MUG provides its expert opinion today on what should have gone into the new Shops at Time Warner AOL Time Warner Time Warner Center, and really, who can argue with any of them? (Scroll down to “On the Radar.”) I’m generally a fan of Borders, even over B&N, but Coliseum Books is the best, and wouldn’t it have been nice/natural/nostalgic for it to have a location just blocks from where it had lived as a Manhattan mainstay for so many years?
Happily, he doesn’t try to replace the new Whole Foods which is just fantastic enough to make me give Fresh Direct a little less business each week. The weekends there are still hell, but the ridiculously long, winding line that goes from the registers past the body shot, past the cheese, around the coffee, by the olives before taking a turn at the bread and continuing by the refrigerated prepared food only to u-turn at the sushi and head back from whence it came still moves quicker than any line at Fairway. And when I was there early this week in the evening, it was busy but not crowded, and getting through the register took no time at all. Plus, if you didn’t know there’s a Jamba Juice there, hidden in the dining area, well you should definitely try it. While it does unnerve me a bit to see all these California (especially SoCal) mainstays encroaching on Manhattan, when they’re good … they’re good.
Out of Focus 