This article explores the role of 1850s palace hotels in articulating a modern space of consumption. Considering the case of the St. Nicholas Hotel (1853), it argues that palace hotels did so in three ways: first, by anchoring a female-friendly urban district devoted to shopping and to amusement; second, by providing innovative retail shops on their ground floors; and third, by acting as showrooms for the latest manufactured goods. The businessmen who owned hotel and retail palaces deliberately set out with extravagant displays to stimulate demand for goods, especially among women. How did this feminine consuming public impact contemporary social life? © 2010 by The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc.