Sarah Barrell advises on the best places to spend, eat and rest in her adopted city of New York.
Since the mid 1990s, when New York lifted strict zoning law restrictions limiting the number of chain stores in one area, Midtown in Manhattan has become more like the Midwest, with dull franchises predominating.
Well-heeled local shoppers head to the very north of Midtown bordering the bottom end of the Upper East Side (around Madison Avenue) for the classier stores – think big-name designer houses with thousand-dollar price tags and bouncers on the doors.
Sarah Barrell 