That Old Feeling: Where I Live

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When we tell our charges that were taking them to a McDonalds, their faces dont light up until they see it: the Taj Mahal of fast-food joints, at 160 Broadway. Outside, a doorman in formal dress greets you; most evenings, MacTonight, a tuxedoed gent in a crescent-moon mask, dances as if he were on a stage four miles up the street. Inside is a Deco duplex, with spaceship chandeliers, 20-ft. mirrors, marble tables, fresh flowers, table service. A stock market tickertape girdles the recessed second floor. In a niche above the front doors, a gent at a baby grand piano plays classy old favorites. For a touch of elegance, adds the $1 brochure-coloring book available at the gift store upstairs, we serve capuccinos, espressos, danishes and fruit tarts from Dumas Patisserie on black plates and silver trays.

To most Americans, Century 21 is a real-estate conglomerate. To knowing New Yorkers, its the worlds best department store, where designer frocks and menswear — and shoes and kitchenware and bedding and those Sony ICF-S10 transistor radios I cant live without — sell for 50% to 80% off. Just about everything my wife and I wear comes from her kamikaze forays into the stores weekend mob. It pleases me that some people come from L.A. to shop there, and astonishes me that there are Manhattanites who pay an extra $2,000 for the same dress uptown, where they can be cuddled and cozened by shopgirls of a slightly ritzier mien than the multicultural bevy at C21. The store disproves the capitalist imperative that one commercial success breeds many imitators. C21 knockoffs should be springing up in every big city, but, go figure, the outfit is a New York exclusive.

Among my other down-downtown haunts: a Borders, the nearest book store to me, that fulfills the huge but welcoming conglomerati image of the Tom Hanks chain store in Youve Got Mail; its where Id get books when I couldnt wait a week for the Amazon.com delivery. Even better, because funkier, is J&R, the nations ninth largest electronics retailer, and all stores at one location: Park Row, down the block from City Hall. My TV-VCR and Sony Discman, and all the eight-, nine- and ten-hr. blank video tapes I need for illegal duping (strike that), come from J&R. Some day, perhaps when TIME.com starts paying me by the word, Ill get that Phillips Plasma Screen TV set thats on sale for $10,000 or so.

A few weeks ago in this space, I noted that Id bought a DVD player for $120. Immediately I heard from Ralph Spielman, who runs the magic-carpet concession at TIME Travel. $120? What a goyische price! You wuz robbed! I got mine for $80. I asked where. J&R, he said, as if there were no other answer. Usually, there is not. But J&R, a few blocks from the blast zone, was closed for six weeks after the WTC attacks.

Osamas raid put quite a dent, sometimes literally, in the business profile a few blocks below us. Borders, in WTC Building 5, is a charred crater now. The McDonalds at 160 Broadway is still standing, but the Dumas pastries are gone. And due to a slump that not even the weekend hordes can allay, the franchise has laid off MacTonight, the doorman and the pianist. It was them or some of the counter staff, I was told by the pleasant blond behind the gift shop counter, who serves as saleswoman and grief counselor at large. In answer to a comment by a family of visitors, she said, Im down here every day and I still dont believe it.

Century 21 had a great location — until Sept. 11. The main store is just across Church Street from Tower 1; it and most of its block have been closed down ever since. Now the building is clothed in a very un-chic maroon dropcloth. Lights shine from a few third- and sixth-floor windows. A message on its website reads: As soon as it is humanly possible we will go to the building, assess the damage and plan to begin the arduous task of rebuilding any damaged areas. In the meantime, smart shoppers, go to C21s Bay Ridge outlet, just an R-train ride from Manhattan. A neighbor tells us that theyre so eager to unload their bulging inventory, theyll practically pay you to take the shmattas off the racks. Youll do yourself and a great New York institution a big favor.

THE SHRINE AT GROUND ZERO

The blocks around the World Trade Centers burnt carcass have become a crime scene, a shrine and a resort destination. And a celebrity photo-op. It seems that every twentysomething sitcom star guesting on Letterman has a dewy anecdote about visiting the brave people at Ground Zero. My Hudson Street neighbor Jeff Silver wonders: How do these kids get onto the site? Who decides whether some actor or athlete has a big enough name to be photographed ladling out soup to rescue workers? Whos in charge of the velvet rope at Ground Zero? And when will Tribecans and other neighbors be granted the same privilege?

For now, the death chamber is off-limits to the rest of us, as is most of the Battery Park City area I love to walk through. So last Saturday I joined the crowds of tourist-mourners, mostly families, who trudged their way down Broadway, past the Chinese vendor peddling FDNY caps and Pokemon socks; past the Au Bon Pain shop that announces it is Celebrating the Spirit of America and certifies this sentiment by brandishing an American flag (its our new corporate logo); past the endless, selfless expressions of good will painted on banners, printed on T shirts. Wisconsin Loves N.Y. Oregon Loves N.Y. We Love N.Y. (on a Canadian Maple Leaf). God Loves N.Y. I Love N.Y. More Than Ever. An Italian flag hung on the iron fence outside St. Pauls Church reads: We Could Forgive But Not Forget. Since the attacks, St. Pauls has been a center for rescue workers. On a door inside the front gate, a hand-scrawled sign attests to samaritans working weeks of overtime: Foot Care.