One of the nice things about downtown Manhattan is that you can occasionally sort of blur your eyes and imagine that you're back in a somewhat less horrifying era. Of course, if you were back there you might find it more horrifying than you could imagine. I mean, the fifties had Senator McCarthy, and the roaring twenties didn't have a reliable cure for the clap, and the gay nineties probably weren't all that gay if you were gay. So maybe the simulation is better, in a way.

If you're at the Bowery Hotel you can imagine it's 100 years ago, but the A/C works. At the atmospheric and quirky restaurant Freeman's, on Freeman's Alley off Rivington Street, you can imagine you are at a speakeasy, which the joint once was apparently, but it's unlikely that the place will get raided and you'll be hauled off the slammer. It's the best of a couple of worlds. And I guess the same applies to their delightfully ragged Freeman's Sporting Club, the men's tailor and barber shop affiliated with the restaurant, at the corner of the alley and Rivington.

The atmosphere is great, with lots of quirky flotsam and jetsam and knick-knacks and thingamabobs to intrigue the eye, and a very nice selection of slightly quirky and rather excellent products on display. I wandered in yesterday and came out with two unstructured jackets, one linen and one jersey-dyed with Japanese indigo. The latter has stretch to it and fits like a glove, in a good way. Each jacket was under three Franklins, and the quality is aces.

Freeman's also offers a very handsome line of suits, off-the-rack or made-to-measure, at $2,000 and $3,000, respectively. The suits come in three fits: slim, standard, and full. They have a modern cut, are made from superb vintage fabrics, and are hand-sewn with full canvas construction in the heart of Brooklyn. The store also offers T-shirts, some very nice footwear, mostly moccasins and boots, some ties of fine fabric and perfect width, razors, natural bristle shaving brushes, leather bicycle seats, and more.

Somebody there likes Miller High Life:

Maybe some day I'll drop in and try the barbershop—such as when my guy is in Sicily for the month of August—but I thoroughly enjoyed the boutique. They were playing good music, too, and the sound system seems a perfect metaphor for the place, an iPod playing through an old tube amp.

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