COLUMBUS AVENUE’S MYSTERY CLOTHING STORE REVEALED

Posted on June 21, 2012 at 1:44 pm by West Sider

We’ve already established that Columbus Avenue below 72nd Street has become a slightly downscale version of Madison Avenue in the past few years, with Helmut Lang, Burberry Brit, Theory, Paige Denim and more opening within a few blocks of each other.

Now, the avenue is poised to get another women’s clothing store, as Variazioni prepares to open on the corner of 68th Street and Columbus. The store, which has been boarded up during construction, was a mystery for months — our sources confirmed it would sell women’s clothing but not which store would be coming.

But a construction worker told our tipster Sarah this week that Variazoni was coming and a rep at the company’s 72nd Street store (between Columbus and Amsterdam) confirmed it. For decades that space held Great Farm deli, which closed late last year.

This will be Variazioni’s 12th store in the city.

One other funny thing about the store: someone hung a framed photo of a house in the country on the door of the construction site, an idyllic little image in an otherwise ugly space. In some ways, it reminds me of the Upper West Side’s sticker bandit.