I am interested in shopping in New York City, and I'd particulary like to find areas that have small, original boutiques. I'm not really interested "franchise"-type places that I can find in other areas. I will be staying in Manhattan. Any ideas? Greenwich Village, perhaps? Help, please.

Check out Citysearch.com. It's a web site that really give you an intimate portrait of NYC - thousands of merchants in NYC purchase web sites to show off their stores and these sites are all located within Citysearch. Plus, the Citysearch writers put up new articles every day. www.citysearch.com

You can also try www.sidewalk.com. You'll probably have better luck finding "boutique-type" shops in the Village and SoHo.

Thanks, Alex and Jill! I'll look up those two sites right now!

Try Century 21 in lower Manhattan (across from the World Trade Center). It has lots of discounted designer clothing, although you may be able to find some of this stuff where you live. Take the 1/9 train downtown to World Trade Center.

ABC Carpet & Home is an amazing store - actually it's 2 stores: buildings across the street from eachother. It doesn't fit your request of small boutiques, but... it is HUGE, with tons of things that I've never seen in any of the typical mall/ franchise type stores. ABC is located on Broadway, between 18 & 19th Streets, which is between Madison Square and Union Square. (subway: N-R line to either 23rd St or 14 St/Union Sq)

For information on boutiques in NYC, check out http://www.papermag.com/magazine/thismonth/--they also post a lot of other interesting happenings in the area. Greenwich Village (8th Street/Broadway and south) is the standard shopping area, but 7th Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn has a lot of neat little shops as well. Good luck!