Consumers of counterfeit branded products may be dupes or they may be shrewd shoppers, but they are also communicators; people who demonstrate literacy in the meanings attached to certain symbols in the marketplace both of goods and ideas.

Confidence Games On Canal Street
By Vincent Carducci

One sunny Sunday afternoon in May a well-dressed woman in her late 60s shops on Canal Street in New York City. She’s with what appears to be her granddaughter, a girl of 10 or 12. She stops to look at leather purses being sold out of a large black plastic trash bag by a vendor at the corner of Greene Street. The woman looks at different colors—black, blue, red and white—slinging the purses over her shoulder, turning one way and then other, asking the child’s opinion of each.

After a bit of imaginary play as to what the various bags might look like while being carried, she selects the white one. It features the distinctive diagonal stitching and opposing interlocked double Cs of the Chanel trademark design. The woman haggles with the vendor, eventually handing over a $20 bill. With the new purse safely tucked away in a small plastic bag, the woman takes up the child’s hand and they go off in search of ice cream.

Tourist guides tout Canal Street as a free-wheeling shopper’s paradise, overflowing with goods available at below-bargain-basement prices that are always negotiable. It’s especially noted as a place to find designer products: purses marked with the Louis Vuitton and Coach logos, perfume identified as Chanel or Calvin Klein, and all manner of accessories bearing the distinctive Burberry plaid. But for the most part, these items are counterfeit, and violate US intellectual property law governing the use of trademarks, patents and copyrights.

Taking Stock of the Field
Canal Street cuts clear across lower Manhattan, connecting the Manhattan Bridge on the east with the Holland Tunnel on the west, providing a direct route from Brooklyn, Queens, and farther out on Long Island to New Jersey and then beyond to the rest of the American continent. Midway between the bridge and the tunnel, Canal intersects with Broadway, one of the world’s most celebrated avenues. The area surrounding the corner of Canal and Broadway is gritty, filled with the noise of traffic and the sounds of human activity. The smell of diesel exhaust mingles with the scent of grilling meat. The streetscape is a montage urban decay and renewed metropolitan life.

The intersection is a threshold for two of New York’s more affluent neighborhoods, Tribeca and SoHo, and one of its enduring and still growing ethnic enclaves, Chinatown. Laurie Anderson’s loft is down on Canal to the west, Bono’s is a few blocks north. To the east, illegal immigrants sleep in shifts, sometimes in bunks stacked three high, with only a rucksack hung by a nail containing all that they own.

The main market for counterfeit branded goods on Canal extends one or two blocks on either side of Broadway, depending upon whether you’re on the north or south side of the street. The area is accessible via the entire New York City subway system with one transfer. There are also municipal and tour-groups buses that serve the area throughout the day. People come from all over to shop among the neighborhood stalls and street vendors, attracted in part by the area’s carnival-like atmosphere. The market offers relief from the “McDonaldized” nature of modern consumer society, a place to escape the predictability of brightly lit, climate-controlled suburban shopping malls.

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