The department store model has been collapsing for a long time. Penney’s is gone, Montgomery Wards is gone. Sears is circling the drain. And that’s just to name a couple. Meanwhile, back in the 90s, as loads of old line department store companies were failing, Macy’s (then known Federated Department Stores) was on a buying spree, converting them to Macy’s. Their main competitor in those acquisitions was May Company Stores. In 2005, May and Federated merged and changed the name to Macy’s Corporation. But the underlying trends that made all those acquired store lines vulnerable couldn’t be overcome by the alleged greater efficiencies of Macy’s. Plus they now had way too many redundant locations, cannibalizing each other’s sales. You have malls anchored by a Macy’s and a Bloomingdale’s, when they’re both the same company, paying huge overhead and staffing costs on two spaces and competing for the same customers. Dropping the Trump products was a splashy blip, but the writing was already on the wall.
The Federated Department Stores must have been local to your area. I've known Macy's stores my whole life. As I recall, the 1947 movie, "Miracle on 34th Street" featured Macy's quite prominently.