The Essence of New York City thing else a vast retail showcase in which "all the rich loot of civilization" was for sale.19 This was the facet of the city's personality that was consciously presented to Anastas Mikoyan when he visited New York in January 1959. Macy's—advertised as the world's largest WALL STREET FROM BROADWAY, 1834 Litho. by Peter Maverick after Hugh Reinagle department store—was the first stop in a day of activity which took the Soviet official to Wall Street, to the Waldorf-Astoria, and to a reception where he was introduced to leading representatives of the city's financial community. Meanwhile, his fellow countryman, the director of the Moiseyev ballet, was testifying in Moscow to the infectious tempo and commercial dynamism of the New York which he had viewed a few months before, lb this Soviet visitor, as to many a European before him, the profusion of wares to be found in the city's drugstores was one of the symbols of the commercial variety and resourcefulness of the Empire City. "One has always heard that you could buy many 18 J. B. Priestley, "Priestley Appraises New York," in New York Times, January 4, 1948. 408