Go Suck an Egg, Design Within Reach!

Design Within Retch. Those "well-meaning," Dwell-reading San Francisco snobs behind Design Within Reach (the patronizing factor in their "design-news"-minded e-mail updates is not to be missed) have taken over the perfectly respectable middlebrow prefab home storefront that was once Portico, on Broadway and 20th Street. Trading petit-bourgeois for bourgeois, in fact, seems to be the real-estate maxim of middle-Broadway these days, as delis give way to places with names like "Tisserie" and Tom Colicchio perpetually threatens to turn the strip into his own personal Wylie Dufresne's Clinton Street. Here's a pic of what happened to the admittedly annoying Portico, as the transformation of Broadway between Union and Madison squares into the Middlebrow Immeubles center of Manhattan continues apace. Can someone sic Paul Fussell on these people? Anyway, soon enough Kirstie Allie will be swanning around in soft focus among cleverly concealing palm fronds on DWR television commercials, and then we'll have our quiet revenge without these full-Diesel-ensemble-wearing jerks even knowing it's happening. - Tom McGeveran