A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from February 24, 2006
Counterfeit Alley (Canal Street & Midtown Manhattan)
"Counterfeit Alley" is the name of any place that sells counterfeit (fake) goods. Yes, that $5 "Gucci" bag or $5 "Rolex" watch can probably be found there. Some of the products sold on "Counterfeit Alley" are illegally manufactured (with the "Gucci" or "Rolex" name added without authorization), while some products are legitimate but stolen merchandise.

Where is "Counterfeit Alley"? There are a few of them. Canal Street and the areas surrounding it in Chinatown is said to be a "Counterfeit Alley." Parts of the fashion district in midtown Manhattan (the 30s) is another "Countefeit Alley." Counterfeit goods are widely sold in the Bronx and Queens and Brooklyn as well.

"Counterfeit Triangle" is a nickname for the same Canal Street area that was used in 2008.


Boston (MA) Globe
A shadow economy of fake merchandise
By Cecil Johnson, Knight-Ridder | January 1, 2006

Knockoff: The Deadly Trade in Counterfeit Goods
by Tim Phillips
Kogan Page
246 pages, $29.95
(...)
Phillips takes the reader around the world to some of those dark alleys and bustling bazaars where counterfeits are dispensed both surreptitiously and in plain view. The tour includes:

Counterfeit Alley in midtown Manhattan and the Canal Street area, where suburban shoppers and shopkeepers come to load up on fake designer handbags and clothes.

Steven Swain
Monday, February 06, 2006
Locked down for knockoffs
N.Y. landlords are paying the price for allowing tenants to hawk cheap fakes.
By David B. Caruso
Associated Press

NEW YORK - Things move fast on the grubby, half-mile strip of Canal Street on the edges of the city's Chinatown, famous as a black market for counterfeit designer handbags, fake watches, and pirated compact discs.

Customers come and go. Peddlers sell wares from racks and stalls that can be packed up and moved in a hurry. Just who is selling what changes daily.

With so many moving targets, companies and lawyers battling the city's booming knockoff trade - some estimates put it at $23 billion annually - are increasingly taking aim at the only people standing still: landlords.
(...)
In 2003, New York City officials began using public-nuisance laws to sue the owners of buildings in Manhattan's wholesale district, nicknamed "counterfeit alley" for its markets of questionable merchandise, tucked away in warehouses and office buildings.

Familiar Discussions
Monday, February 06, 2006
Counterfeit Handbags and Terrorism by: Cathy Feldman
In most major cities in the world, there is an active and highly profitable shadow economy in phony consumer goods that generates (in some estimates) upwards of 500 billion dollars a year. If have ever been down to "Counterfeit Alley" in midtown Manhattan, you have seen one of the biggest counterfeit marketplaces in the world.

New York (NY) Daily News
Seized duds going to Katrina victims
(...)
The T-shirts, pants and sweatshirts, which are being donated with the companies' permission, were all seized along "Counterfeit Alley" - a stretch of Broadway in the 20s and 30s in Manhattan known for its counterfeit warehouses.

Only seized clothes will be making the trip south. Handbags and other fashion accessories will be destroyed.

David Saltonstall
Originally published on February 2, 2006
Posted by {name}
New York CityStreets • Friday, February 24, 2006 • Permalink


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