The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, (212) 708-9400, 4pm-6pm every Friday, free.

But simply boasting a Soho address isn’t always enough for some retailers.To M.A.C. Cosmetics, which operated a storefront on 113 Spring Street for more than 15 years, foot traffic appeared enviously higher throughout the nearby Broadway corridor.

“They were definitely leaving some money on the table by not having all the footfall that Broadway provides,” said Robert Cohen, 39, a Robert K. Futterman & Associates retail broker who represented M.A.C. Cosmetics in its move earlier this year to Broadway.

Robert Cohen.

The New York-bred broker, who carved a niche by bringing luxury brands and big-name designers to Soho, said he spent two years canvassing Broadway on behalf of M.A.C.

“We probably exhausted five or six other opportunities along the street over the last two years.”

Among the buildings Mr. Cohen and the Estée Lauder brokerage team looked at were 496 Broadway and 518 Broadway. Given the pride M.A.C. Cosmetic takes by offering customers an interactive shopping experience—its sales people double as make-up artists—Mr. Cohen sought space boasting a minimum width of 20 feet, “to really lay out the store.”

The new Soho space also had to be interactive: The ability for potential customers to peer through the store’s Broadway window from the sidewalk—“like an open kitchen,” said Mr. Cohen—was a high-priority throughout the two-year scavenger hunt.

In the end, M.A.C. chose a three-story ground-floor space on 506 Broadway totaling nearly 3,000 square feet that abuts Bloomingdale’s Soho, among the neighborhood’s most trafficked clothing stores.

Currently, 506 Broadway is under construction and set to open in 2012, two years after M.A.C. Cosmetics opened its flagship New York City store in Times Square.

“We felt like we got just an amazing three-story building,” said Mr. Cohen, who divides his time between New York City and Los Angeles, where he lives.

“We got the entire building.”Since launching his retail brokerage career, Mr. Cohen’s list of clients has rapidly grown to read like the first 40 pages of advertisements in Vogue: Polo Ralph Lauren, Swarovski, Diesel, Montblanc, and Giorgio Armani, to name a few of his most prestigious retailers.

Still, he has a soft spot for Soho, a neighborhood he first began exploring in the 1980s and 1990s after landing assignments from designers like Todd Oldham, Cynthia Rowley and Isaac Mizrahi. After all these years, he remains bullish on Soho and its retailers.

“Right now, Soho is cycling back big time,” he said. “Soho is nothing short of amazing.”

Indeed, from a landlord’s perspective the neighborhood has been performing well.  Availability rates have continued to drop to 4.2 percent, down 1.7 percentage points from the previous quarter, according to a recent Manhattan retail report by Cushman & Wakefield.  Average asking rents, meanwhile, jumped by $33 to $301 per square foot.

The recent additions of Tiffany & Co., which signed a 7,000-square-foot lease that will combine 97 Greene Street and 106 Wooster Street into a unified space, and Lacoste’s new storefront on 541 Broadway also helped boost the area’s allure.

The Soho of today is a far cry of the Soho of yore. When he began his career at Edward S. Gordon, and later when he was at Helmsley-Spear, the ground-floor spaces across Soho were often used as apartments for artists, and often illegally, as the spaces were not zoned for residential use. There was also a good deal of manufacturing in the area.

“I remember walking into some of my first stores back in the mid-’80s and seeing steel plates in a lot of the hardwood floors to support the floor load for a lot of these machines that were there,” said Mr. Cohen.

But peeling back the metal floor plates and the industrial facade revealed beautiful Corinthian columns and 18-foot ceilings—even skylights that seemed ideal for commercial use.

His first clients shared his enthusiasm for the neighborhood: They were either Soho-based or wanted to relocate south of Houston Street. When he first started at Helmsley-Spear, he set out to learn that market inside out. Around that time, a wave of up-and-coming designers who considered themselves artists showed interest in basing their showrooms and stores in Soho, itself an artists colony.

Mr. Cohen said he cut his teeth learning the real estate business by working with these designers and helping them find new spaces.

“That’s what got me started, and 27 years later I have done over 75 deals in the Soho market as well,” said Mr. Cohen. “I have worked all over the city and all over the country, but I have such a great sense of pride for Soho and love that market and any chance I get to work there is very exciting.”

From Soho, Mr. Cohen graduated to bigger deals, like helping Old Navy land in all three of its city locations, putting Diesel in its largest flagship store on Fifth Avenue, and leasing 25,000-square-feet to Prada for its Rem Koolhaas-designed Soho store.

He’s worked with Ralph Lauren Polo for 20 years, the Gap for the past 18 years, and Estée Lauder for the past 15 years.  He worked with John Varvatos in the designer’s first deal, and helped bring the designer to the former CBGB club space on the Bowery.

Last year he estimates that up to 40 percent of his deals were done in Los Angeles, where Mr. Cohen has lived with his family since 2002. But the deals are not as lucrative as the average New York City deal.

“In L.A., you need to make twice as many deals—three times as many deals—to make nearly what you make in New York,” he said.

Mr. Cohen is now focused on helping Robert K. Futterman, a chairman at the eponymously named RKF & Associates, increase the firm’s reach throughout the United States.

“We feel there is a lot of legs with our brand to help it grow across the country,” said Mr. Cohen.

drosen@observer.com

On their website, Japanese fashion brand Uniqlo is running a campaign of "New York Faces" to celebrate their new flagship store in midtown. Among them is Mr. Karp's shiny, bright, innovative mug:

With it is a video! Mr. Karp discusses building the "perfect platform for self-expression," and within that, a nice little diss on that other social network:

"On the web today, there are very few tools that are designed for personal expression or creative expression, and identities that people are really proud of. It's really easy to create an identity on Facebook, but their identity is more of a business card."

BURN, kind of. He also speaks of listening to mentors who he shrugged off early on, and learning to deal with "world-ending disasters," which has more to do with network outtages than global catastrophe. Just remember: this man innovated the blog post. Imagine what he can do for Blue Steel. Heed the warning signs throughout the land: Banana Republic-wearing llama, watch out. David Karp is coming to take all your cashmere modeling jobs.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

"It's so important, and also increasingly difficult, to expose people to roller skating these days," said Mr. Casalino, who has skated two or three times a week since 1988.  "There are so few good places to skate."

But, until September 26th, there is one new rink, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and James Corner Field Operations. Situated on "The Lot," the Highline's temporary 40,000-square-foot plaza on 30th street beneath the Highline, the roller rink joins food trucks Rickshaw Dumplings, Eddie's Pizza, Coolhaus, La Bella Torte, Korilla BBQ, and Red Hook Lobster.

The Highline split the cost of constructing the rink with UNIQLO, a Japanese clothing company with a SoHo flagship.  Two UNIQLO cubic booths stand in front of the rink, filled with t-shirts and cashmere sweaters.  But in yesterday’s heat, UNIQLO couldn't attract the long lines away from Coolhaus, which served gourmet ice cream sandwiches, or La Bella Torte, which was advertising its iced cappuccinos.  The store had only sold two sweaters, a saleswoman told The Observer-- both to Susan Sarandon, who dropped by for the ribbon cutting early in the morning. "I think it's too hot for anyone to buy cashmere," said UNIQLO's store manager.

Tripping over their rental skates, couples skated around the rink with ice cream sandwiches from the Coolhaus truck.

But they were amateurs, implied Kathy (who didn't want to reveal her last name because she had taken a personal day to go skating). The serious skaters were boogieing in the center of the rink.

A class of summer campers marveled at the Central Park Dance Skaters' Association, which had decided to assemble for an inaugural spin around the plaza.  "You have to practice for many years to get that edge, that flavor," said Steve Love, a member of the Association and founder of Love Productions, which has produced, among other things, a roller skating show that toured the world.

"Roller skating is my heart," he said. "I was rockin' it out there!"

"I used to play a lot of basketball, but there's just no competition within my age bracket," said Robert Clarke, 60, who wore a red shirt with "Swag" written on the front in giant letters. "This uses all the muscles in your body, so all the impurities leave, and you maintain a youthful appearance."

Although the Highline offers rental skates, the Association skaters brought their own. "I cheat," said James Singley. "I put roller blade wheels on my roller-skates, which makes for much sharper edges."  He hoisted his foot onto the railing to show off his skate/blades.

But most skaters were concerned with remaining upright, let alone creating sharp edges to their turns.  They stumbled into the railings, reveling in the nostalgic goofiness of the activity. “It’s been so many years since I’ve roller skated,” said Tami Laifer. “I’m so excited!”

And Jeremy Bent, a comedian who has worked as a roller derby referee, said that the rink fills a void. New York once had many rinks, but most closed due to lawsuits, gang violence, and a lack of demand. He’s thrilled with the new rink. “In the summer, there’s nothing better than skating,” he said.

Minimalist clothing designer Jil Sander’s +J collection for Uniqlo debuted this morning and the line stretched down Broadway from Spring to Prince Street, and stayed that way, with people waiting as much as an hour and a half to get first dibs.

“I obviously can’t afford the real stuff,” said one customer, Stephanie Judge—who added she was at Uniqlo doing “research” for work but refused to explain what that meant. She had waited in line for an hour and 40 minutes. “Wait, wait, no, I’m with her!” Ms. Judge shouted, indicating a companion, as a security guard tried to block her entrance.

Ms. Sander’s collection, which includes both men’s and women’s clothing, dragged people away from other daily responsibilities.

“I actually have a class at 12:30,” Marcus Oda, a first year law student at N.Y.U., said. “So I’m getting a little nervous.”

People were let in ten at a time, and could only buy five items because of limited supplies.

“It’s exciting. I feel like these are collector’s pieces,” Fawnia Chang, a fashion blogger, said. She admitted to being more of a Uniqlo fan, but still she showed her support for Ms. Sander, buying a long gray winter coat, a cardigan and skinny jeans after waiting for an hour and a half. “Don’t tell my husband,” she whispered.

Ms. Sander’s ready-to-wear clothing usually sells for several thousand dollars per piece. The +J line ranges from $19.50 for shirts to $149.50 for outerwear. Get shoppin'!

The fashionistas behind men’s wear collective Loden Dager are this week’s guest bloggers on T Magazine’s Web site. Today, the New York-based designers—Melissa Vail, Matthew Sandager, Oliver Helden, Paul Marlow and Alex Galan—wrote in during their road trip to Georgia, where they’re hoping to find some good ol’ inspiration.

The idea for the trip, they explain, was born when their pals in a band called The Great Lakes—an indie rock group now based in Brooklyn—invited them down for New Year’s. The designers soon realized that Athens, Ga. might be the perfect place to see physical manifestations of the inspirational concepts Loden Dager’s been exploring lately—specifically “images from the American 1940’s—W.P.A. artists, and texts like The Grapes of Wrath.” Flexing a little literary muscle, they write: “The sleepy college town abandoned by all but the locals also seemed like the perfect backdrop against which to do a shoot our spring collection.”

From there, the fearsome fivesome detail their exploits, charioted southward in an S.U.V. rented in New York. From Cabela’s sporting goods store in Philly, they made their way across the Mason-Dixon line, where “two compact rainbows resembling flying saucers greeted us.” Trippy times two!

Aside from waxing poetic on the sights and sounds of the American South, the design team has also been casting a few models here and there. They write: “[I]t’s interesting how nobody says no when you offer to make someone a fashion model, even if it’s just for the day.”

In two weeks, Loden Dager, which launched in late 2006, will be previewing their Fall 2008 collection in Paris. That show falls shortly before they must prepare a full presentation for New York Fashion Week in February, when their Spring 2008 line will be hitting stores. This coming May, Loden Dager’s capsule collection for Uniqlo debuts.

Fast Retailing, which is known in the United States for its cheap-chic clothing store Uniqlo, announced early this morning that they would not attempt to match Istithmar's $942.3 million offer to buy Barneys.

"We won't make another proposal," Fast Retailing spokesman Takashi Igarashi told Bloomberg in a phone interview.

The Japanese firm had until 5 p.m. on Thursday to make one last pitch for Barneys.

With seven hours left to go until the sale became official, Istithmar CEO David Jackson refused to accept victory so soon. "We still have a lot of clock watching to do," Mr. Jackson told The Observer, declining further comment until 5:01 p.m. today.

Istithmar--which means "investment" in Arabic--is controlled by the ruling family of the tiny sheikhdom of Dubai. That city has staked its future on large developments, including the world's tallest tower, the Burj Dubai, which is supposed to be finished in 2008, and a hotel and apartment tower by Donald Trump.

Perhaps, then, ownership of such a trendy, higher-end brand like Barneys fits in smoothly with the ruling family's present course of bigger, flashier, better.

The bid-up for Barneys certainly shows how coveted it was. As Bloomberg reported:

So how did Istithmar beat that with a $942.3 million bid? Since Istithmar had the original deal with Jones, Barneys is liable for a termination fee if they go with Fast Retailing, meaning Fast Retailing's number has to be higher by some millions to beat an Istithmar number.

As part of its latest bid, Istithmar also raised the termination fee from $22.7 million to $34.7 million.

Istithmar's plans? According to Bloomberg:

UPDATE: At 5:31 p.m., Jones Apparel announced that Fast Retailing's counter-proposal time was officially up. "As such, Jones is moving forward with the sale of Barneys to affiliates of Istithmar PJSC," according to a statement.

But who really came out on top? "The winner is Jones!" declared deposed Barneys heir Gene Pressman, grandson of company founder Barney Pressman, in an email to The Observer on Thursday.

"Seeing [that money] go into somebody else’s pocket instead of my family’s is a little annoying," said Mr. Pressman, whose family lost control of the company amid bankruptcy proceedings in 1999, during a previous interview.

UPDATE: At 5:51 p.m., Istithmar finally announced victory.

"Securing Barneys is indeed a major win for Istithmar," said CEO Mr. Jackson, who attributed the outcome to Istithmar's "laser-sharp focus on this deal."

Executive Chairman H. E. Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem called Barneys "a unique global asset with incredible growth prospects within the luxury market."

"We intend to grow the company in the US and in international markets," he said.

According to Reuters:

The retailer is competing with the Dubai firm of Istithmar. Executives from Fast Retailing would not say whether they would revise their Barneys bid upward if Istithmar, which has bid $825 million, ups the ante.

• Reuters