Brand Loyalty

Per its Instagram announcement, McNally-Jackson’s new Rockefeller Center location is an “effort to resurrect the lost tradition of grand, Midtown bookstores.” On the wintry afternoon I visited, the clean white walls, gold text, and ambient jazz combined with the occasional flash of a red sprinkler pipe to facilitate an elegant perusing experience. A few construction gaffes—gaps between wood panels, exposed nailheads, an awkwardly installed handrail—occasionally took me out of my reverie. But no matter: The shop’s best moment is the playhouse modeled after 30 Rockefeller Plaza in the children’s section. Hidden in the back, it’s a great spot to sit, flip through a self-help book, and contemplate why you, a nearly thirty-year-old, are sitting in a bookshop playhouse on a Saturday afternoon.