Chinatown

First of all, I would like to address something that other reviewers have been saying: the smell. Does Chinatown smell bad? Yes. Yes, it does. It smells like fish in the summer. But almost every inch of New York smells like rotting garbage in the summer, and I don’t think Chinatown is significantly worse.

That said, there are some extremely unpleasant things about Chinatown. The crowds are tremendous, and tremendously annoying. If I have to watch another woman from Wilwaukee stand on Canal Street dickering over the price of a fake Chanel bag, I might bite her. And Chinatown isn’t limited to Chinatown; it bleeds into surrounding neighborhoods, like Little Italy and Tribeca.

But off of Canal Street and off Elizabeth Street and off the other major thoroughfares, Chinatown can be a fantastic place to shop. There is produce there you won’t find anywhere else in the city. And most of it is significantly cheaper and of better quality than you’d find else where in the city. If you ever need galangal root, you now know the place to go. It’s also a great place for cheap home goods. One of my favorite things to get in Chinatown and my main reason for going at all, is for the ridiculously cheap fabric to be found. While the selection is not quite as extensive as the garment district, the amazingly cheap prices more than make up for it.