Ciesse Q.

Commerce

Runway Couture Out; Bailed-Out Bank In.

I regularly wait for the bus across the street from the darkly gleaming, formidably spare bi-level Jil Sander store on Madison between E 79th & 80th. In recent weeks a new CitiBank branch has moved in.

I always looked upon that Jil Sander storefront with a mixture of serene aesthetic appreciation and bitter class-consciousness: the designs are almost egalitarian in their minimalism, the prices extravagant and thus far from affordable. Now that a bailed out bank rolls out yet another spanking new branch, it's hard to decide which business is the more unaffordable -- though I've no doubt which I prefer to have stayed.

1042 Madison St., New York, NY