A Distinguished Shopper's Guide to Brookfield Place

As a general rule, the soul of a shopping mall consists of the high schoolers who loiter therein. But very few teenagers are to be seen at Brookfield Place, the new-ish luxury mall located in the downtown office complex formerly known as the World Financial Center. A few brainiacs from nearby Stuyvesant High School hit up Sprinkles for cupcakes, and handfuls of tourists drop into Gucci to upgrade their handbags, and that’s about it. Rather, the roles of teenagers are played, one lunch hour at a time, by the young Wall Street power players who work 12-hour days in the offices above the stores.

Here, the fantasy world of self-indulgence overlaps with the actual world of material splendor. The names on shopping bags and security badges blur into an upmarket downtown hum: American Express, Hermès, DVF, Merrill Lynch, Michael Kors, Condé Nast, Bank of America, Bottega Veneta, Time Inc., Lululemon. There’s a BlackBerry kiosk where the Sunglass Hut ought to be.