If there's anything that could make New York City's Fifth Avenue busier than its usual crowd of tourists, it's the extravagant window displays that emerge for the holidays.
Every year, stores begin to deck out their windows for the holiday shopping season. Typically, the displays are unveiled in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, but the preparations can begin as early as February, according to a New York Times article.
Retailers began investing in holiday window displays in the late 19th century to attract shoppers during the year's busiest shopping season. Macy's is credited as the first department store to decorate its windows — at its previous 14th Street outpost between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
Eventually, many stores decked out their windows for the holidays with the goal to outdo one another. Before American author L. Frank Baum wrote "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," he published a trade magazine called "The Show Window" to showcase the best displays in New York and Chicago. In an issue from 1897, an article highlights the job of a window gazer — someone who is paid to stop in front of a store's windows and draw a crowd of spectators.
During the Great Depression, Lord & Taylor used animatronics to turn its window displays into a free show for New Yorkers who couldn't afford the theater, according to tour guide Lucie Levine. As windows became more complex, retailers hired experts, and even artists like Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol tried their hands at window dressing.
Business Insider took a stroll along Fifth Avenue to see the holiday windows and ranked each store based on how creative, festive, and elaborate they were.