Empire Apparels

Holy Mitchell & Ness hats, Batman!
If you can’t make it down to Philly to shop at the Mitchell & Ness flagship store, you’ve essentially got the next best thing here at Empire Apparels. They have rows upon rows of hard-​to-​find throwback gear including shirts, sweaters, jackets, and so many hats it almost leaves you paralyzed due to the vast amount of choices. Seriously, one wall takes up roughly an entire ½ avenue and it’s lined with hats as far as the eye can see. If you can’t find your favorite team’s logo, it’s likely they don’t exist.
The best sports are revving up right this moment, so make sure you’re properly outfitted!

They have a wide array of caps and snapbacks, even those limited edition caps. Their staff was helpful but too bad they didn’t have the size I wanted but I’d still go back on my next trip to NYC. Grab a cap and sport your team.

If you’re into fitteds/​snapbacks — outside of the New Era Flagship Store, this is the other must hit in Manhattan — also known as ‘Fitteds By Chin’. Check the site:
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It’s pretty easy to miss amongst all the ghetto fabulous joints on Broadway. A selection that rivals the New Era store with plenty of retro snapbacks/​fitted and colour flips. Unfortunately, they didn’t have sizes in the hats I wanted. But if you just copped some sneakers and need the hat to match — this joint is your top choice.
And I thought ‘Fitteds By Chin’ was a play on words or some clever reference… it’s near Chinatown… and run by Chinese people. I assume this place is owned by a Chinese man… presumably named ‘Chin’. Don’t know why — but this was mildly disappointing. Eh.

If you like fitted New Era caps this is a must. They have a great selection of different teams in rare coloways, it’s just not all Yankees and Met’s caps like most stores. I got a cardinal red Seattle Mariners fitted with a gold logo, so fresh so clean.

This place is filled with hustlers only looking to make a sale, because once they make the sale it is practically impossible to get your money back even if the salesman lied to you about the shoes. My girlfriend needed boots to protect herself from the snow and the salesman guaranteed us the boots we were looking at would protect her for up to 30 minutes in the snow, sure enough 5 minutes upon wearing them outside her socks were wet. The next day, we went to return them and complain about the boots, they said they have already been warn and they wouldn’t refund them or exchange them. The manager said it was our problem, the employees don’t try on all the shoes and we should contact the shoe maker if the shoes were defective. How can someone guarantee you about boots they are not familiar wearing? Shouldn’t this store take them back and make sure to let all people buying these boots in the future know the boots are more for style than weather? Apparently not the sales is all that matters. So again don’t trust these guys!!! They will do anything they can to sell the shoe because once they sell it, they know you will not get your money back even if they lied to you

This is a great store for shopping for anything North Face and maybe Spyder. They have foot wear for sale too, though I haven’t paid much attention to those since I was there for the North Face backpacks.
They have more selection of backpacks then the North Face store on Wooster street, I was able to find what I was looking for. They also had a lot of North Face jackets too.
It’s pretty spacious here and the workers seemed nice and willing to help. I’ve also noticed something that looks like a row of fitting rooms near the backpack section, but I’m not sure if it is. Nonetheless, great place to check out if you’re in Chinatown and is in need of a North Face backpack or jacket.