Storefronts: Blights

1 Dunkin’ Donuts
2 Chain banks
3 Irish pubs
4 Duane Reade
5 Cell-phone stores
Blights 6–10

Fast-food joints are supposed to look aggressively cheerful, but there’s something nauseatingly artificial about Dunkin’s colors—they’re not just orange and mauve but Halloween-pumpkin orange and bad-’80s-sweater mauve. There are 399 outposts in the city, with 44 more planned. It’s an unstoppable plague: Each neon branch of this Massachusetts-based chain saps NYC of its own rich visual history, one Munchkin at a time.

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1 Dunkin’ Donuts
2 Chain banks
3 Irish pubs
4 Duane Reade
5 Cell-phone stores
Blights 6–10

Even if they dispensed candy and booze, we’d hate these utilitarian cash shacks for their corporate chill. Worst offender: Chase, whose new branches look futuristic, in a RoboCop-ish Omnicorp-owns-everything kind of way.

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1 Dunkin’ Donuts
2 Chain banks
3 Irish pubs
4 Duane Reade
5 Cell-phone stores
Blights 6–10

Buy some fresh green paint, a faux-Gaelic font and a couple of big-screen TVs, and presto! Epcot Ireland, all over NYC! For a true sight, try Blarney Stone (340 Ninth Ave between 29th and 30th Sts, 212-502-4656).

View all of our storefront picks (at least one location) on a Google map.

1 Dunkin’ Donuts
2 Chain banks
3 Irish pubs
4 Duane Reade
5 Cell-phone stores
Blights 6–10

We don’t expect a place that sells antifungal foot spray to look like a Modigliani, but considering that Duane Reade is New York’s No. 1 drug chain (over 230 stores) and is named after two NYC streets, we’d hope it would have a little city character. Instead, it could be right at home next to a Piggly Wiggly.

View all of our storefront picks (at least one location) on a Google map.

1 Dunkin’ Donuts
2 Chain banks
3 Irish pubs
4 Duane Reade
5 Cell-phone stores
Blights 6–10

You’ve got two kinds: the brightly lit megachains (which look like souped-up RadioShacks. Classy!) and makeshift indie branches, with bad fluorescent lighting and three random chargers pinned to the wall. We miss phone booths, graffiti and all.

View all of our storefront picks (at least one location) on a Google map.

1 Dunkin’ Donuts
2 Chain banks
3 Irish pubs
4 Duane Reade
5 Cell-phone stores
Blights 6–10

6 Manhattan Mall
Sixth Ave at 33rd St
It may have been cutting edge in 1989, but this soul-crushing, rundown megacenter—like the “crappy” mall in your mom’s neighborhood—is stuck in a visual, pink time warp.

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7 McDonald’s
Those tacky yellow beacons that herald processed meat and mold-resistant fries make us see red.

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8 Au Bon Pain
The obtrusive yellow awnings splattered throughout the city can put you off your breakfast. Besides, the sandwich “artists” pronounce Caprese like “Caprice”; if they can’t tell a sandwich from a Chevy, you know you’d best keep walking!

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9 PC Richard & Son
PC Richard, and whoever his son is, sure do love America. The red, white, and blue–strewn storefronts can turn a Manhattan street into a Midwestern town on the Fourth of July—but with vacuums instead of fireworks. Ooh, vacuums! Ahhh!

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10 U.S. Post Offices
Don’t think, USPS, that just because you have the old Penn Station’s sister at Eighth Avenue and 33rd Street, you can get away with your monotonous gray storefronts and “we know you have to use us, so we can’t be bothered designing anything decent” posters. No wonder your counter clerks are cranky.

View all of our storefront picks (at least one location) on a Google map.