Bloomingdale's Anchors The SoHo Mall

Remember, kids, just in case you were thinking of strolling around SoHo this weekend. There will be even more rapid shoppers tramping downtown, what with the new SoHo Bloomingdale's at 504 Broadway opening tomorrow - though there's that pre-opening party anybody who has ever shopped at Bloomingdale's has been invited to tonight (if anyone goes and takes pictures, let us know - we're going to see 13 Going on 30). While the verdict is out whether or not this is a good move for Bloomie's or shoppers or SoHo, people are giving Federated props for enterprise chutzpah.

Store designer John Huska tells WNBC how this Bloomingdale's is still SoHo:

What we tried to do with the buildings was keep them as the texture of Soho and then interject Bloomingdale's into them. So that's why we left all the brick, we left the factory floor, we left the tin ceiling in certain places we left all those elements that are signature of Soho.

Signature of SoHo? That's a tourist these days. Which the store will get plenty of.

NY magazine has a comprehensive guide to the new store and its opening weekend festivites, possible even more comprehensive than Bloomingdale's own site. And the Times on the mallification of SoHo last week and last year.