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Subway Santa, Broadway, New York City, 1987

Photo: Man in Santa suit walking into New York subway station

Though Macy's in New York City takes credit for inventing the department store Santa, most historians give the honor to a store owner in Massachusetts. Scottish immigrant James Edgar first impersonated Saint Nick in 1890 for customers at his dry goods shop in Brockton, south of Boston. Here, a crew of off-duty Santas makes its way down the steps of a subway station on Broadway in New York.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Broadway, Street of Dreams," September 1990, National Geographic magazine)

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Photograph by Jodi Cobb