Best New Business

Let's see. Tiffany's or the anarchist bookstore? When we were trying to decide which new store was this year's best, it all came down to what was behind the glass. And though the Plaza's newest crown jewel undoubtedly flashes some blinding carats in its cases, the Crossroads Infoshop and Radical Bookstore's display has hotter property. The choice between a collector's edition of Mao's little red book or an Australian pink diamond isn't an obvious one, but no one will have to take out a second mortgage to splurge on a bumper sticker that reads "There's no government like no government" or "Don't vote -- it only encourages them." At the Infoshop, which is staffed entirely by volunteers and only recently acquired a telephone, bookshelves teem with lit promoting organic farming, collective activism, the labor movement and sweet, sweet anarchy, and the magazine rack seethes with subversiveness. The store sells T-shirts, CDs, DVDs and buttons, but reading time on its couch doesn't cost a dime. Every world-class city needs a radical bookstore, right? After all, where gems fall short, proletarian feminism is a girl's best friend.