Today
Today, Canal Street is a bustling commercial district, crowded with low-rent (compared to other Manhattan real estate) open storefronts, and street vendors to the west; banks and jewelry shops to the east. Canal Street is also the main Chinese jewelry business district of Chinatown. Tourists as well as locals pack the Canal Street sidewalks every day to frequent the open-air food stalls and bare-bones stores selling items such as perfume, purses, hardware, and industrial plastics at very low prices. Many of these goods are grey market imports and many notoriously counterfeit, with fake trademarked brand names on electronics, clothing and personal accessories (including the fake Rolex watches that have become a Manhattan cliché). Illegally produced CDs and DVDs are very common, and offered for sale on the Canal Street sidewalks in makeshift stands and suitcases or simply laid out on bedsheets, often before they are even officially released in stores or the theater. Widespread sale of these counterfeit goods persists along Canal Street and in its hidden back rooms despite frequent police raids.
Read more about this topic: Canal Street (Manhattan)
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