"John Derian Company, an East Village home decor brand, is a maximalist fantasyland filled with delightful, strange, wonderful things, from cake-shaped candles and plush velvet turtles to 19th-century French market baskets. The block feels like a mini fiefdom of shops, with the original store, a furniture showroom, and a dry goods shop. Alongside Derian's own charming decoupage paperweights and decorative dishes, the main store stocks marbled ceramics and incense by Astier de Villatte, kooky Italian candles shaped like frosted layer cakes or wheels of cheese, and matchboxes too pretty to keep hidden in a drawer." - Andrea Whittle