from the ceiling into a dreamy apartment packed with spectacular goodies and gifts. “We stuff our windows with so many things that invite multiple viewings, you’re not going to be able to take it all in in one sitting,” Hoey said.

754 Fifth Ave. at 58th Street

Saks Fifth Avenue

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This year’s “amped-up” light show boasts 600,000 dazzling lights — 250,000 of which are crystal-covered — on the department store’s exterior, their coordinated flashes set to Elton John songs among other tunes. For the first time ever, there will be a corresponding display inside the department store, too. Many of the visuals will revolve around whimsical games, all of which are meant to match John’s fun-loving personality. The light show will run every 10 minutes between 4:35 p.m. and 10:35 p.m. through Jan. 3. As for the windows themselves, several of John’s Gucci-made costumes will be on view, along with kaleidoscopes, rocket ships and other memorable toys “that have grown into brilliant, out-of-this-world treasures,” Winton added.

Fifth Avenue and 50th Street

Bloomingdale’s

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“We always approach our windows with an eye for whimsy, the unexpected and the avant-garde in terms of styling,” John Klimkowski, senior director of visual merchandising for Bloomingdale’s, told The Post of its “Best Holiday Ever” campaign. A Louis Vuitton-themed window is constructed entirely out of Lego bricks, while an oversized version of the store’s signature Little Brown Bear — part of the brand’s philanthropic holiday efforts — makes an appearance donning a big plaid bow. There’s also an enormous golden sewing machine being perpetually hand-cranked by a pair of impish youngsters, as well as Elsa from “Frozen” peeking out from a tiny balcony in a frosty blue dress. Perhaps the most eye-catching window display of all is two figures waltzing on a faux roof while a dapper nutcracker and snowman look on.

Lexington Avenue at 59th Street

Macy’s

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The Herald Square icon is celebrating its partnership with the newly revived Toys R Us brand with a series of toy-themed windows along 34th Street, including hot rods from Hot Wheels, dolls from Monster High and a gaggle of Pokémon — complete with Pikachu in a Santa hat — on a moving assembly line. “It’s a journey with our Geoffrey the Giraffe as a toy inspector inspecting the Macy’s toy factory,” Manny Urquizo, the director of storewide visual campaigns and windows at Macy’s, told The Post.

Over on Broadway, Tiptoe the reindeer guides window-shoppers through the cheery displays. The newest member of Santa’s team visits scenes of warm winter villages, a pine-filled realm of little squirrels hard at work and jolly polar bears enjoying a vividly colored winter wonderland.

34th Street at Herald Square

Nordstrom

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Although the architecture here prevents what many have come to imagine as a typical window display, the folks on 57th Street have creatively engineered a holiday sight to behold. Seven floors of the store’s waveform windows transform Nordstrom into a magnificently wrapped present showcasing Christmas trees through some of the panes. Inside, shoppers are greeted by nutcrackers towering at around 10 feet in height. Inside, 120 metallic green and pink trees, as well as festive lights, line the aisles.

225 W. 57th Street

Hudson Yards

Hudson Yards is using more than 2 million lights this year.

The new kid on the block, relatively speaking, Hudson Yards has wasted no time in becoming a decorative centerpiece in Manhattan. Two million twinkling lights — which span 115 miles when unfurled — indeed light the way for a 32-foot-tall illuminated hot air balloon lofting atop the great hall, Stephanie Fink, senior vice president of marketing at Hudson Yards, told The Post.

This year Hudson Yards has incorporated a huge balloon of lights atop the ritzy shops.

That, along with 725 brightly shining trees, will make the yards “a playground for Instagrammers,” said Fink, speaking to both inside the shops and out on the surrounding grounds. Along with a special Santa-themed speakeasy cocktail bar on level five that will play host to variety shows from burlesque to ballet, there will be “selfies with Santa” on level four from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Dec. 5 through Dec. 9 and again from the 12th through the 16th.

The great hall at Hudson Yards is being illuminated head to toe.

20 Hudson Yards, at 33rd Street and 10th Avenue

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