
Canal Street (
the main drag running through Chinatown) usually looks like this...

But this Tuesday it looked like this...

The Chinatown counterfeit merchandise business has changed since I moved to NYC. Fifteen years ago the Canal Street shops openly displayed counterfeit merchandise with the actual brand-name logos on it (
Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc.). The police just ignored it - saying they had bigger and better things to worry about.
But then the major fashion houses started pressuring the city to crack down on the counterfeiters (
which costs them billions of dollars in revenue). And the city responded ... forcing the "really good" counterfeits off the street and behind closed doors. After the crackdown, store-owners displayed "similar but not exact" reproductions - but not actual knockoffs. Brand names such as "Channel" are common.
Now - if you want the "good stuff" - you have to go on a little bit of a mission. When you hit Canal Street you'll see Asian women carrying signs with pictures of "real" (
LOL!) "designer" bags. If you want a "real Gucci" or a "real Chanel" bag, you point to which one you want.

The women will size you up (
trying to determine if you are a police officer) - and if you pass muster they'll take you to a secret location. Many of these places are separate warehouses where you are literally locked in (
to prevent police raids) before you can make purchases. Others are just back rooms behind the regular storefronts.
My friend's elderly mother went down to Chinatown about a year ago (
she was visiting from Houston), and found herself in one of these warehouses. As she was negotiating with a gentleman over the price of a bag, people started yelling - and the Chinese "staff" of the building took off running. My friend's mom didn't know what was happening, so she ran after the guy yelling "But I want to buy that bag!!!!". Luckily the police didn't bust HER.