The UES stretch of Madison Avenue is home to an A-to-Z of designer boutiques, from Armani to Zimmerman. It’s not all haute couture, however. Zara, Lululemon, and Anthropologie are among the popular apparel chains with outposts here. Gracious Home, Jonathan Adler, and Davis Designs are among the stores that will ensure your home looks as chic as you do. And you can easily spend an entire day exploring the neighborhood’s numerous antiques shops and art galleries.
If the Upper East Side were one huge outdoor mall, then Bloomingdale’s would be its anchor store. The fabled department store has been on 59th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues since 1886. Within its 815,000 square feet you can buy bedding and handbags, perfume and jewelry, tableware and furniture, and of course apparel and footwear galore. Need a pick-me-up amid all the shopping? Grab a glass of bubbly at its Studio 59 restaurant/bar or a cupcake from its outpost of Magnolia Bakery.
Credit: Ajay Suresh/Wikimedia
To call Zitomer a drugstore is akin to calling beluga caviar fish eggs. Yes, Zitomer has a pharmacy, but its three floors are also a trove of luxury beauty and wellness products as well as a great source for gifts. While getting a prescription filled you can pick up Clé de Peau moisturizer, Fracas perfume, an Alpine Cashmere shawl, a Balmain blow-dryer, Hanro boxer shorts, Botot toothpaste, a Gund plush bear, Lipault luggage… you get the idea.
Credit: Zitomer
Sotheby’s may be synonymous with auctions of fine art and grand estates, but the company has during the past few years expanded to offer fixed-price jewelry, furnishings, and more online— and since May 2021, in the lower level of its York Avenue auction house. At Sotheby’s Emporium you can browse and buy from an ever-changing assortment of authenticated luxury goods, from limited-edition Mont Blanc pens to Fornasetti plates, first-edition books to Hermès bracelets, Yeezy sneakers to the occasional Porsche.
Credit: Sotheby’s Emporium
Also opening this past spring was the new flagship of luxury footwear brand Manolo Blahnik. The four-story shop seems like a slice of Paris transported onto Madison Avenue, with its vintage chandeliers, lavish moldings, and lacquered walls. There’s even a bar in the men’s sections, though women are welcome too if they want liquid refreshment to celebrate finding the perfect suede stilettos or bejeweled mules.
Credit: Manolo Blahnik
Having an independent bookstore in your neighborhood is something of a luxury these days. The Upper East Side is lucky enough to offer several, including Kitchen Arts & Letters (which specializes in cookbooks and other books about food and drink) and La Librairie des Enfants (children’s books in both English and French). Shakespeare & Co., however, is a full-service bookstore, as well as being the official college bookstore forHunter College, which is across the street. Among the shelves and stacks of best-sellers, textbooks, backlist titles, kids’ books, and Hunter College gear there’s a café. Most impressive is the Espresso Book Machine, which can print on demand books from a catalog of more than 7 million titles.