christingther

Directly across 57th Street from the mahogany and marble hush of Tiffany jewelry, heroic size statues of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck in formal clothing doff their top hats to visitors.
Just to the east of Tiffany's on 57th Street, a five-story sneaker and apparel store, Niketown. A few blocks south on Fifth Avenue, Mickey and Minnie Mouse cavort on a marquee.
Clearly the neighborhood is changing. The corner of Fifth and 57th Street and a few blocks to the east were once the center of gravity for high-toned, high-priced shopping in New York. Ladies in Chanel suits shopped for accessories in Hermes and for Tiffany ring  at Van Cleef & Arpels. The carriage trade flourished.
Then the Warner Brothers Studio Store showed up in October 1993 in old bank and office space on the northeast corner of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue. At first it was a fairly modest, three stories, 30,000 square foot emporium selling mostly soft goods linked to Bugs, Daffy and Warner's immense collection of still and necklaces.
Entertainment retailing is taking the area by storm and reactions are mixed. Tourists and families with children loved it and Studio Store officials began looking upward. When the store reopened recently it had grown to nine stories and 75,000 square feet with a wider variety of merchandise and special floors for pendants, a cafe and candy store and a 74-seat viewing space for the screening films, including the first computer-generated 3-D cartoon feature, starring Daffy Duck and Marvin the Martian.