"Down the street," he says when he sees the address. "But why would you want to go there?" he adds with a slight grimace, pressing a card into my hand. "The bargains are here," and he gestures to his store, Global International. "Famous Designer Menswear," a sign in the window says.
It's a neighborhood where contrasts fill every block, in a part of New York where old and new converge in dizzying counterpoint. Farther north on Orchard, across Delancey, we find the address we're looking for, DDC Lab, windows artfully scribbled with white paint as though a graffiti artist had run amok. Inside, the men's and women's clothing is artful, too, and though a nifty white coat from an Italian designer in a techno fabric is intriguing and on sale, it's too small for anyone we know. Everything else in here and in most of the boutiques we poke into is definitely designer chic, and not bargain priced. Only blocks away from the leather stores and five pairs of women's hose for $5, it's a world apart.
After years of staying in midtown on visits to New York, it seemed time for a new point of reference. I had traveled the long blocks to restaurants on the Lower East Side by taxi, and I had wandered the ever-glitzier shopping areas of Soho. But I had never truly walked the neighborhoods in the lower part of Manhattan -- and if you don't walk New York you'll never discover its wonders.
So for a quick visit with my teenage son, I booked a modest hotel in Tribeca and set about to explore. To get to the Lower East Side from Tribeca, you traverse big swaths of Chinatown. A brisk walk in early morning means threading through workers unloading giant bags of shellfish and women with net bags choosing bok choy and cabbages from outdoor markets along Mott and other streets. Along Bowery, the restaurant supply-store signs advertise stoves and giant pots, and little noodle shops are already filled with customers slurping their morning meal.
