Subway Santa, Broadway, New York City, 1987 Photograph by Jodi Cobb

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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