Sellers expect buyers to haggle. Don’t accept the first price offered.New York has everything: great theater, great restaurants, great museums—and great diamonds…for cheap.
• Of all the diamonds entering the United States, 90 percent of them come in through Manhattan’s Diamond District, a one-block stretch of West 47th Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues) that’s lined with buildings full of diamond merchants. It’s one of the six major centers of the world’s diamond industry. (The others are London, Antwerp, Johannesburg, Mubai, and Ramat Gan, Israel.)
• About 2,600 independent businesses operate in the Diamond District. But not all of them are actual stores—most are just booths in the 25 jewelry “exchanges” (institutions organized for the trading of diamonds and gems) scattered throughout the buildings on the block. Each exchange can house as many as 100 separate dealers, all with their own selections of merchandise.
• When dealers in the District sell to each other, they usually complete the transaction with a handshake and the traditional Yiddish phrase “mazel und broche,” meaning “luck and blessing.” Even in transactions that involve millions of dollars, there are rarely formal written contracts. In spite of the seemingly casual organization in the Diamond District, a single day’s business can average $400 million.
• The diamond merchants sell to regular people, too, and according to many accounts, shopping in the Diamond District is like looking for a used car in a low-budget lot. According to one man who went there for an engagement ring, “The sellers—many of which have a thuggish quality to them—can be very upfront and aggressive…the salesmen are ubiquitous and will not simply let you browse. Some will even stand out on the street and openly solicit you for business if you so much as slow down near their door.”
• So why shop there at all? Cost. In the Diamond District, buyers often pay half (or less) of what they would at a retail jewelry store.
• Buyers beware: A 2010 New York Post investigation found that booths in the jewelry exchanges can be rented for as little as a day, making it difficult for buyers to distinguish shady dealers from reputable ones. Still, some of the biggest names in the diamond industry do business in the District, including the Gemological Institute of America and the Diamond Dealers Club.
Average number of feature films shot on location in NYC each year: 250.
• Merchants sell other kinds of jewelry besides diamonds. Gold bracelets, gold earrings, pearls, rubies, and other precious metals and gems can all be bought there.
• Some tips for shopping in the Diamond District:
Sellers expect buyers to haggle. Don’t accept the first price offered.
Many won’t take a check or credit cards. Bring cash.
The “handshake” system is only for merchants. As a buyer, you should always get a receipt.
Buy either a diamond that comes with a certificate of authenticity or one that the seller will allow to be certified on the spot. The exchanges all have appraisers who will certify a diamond for about $50. All deals should be contingent upon the diamond being appraised and certified.
Usually, the most reputable diamond dealers have shops not at street level, but on higher, more secured floors. So they can be hard to find. To locate them, you may need some sort of “in.” (Basically, you have to “know a guy.”)
Watch out for trickery; disreputable merchants have been known to show a certificate for one stone while selling another. Others try to pass off synthetic stones as natural ones. According to one New York City blogger, buyers in the Diamond District need to remain alert and vigilant, do plenty of research before they go, and “know what they are doing!”
Every years since 1925, the E. W. Scripps Company has sponsored the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. Only two New Yorkers have won: Tim Kneale of Syracuse, in 1976 (winning word: narcolepsy); and Rebecca Sealfon of New York City, in 1997 (winning word: euonym).
Because of New York State’s high use of mass transit, it is ranked an excellent 46th among all states for greenhouse gases generated per person.