COMING SOON: Brooks Brothers Heads Higher On Broadway

Brooks Brothers will be continuing its intriguing expansion program this Spring when it opens another Upper West Side branch at the corner of Broadway and 87th Street. The most recent occupant of this recently refurbished space was a pop-up store promoting Uniqlo's larger store openings this past Fall.

From the signage outside, we are guessing that this particular unit will be merchandised similarly to the one directly across town at 86th and Madison which carries men's and women's apparel, but focuses particularly on children's clothes. Brooks Brothers already has a more expansive men's and women's store near Lincoln Center, but the window imagery on this upcoming location suggests a sportier, more family-oriented location which would fit with the neighborhood (UPDATE: The window imagery reads: "Men, Women and Children" which should be a pretty telling clue). This will be the preppy retailer's eighth store in Manhattan including the specialized Black Fleece store on Bleecker Street, and the just opened Flatiron Shop near Union Square. Its neighbors will be other chains like Ann Taylor, Talbots, Club Monaco and Banana Republic, but Brooks Brothers should bring a new dimension to the West Side retail scene which leans heavily toward women's apparel. Even other chains that sell men's clothes in their other Manhattan stores like Club Monaco, Reiss, Theory and Rag & Bone eschew it in their West Side stores. Why this is, we have no idea, but on a long stretch of boutique-heavy Columbus Avenue, we recently counted only Burberry, Sean and longtime men's clothier Frank Stella as selling upscale men's apparel (and, no, we aren't counting Patagonia or Century 21). Perhaps Brooks Brothers' arrival on Upper Broadway this Spring will attract more men's stores to a part of town where there are plenty of men with plenty of money to spend.

Previously:
Now Open: Brooks Brothers' Flatiron Shop Courts The Collegiates