Fake Lifestyle to Replace Real Lifestyle

Are there any more horrifying words in the American language than these: "Lifestyle Store"?

I mean, what the hell sort of culturemart marketing jibberish is that? Well, whatever it means, Michael Kors is opening one on the site of Jerry's, the fine upscale diner that has graced Prince Street in Soho these past 20 years.

Jerry's was a trendy place, no question. In it's heyday, you had to wait an hour to partake of Sunday brunch, cooling your heels with every quasi-artistic, rough-and-smooth scenemaker in Soho. But it was also a comfortable, personable place once you got a seat, and the food was always dependable. It had an indefinable "New Yorky" quality to it. What's more, now that the art scene that it once serviced has moved north to Chelsea, Jerry's functions as a reminder of a better time when Soho's cultural pulse was beating, before the chains and droves of shoppers descended. "The Original Soho Restaurant" it called itself.

Kors won't be moving in until spring 2008, so there's time to catch lunch one more time. Something about the simplicity of Jerry's blue neon sign always touched me somehow.