Empire Outlets hopes to skim off some less single-minded shoppers, who are happy to idle away an hour at the Gap after a refreshing ride through New York Harbor. Outlet centers offer such thrilling bargains that millions of tourists budget a full day for Woodbury Common, including the three-hour round trip by bus from Manhattan. For many foreign visitors, the whole country is a giant discount mall. But outlet malls are cheaper and more resilient, especially in a metropolitan area where they can surf rising tides of tourism. It may seem suicidal to build a big new mall at a time when retail is floundering, once lively New York avenues look like a depression has passed through, and even bold new bets on “experience” shopping haven’t paid off. Entire fleets dedicated to postindustrial leisure and transportation bob into the slice of water framed by the stores: ferries, water taxis, jet skis, sailboats, tour boats, and the occasional yacht. From its landscaped plazas lifted above the flood zone, with pop-up seating and tall grasses waving from planters, you can watch the occasional freighter slip by, its deck piled high with shipping containers. Its chief appeal is the location, a vineyard-like set of terraces stepping up from the Staten Island Ferry terminal and beckoning to the courthouse and law offices up the hill. You wouldn’t think that proximity to water would make much difference to the experience of buying a T-shirt, but it does.īrine is the secret ingredient in New York’s newest shopping destination, Empire Outlets, a discount mall on the north shore of Staten Island that is opening in stages, with a July 4 party and Nordstrom Rack up next. The mere sight of waves supercharges otherwise ordinary forms of leisure: dining, drinking, jogging, reading - and shopping. The water’s magnetic draw persists even more powerfully today, now that sugar refineries, sawmills, chemical plants, and shipbuilders have mostly given up their claim to the urban shoreline. In the opening paragraphs of Moby-Dick, Melville describes the strange tug of the waterfront, the crowds of working men and women who, sprung from their shops and desks on a weekend afternoon, drift from Manhattan’s upland blocks down to the piers and quays.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |