Once a quaint group of shops, placed respectfully off to the west side of Union Square, the holiday market has grown stretching across the entire front of the park. Sidewalk space has been minimized and getting to the main subway entrance is now a challenge.
Although the shops are not yet open, the expectation is for the same proliferation of scarves, hats, silver and stone jewelry, and 'crafty' holiday decor. Retailing 101 would dictate that shops be placed in classifications, but, as the merchandise (assuming the content of previous years will predict the present) will be too similar to place together as the shops would fail to differentiate from one another. Instead there will be the repetitive string: warm-wear, jewelry, craft, warm-wear, jewelry, craft, and on and on.
It needn't be like this, but in the tradition of "milking a decent concept to indecency" it will probably continue to do so. The advice in a nutshell is that you can maximize your profit better by being selective in the shops that you allow into the array of red and white booths, rather than bastardizing and cheapening one of the better parks in the city by merely maximizing the number of shops.
Really, Union Square, do you want to become an oversize, overlong street fair? You're just one Mozarepa stand away from doing so.
