When the newest Fifth Avenue blockbuster flagship opened in mid-October, a line of rabid shoppers snaked all the way down 53rd Street to Sixth Avenue to get inside. But despite the store's prestigious address, the masses weren't salivating for limited-edition $5,000 handbags or $20,000 diamond baubles.Rather, the retail outlet was Japanese fast-fashion brand Uniqlo, selling $9.99 skinny jeans on Manhattan's equivalent of the Champs Elysee. With Uniqlo joining Zara, Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister, H&M and Gap, the mallification of Fifth Avenue was nearly complete, driving the old guard of upscale shoppers to distraction.
"I thought we got rid of Disney and the NBA Store, and we were going to get some grand, luxury emporium," sniffs Hayley Corwick, the Upper East Side blogger behind shopping site Madison Avenue Spy. "Things were looking up. And all of a sudden, it was Hollister and Uniqlo. It's mystifying. The walk from Bergdorf to Saks used to be a dazzling window shopping experience, and now I find it a little more like the new 42nd Street."Fifth Avenue has been the city's most extravagant residential street for 150 years, ever since Caroline Schermerhorn Astor announced its arrival by moving to the corner of Fifth and 34th Street in 1862.
As the moneyed class proliferated or Coach Factory Outlet Retailers, a tony shopping district soon followed, with Bergdorf Goodman and Lord & Taylor's flagship stores opening in 1914 and Saks Fifth Avenue debuting 10 years later.For decades, the stretch between 49th and 60th streets was one of the most expensive in the world, dotted with high-end boutiques such as Cartier, Henri Bendel, Harry Winston and Louis Vuitton. Perhaps its most celebrated shop is Tiffany & Co., where Holly Golightly dreamed of finding a more glamorous life — and the man who'd pay for it all.
2011年12月19日星期一
2011年7月11日星期一
Cholera Surges in Haiti's Central Plateau
Cholera Surges in Haiti's Central Plateau
An old man with sunken cheeks is so dehydrated he must be carried down the dirt lane to a clinic where the air is thick with the odor of bleach. Minutes later, a worried father enters, carrying a two-year-old girl in a frilly white dress, her eyes sunken and unfocused.Small steps see shoe sales soar.
Such scenes are once again common in Haiti where a deadly cholera epidemic that swept the country last fall has returned, fueled by weeks of heavy rains that have helped spread the waterborne bacteria that flourishes in the country's rivers and rice fields.
The treatment center in Mirebalais, a dusty crossroads town a one-hour drive north from the capital, Port-au-Prince, is again seeing dozens of new patients a day, many arriving at the edge of death from dehydration.
The center saw a fivefold jump from April to May and it hasn't let up since, said Louise Ivers, senior health and policy adviser to the U.S.-based Partners in Health, which runs the clinic in association with the Health Ministry."When people come here, they're in critical condition, ready to die," said Francole Adonis, who registers the new arrivals at the center. "They're collapsing in the yard. The situation is horrible."
The number of new cases each day spiked to 1,700 day in mid-June, three times as many as sought treatment in March, according to the Health Ministry. The daily average dropped back down to about 1,000 a day by the end of June but could surge again as the rainy season develops.The epidemic began in rural Haiti last fall, likely brought by U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal. It swept through the countryside of an impoverished nation already overwhelmed by a January 2010 earthquake that left hundreds of thousands homeless and by political instability following disputed elections.
An old man with sunken cheeks is so dehydrated he must be carried down the dirt lane to a clinic where the air is thick with the odor of bleach. Minutes later, a worried father enters, carrying a two-year-old girl in a frilly white dress, her eyes sunken and unfocused.Small steps see shoe sales soar.
Such scenes are once again common in Haiti where a deadly cholera epidemic that swept the country last fall has returned, fueled by weeks of heavy rains that have helped spread the waterborne bacteria that flourishes in the country's rivers and rice fields.
The treatment center in Mirebalais, a dusty crossroads town a one-hour drive north from the capital, Port-au-Prince, is again seeing dozens of new patients a day, many arriving at the edge of death from dehydration.
The center saw a fivefold jump from April to May and it hasn't let up since, said Louise Ivers, senior health and policy adviser to the U.S.-based Partners in Health, which runs the clinic in association with the Health Ministry."When people come here, they're in critical condition, ready to die," said Francole Adonis, who registers the new arrivals at the center. "They're collapsing in the yard. The situation is horrible."
The number of new cases each day spiked to 1,700 day in mid-June, three times as many as sought treatment in March, according to the Health Ministry. The daily average dropped back down to about 1,000 a day by the end of June but could surge again as the rainy season develops.The epidemic began in rural Haiti last fall, likely brought by U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal. It swept through the countryside of an impoverished nation already overwhelmed by a January 2010 earthquake that left hundreds of thousands homeless and by political instability following disputed elections.
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