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First Look: Brookfield Place
Most of the stores at Brookfield Place, as the World Financial Center is now known, are open. And it looks very nice! Here’s a quick tour, along with a few notes; I’ve included the stores that aren’t open yet. P.S. Can we avoid complaining that it’s a mall? Of course it is!
Notes:
1. Loved seeing local favorite Babesta there! The big, beautiful store is like a mash-up of Babesta Threads and Babesta Cribz, with new merchandise and exclusives.
2. I was surprised how many stores have another presence in Soho.
3. And a hearty welcome to Posman Books! The manager said they’re excited to service the local market, too, since that was less of a priority at Grand Central.
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Around the Winter Garden
Bottega Veneta, as you come up the escalators from the World Trade Center.
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Heading to the right: Gucci and Tory Burch.
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Around the other side: Satya Jewelry.
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On the ground floor: Omega, Hermès (the signage says Hermès Parfumerie—is the store dedicated to perfume? And wait, I think it’s on the ground floor. I’m getting confused).
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The view from the top of the staircase. The “Soft Spin” installation is pretty—the skirts gently spin—but the sound wasn’t on yet.
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The other half
Does this part have a name? You know, where the Chinese restaurant used to be? The West North Pavilion?
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Upstairs along the eastern side: Vilebrequin, Bonobos, Judith & Charles, Calypso St. Barth, Posman Books.
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A seating area facing Goldman Alley. You’re nowhere near food, so I guess it’s for shopping fatigue.
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Upstairs along the western side: Babesta, Cos Bar.
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On the ground floor of the West North Pavilion: Vince, Diane Von Furstenberg, Lululemon, Michael Kors, Paul Smith, J. Crew (half men’s store, half women’s), Theory.
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And it’s good to see P.J. Clarke’s again!
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Finally, two exterior shots: from the plaza and from Vesey Street.
34 Comments
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Le District?
Suburbanization of NYC continues.
Sigh. Thanks for reading the text.
It was a mall before this latest renovation.
It’s a mall? So what? :-) It was a mall before and now it is a much better one. The same for the upcoming Westfield WTC and Pier 17. They were malls before and they are being greatly improved and will be welcomed by the community. What’s ever better though, is that more street level retail is coming throughout the Financial District as well. The new stand alone mega Gap store opened at 170 Broadway yesterday, Urban Outfitters is at 180 Broadway. Zara’s will open soon at 222 Broadway and Anthropologie is expected to open at 195 Broadway. Nordstrom is widely expected to take the retail base at One Wall Street. Other street level retail will come at other spots along Broadway, at the base of 28 Liberty (Chase Plaza), 70 Pine (AIG) and 55 Broadway, as well as the former home of J&R among many other spots. The retail revolution is not geared to just one corner of the neighborhood. It is happening throughout downtown and its great to see.
Yup. Malls are great… in the suburbs. NYC isn’t a suburb. Anyone wanting to live near a mall has plenty of opportunity to do so elsewhere. I love NYC and I love that it’s become family-friendly and safe. I just don’t want it to turn into Dubai – where diversity of people, economic status and, yes, retail is gone. Do we really need another Gap, Zara and Urban Outfitters?
I get that you’re trying to sell condos in FiDi but it’s also ok to allow people to disagree with your vision of a renewed FiDi that looks like Paramus.
Of course you can disagree. I’m simply providing the other side. And I sell all over Manhattan but I LIVE and LOVE downtown and, yes, I love all of the new retail, restaurants and the new movie theater too. And so does almost every other owner that I know down here. :-)
That’s what’s great about NYC – you have options. Want to shop at Hermes outdoors? Hike your ass up to the UES then. Don’t like malls? Don’t go to Brookfield Place then.
So NYC now only has options to shop at Hermes outdoors or in a mall? Sorta making my point about suburbanization.
I’m not really sure what your alternative would be. Its the ground floor of an office complex; its not as if massive blocks of the East Village or Bed Stuy have been torn down for a mall. It was a mall before. And I’ll happily shop there on my way home on a weeknight to avoid the throngs of people in Soho on the weekends.
If you don’t like it, then get straight onto the PATH and go back to Jersey and complain there.
YES, we do need Gap, Urban and Zara among others (like Uniqlo, H&M, etc). Most people can’t afford to do all of their shopping at Hermes, Zegna and Tom Ford though I am still very happy that they are in the neighborhood as well. Once again a reminder, that all three of these malls were here before and one (the WTC mall) was incredibly successful and will be again. The other two had to go back to the drawing board and I think they have done a phenomenal job with the the repositioning. I would just ask that you wait to see what they’ve actually done before you criticize. You may be very pleasantly surprised.
i think the bigger point is that when we see big retailers come in it displaces small business owners. in the past, that’s what’s given NYC neighborhoods its fabric and charm. i’m not against big brand names and huge retailers but i would like to see it more proportionate to local biz. sadly, i think that train has left the station.
Ah yes. The old mom and pop shops of Battery Park City. It’s really losing its original charm now.
Remember when BPC was the Hudson River…those were the days-it had all the New York charm and character you read about.
i was responding to the thread above my comment which had expanded beyond BPC to lower manhattan…but good to see new yorkers haven’t lost their snarkiness – there’s that charm!
Quelle surprise. Brookfield built a mall. The great American game is — sadly — no longer baseball, but shopping. It doesn’t say much for us anywhere. But if that is who we are, then of course smart people build malls. It is better than a construction site and offers better restaurants than most malls. Let’s hope Brookfield uses some of the profits to bring back the sailing school and to continue the slightly offbeat entertainment programing.
People need to think before just blindly hating on something because that’s currently the cool thing to do. Just because it’s “a mall”, doesn’t mean it’s bad. The alternative would be to have a bunch of offices that are empty and deserted by 5 pm and ghost towns on the weekends. I think it’s great that I now have another option to get out of the apartment and do something even when the weather might be less than ideal.
And if you don’t like the “mall”, just don’t go and pretend it’s an office building. That shouldn’t affect your life in any way whatsoever.
It has. New York has always been a beacon of change and this is just the latest iteration.
“Beacon of Change” can’t be used to describe something that follows trends. The only thing that’s consistent about NYC is its evolutionary trajectory. The motivational factors behind this force today arguably do not take the values of all of New York City into account.
I would ask the Financial District’s real estate fan-boy what exactly he loves about the subarket.
EVERYTHING! :-) Read my FiDi Fan Page on Facebook and you will quickly see why I love this neighborhood so much. It’s success is important not just for those of us who live here but for the city and country as a whole. We have rebuilt a neighborhood left for dead and have not just recreated it, but have made it a true 24/7 thriving community that is already among the city’s finest. We should all be happy about what’s happening down here.
I’m not taking a stand in this because it’s a multivalent situation that offers many pros and cons and I can see them all clearly. I also appreciate your enthusiasm, even where I don’t completely agree with your points. But one thing that I will take issue with is that this area was ever “left for dead”. I don’t know where you might have gotten that idea. I’ve lived here nearly forty years, and I’ve never seen an ebb in activity or any trend in that direction. It’s always been growing, thriving, changing, moving forward. It was injured very badly, but from my (long) view that just slowed things down for a short period.
Where do you live, pray tell? What do you like about it? How is that affected by a mall opening in BPC?
I’ve have already answered you. Go to FiDi Fan Page on Facebook. I’ve never loved living anywhere more than the Financial District and I’m excited to see the neighborhood as it turns into New York’s newest 24/7 Community.
I wasn’t responding to you.
It’s a good use of space, I suppose, but I will not shop there. Appreciate the reporting, but I am not impressed with Brookfield Mall.
There may be a lot of fancy stores here, but we at Posman Books thank Brookfield for supporting a local, family-owned independent bookstore. Do you think we can afford the rents these national brands are paying? Of course not! We are in Brookfield Place because they wanted a bookstore and they were prepared to offer us an affordable rent. So maybe Gucci and DVF and Paul Smith are helping support independent bookstores by paying just a little bit of our rent too….
Wow, really? My pre-conceived notions about monolithic Brookfield have just been turned upside down. Good on them! Looking forward to stopping by soon.
I live in BPC and am not in the demographics for any of those “fancy” stores. But I am so pleased that Poseman Books is there! Remember folks, an independent bookstore is a thing to be treasured. And they can and will order anything for you and usually get it in a very short time. Use it or lose it!
In fact, I went the other day looking for Jon Ronson’s “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed”—Posman didn’t have it yet but they offered to hold a copy for me and call me when it came in. Picked it up today.
Wishing you all the best with your new store.
>>We have rebuilt a neighborhood left for dead . . .
It’s hard to remember now the really scary predictions after 9/11 about how all the businesses would start moving elsewhere–midtown, Jersey–and downtown would be a ghost town. While I really liked the “deserted” weekends, it’s also a relief that things are working out differently than predicted.
BTW, has anyone else noticed the sign on the right as you’re entering from South End with all the arrows pointing in the wrong direction? I can’t imagine why they don’t at least cover it up until they can make new signage.
Glad to hear about the bookstore. Brookfield however did punt aggressively on Boomerang toys–a very locally owned small business. And they pushed out the Sailing School, also very locally owned. I won’t give them a full pass.
Personally I don’t care if everything is dead/calm at 6pm. I don’t really have much appreciation for the bustle brought on by shopping at high end retailers. What is the point?
What we can expect is thousands of more tourists coming to the 9/11 memorial and then walking over to Brookfield place. The tour buses are already idling in our streets illegally and the draw of high end shopping and a french market will turn the neighborhood into Time Warner Center meets Times Square.
Why can’t someone say, “lets split this large store that only displays 6 shirts at a time into 3 tiny cramped stores and let some non cookie cutter businesses in?” Is it really financially impossible to keep/cutivate small local businesses in the neighborhood?
I became the idiot who comments before reading the post. Guilty