CHELSEA MARKET UPDATE: Anthropologie Takes Shape

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There has been lots of new activity lately down at the Chelsea Market, but the biggest change will come next week when Manhattan's fourth Anthropologie store opens. It is slated to begin accepting customers next Friday, April 2nd, and from what we can tell from a sneaky look through the craft paper covering its windows as well as a quick peek through an open door, it's gonna be big.

Unlike most of the market's other stores, it will have a street entrance on the corner of 9^th Avenue and 15^th Street, and if our glimpse through the doors is correct, there is a sizable staircase leading to a heretofore unseen downstairs level of the space.
What has caused the most consternation at the Chelsea Market, however, is not the store's size, but the fact that it is a national chain encroaching on a complex that most understood to be dedicated to local, independent food purveyors. We tend to hope that Anthropologie's presence is more a solution to difficult to lease space (it was previously a flower market) than a new more open leasing policy where our beloved locals would have to compete with national chains. After all, we'd hate to see the Fat Witch brownie shop (home of our favorite free sample tray) squeezed out by a Cinnabon.