Urban Outfitters to celebrate a bygone New York

It’s not every national retailer that would go out of its way to celebrate mom-and-pop shops. But Urban Outfitters has always operated a bit outside the norm, particularly with regards to its store designs. Now comes word that the company’s new store on Manhattan’s Upper West Side will be designed to resemble a series of independent shops, with four distinct (and false) storefronts: a hat store, a hardware store, a neighborhood bar and a bodega. The store, on Broadway near 100th Street, is due to open by fall.

The design is by Pompei A.D., New York City, which has designed countless stores for the Urban Outfitters brand and Anthropologie division.

"The whole idea was to do this kind of ironic statement of lining the building with storefronts that would be reminiscent of independent businesses," Ron Pompei, creative director of Pompei A.D., told The Wall Street Journal. "It's the story about the streets of New York as they once were."