Lord & Taylor to close famed flagship store on Fifth Avenue in NYC

Lord & Taylor is abandoning plans to keep a store in the Fifth Avenue flagship it is selling, as the chain's owner closes more stores and focuses on online sales.

The announcement Tuesday comes about seven months after the company said it would sell the century-old building to office space sharing company WeWork. Hudson's Bay Co. said then it would keep less than a quarter of the 11-story building for a Lord & Taylor store.

Hudson's Bay, which also operates Saks Fifth Avenue and other stores, said it expects to close up to 10 of its nearly 50 Lord & Taylor stores through 2019.

Lord & Taylor was the first to create Christmas windows for entertainment, rather than for selling merchandise. It pioneered the animated window display in 1938.

More recently, Lord & Taylor was among the big-name retailers -- including Hudson's Bay -owned Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off Fifth -- that may be impacted by a massive data breach revealed in April. A cybersecurity firm estimated that hackers obtained more than five million customer credit and debit card numbers and put 125,000 of them for sale on the dark web.