The Limelight Marketplace

If you live in NYC or plan to visit soon, you have to check out something really special.

The Limelight Marketplace.

For those of you who don't know The Limelight, you are probably better off. It's an old old church that was converted into a dance club back when dance clubs were all the rage in Manhattan. The place had many lives as it was closed down and reopened several times for various reasons. When I was in grad school at Columbia I will admit that I danced the night away there once or twice. And in later years too.

It finally closed down for good and it's been pretty much abandoned ever since. Whitney Houston filmed her video for "I'm Every Woman" and Mariah Carey has done a shoot or two there as well. The place has history!

And now it has been completely reinvented into something quite spectacular. The Limelight Marketplace. Now you need to get to know it.

It's Fred Segal hits Manhattan in an old abandoned church (how's that for a visual)! Knowing the space from the last time I was in it, I was totally expecting a run-down flea market look. Boy was I surprised.

The place is transformed! Floor after floor and cubby after cubby of small little retail boutiques, from caviar to clothes to furniture to accessories to beauty products to small gifts. Incredibly well designed and styled HIGH! It feels like it just keeps going and going. And not just the brand names you've come to expect -- really new and different merchandise.

I think this just might be the wave of the future, at least in high end retail. It's the department store, revamped and restyled for how consumers shop today for specialty items. And you know what? People were buying!

What's your experience? Jim.