Retailers are closing stores on Madison Avenue in the recession because they can’t afford the rent. This includes label we covet Jil Sander. In January, the label shut its doors at 1042 Madison Avenue, between East 79th and 80th Streets, but not because it couldn’t afford the space. It’s moving down the street to a better space at 818 Madison Avenue, between East 68th and 69th Streets, also known as the Gold Coast of Madison (the area between East 57th and East 72nd Streets). The new store opens tomorrow, but will only be open for a couple of years because the label wants to open an uptown store that looks more like the downtown Jil Sander store on Crosby Street. It is unclear why it couldn’t accomplish this in its new Gold Coast digs, which you’d think it would want to hold on to. Madison Avenue’s other tenants should consider themselves lucky that Jil Sander moved down the street. Brash, colorful places like Topshop could snap up these vacant spaces, which would not only bring downtown uptown, but would rip the fabric of Upper East Side life to shreds, put Olivia Palermo in a padded cell somewhere, and scare all the fur-coated ladies from venturing out to buy $200 Dolce & Gabbana socks for their husbands. Then this city would really be screwed.
