Best Custom Upholstery and Window Treatments

Martin Albert Interiors

9 E. 19th St., 212-673-8000; martinalbert.com

When you’re working without a designer, this is the place to go for custom-made upholstered headboards, window treatments, and slipcovers—and a staff willing to lend creative guidance. Fabrics are at least 30 percent off list here; with its own workrooms on the premises (meaning no middleman markup), the labor tariff isn’t stratospheric either. Prices are really one-off, but you’ll spend $195 plus fabric costs for a queen-size gathered dust ruffle; a classic balloon shade for a three-by-five-foot window is $395; and a queen-size upholstered headboard is $850.

From the 2007 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine

Competition breeds the best. If only one pizzeria existed in New York, of course, there’d be no real winning slice. Thankfully, we’ll never know what that sorry situation tastes like, since pizza—like dance parties, dog runs, and fried chicken—has to evolve upward here.