The Year of the Collab; W. 96th Street's Retail Turnover

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EVERYWHERE—Our sister site rounds up the ten best collabs of the year, including Prabal Gurung for J.Crew (above). Was this the year of the collaboration? Nicki Minaj and Prince might say yes. [RackedWire]

UPPER WEST SIDE—What is going on with W. 96th Street? West Side Rag points out that retail is disappearing from the strip faster than the Prabal collab disappeared from jcrew.com. The culprit: Rising rents, possibly due to the new subway station at 96th and Broadway. Gourmet Garage, for example, chose to vacate after the landlord planned to hike the rent by over 50%. Without a major tenant, the landlord decided broke the space up into smaller stores, which turned out to be a wise move: All of the spaces have now been rented. [West Side Rag]