Do you believe in sick building syndrome? You know, where something inherent about the building makes you physically ill? I do, because the new JC Penney at Herald Square made me want to vomit.
First of all, it's in Hellish Square, the most un-New Yorky part of New York. I think its some kind of ill-mannered vortex to the netherworlds that I usually avoid at all costs. Secondly, they did a real half-ass job remodeling the building-- giant black and white tiles and walls slapped over former elevator entrances. Thirdly, the darn store is in the freaking basement, where it belongs.
To get there, you squeeze down the narrowest escalators known to man into the former A&S sub-levels, where the ceilings can't be more than 9 feet high. With the bright lights taking the ceiling height down another six inches, the air conditioning at brow sweat-inducing "barely tolerable" level, the music blasting and the "fashions" offending to any New York eye, I went dashing for the nearest exit, which happens to practically throw you on the PATH train platform. At least they got that part right.
And by the by, the Times writer who's being raked over the coals for calling the Penney's mannequins "obese" should get a Pulitzer for investigative journalism. I know the economy is bad, but are we as a city that desperate for tax dollars that we must act in some kind of group hysteria and pretend that JC Penney, the store that Lord & Taylor executives look down on, is a welcome addition to Manhattan's landscape, when we should in fact be chasing them out with pitchforks and torches?
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