Elizabeth Center

After coming to NYC for visiting/touring, I found this place online on where to look for cute Sanrio merchandise in Chinatown NYC. In my experience, this is ABSOLUTELY 100% RECOMMENDED to go at least try and visit to look around!!! ꨄ︎ Here's a bit of my experience: I was a bit unclear on what to expect at first as some reviews on this place weren't as recent or positive, so I had to go see for myself. I will say this place isn't *as* bad as of Summer 2025. I will say that I only went to most ground floor stores as I was in a bit of a hurry (unfortunately :'( ) so I can't speak for the entire center. But if you want to come for any cute Sanrio items or other asian general goods/merchandise on the ground floor, this is the place to check out!! From what I saw, since I was just looking for Sanrio stuff, the shops on the bottom floor do sell AUTHENTIC items from Japan! If you look at the tags (not store tags), if they have (Sanrio Smiles)/(Sanrio Original)/ (Sanrio.co) tags, which most of them do, they are authentic and not bootlegged. I am unsure if other anime or non-sanrio merchandise they sell are bootlegged or not. The shops on the top floor I believe do sell bootlegged keychains, so I would recommend that it's best to go visit the basement floor. ‪‪ Most of the shops reside down the escalator with the Sanrio merchandise found on your left and the right being other beauty, skin care, snacks, misc. items w/ some Sanrio too. The shop directly in front sells aesthetic minimalist clothing! I'm a huge plushie fan and found that the corner store directly to your left has the most diverse plushie arrangements. The store further down turning the left corner on the right side has some cute Sanrio stuff too; mostly stationary, baskets, shirts, towels, etc. instead of plush. I didn't end up checking out the left store, but I'm sure they sell Sanrio too. The cashiers are the absolute SWEETEST! ❤︎‬ If you buy over a certain amount in the corner store, you get a raffle to win a free gift at the counter!! I will agree that the merchandise in the Elizabeth Center can be a bit on the pricier side, esp if you're going to buy in bulk. Some of the plushies I found online are about $10-15 cheaper than they are here. I found that most NYC stores in general are a bit pricier than where I live so I expected just as much when I came here. I'd say on average from what I remember, plush prices are about $30-40ish and keychains, mascots, notebooks, stationary, blind boxes, etc. are slightly cheaper than that. The big plushies on the top shelves will obvi be more expensive. (I wish I got one :')) In terms of how the stores were arranged and the space, I agree that it was a bit cramped. Since I'm a bit on the smaller side it wasn't too much of a problem for me, but if you're someone who's going during a busier time and there's a lot of people, navigating through tighter spaces might be a little hard especially if you're carrying tons of stuff or you drop something and a bunch of people behind you can't get around. I went on a Wednesday during 4-5pm and was the only person inside so it wasn't much of a problem. Overall, I would say this place is very fun and definitely if you are visiting a place near Chinatown, give this place a visit! The Sanrio stuff I got was sooo cute and looked good too. Some plushies look wonky sometimes, so these were pretty good and nicely picked. Great for windowshopping, buying, hanging out, relaxing, or going with friends/family!!! 🙂 Many blessings and great travels~ ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

The small claustrophobic stores decorated their stalls (?) really well, everything LOOKS nice but that's about everything good i can say about it. There's bootlegged anime merchandises everywhere and even if you do find a cute sanrio item from the shelf, it's priced so high it's not even worth it. There are some selected items that are okay... they're not as scammy as the others (gunpla for example) but you could find the same items for cheaper online. The clothes on the lower floor are of horrible quality (scratchy and papery, reminds me of shein) for again, prices that aren't worth it. don't even get me started on the accessories, they have my eyes pop out of my socket and jaw dropped in disbelief. Mid designs for outragous,, borderline THIEVERY pricing even worse than the anime stores. Unless you just so happen to pass by and have extra time in your life to waste away, don't bother.

The stores downstairs have really cute Sanrio stuff and other little collectibles. Another store with anime figures and cool stuff. The stores are pretty narrow and can get crowded with more than 5 people in there. Haven’t gone in a while so im not sure what they still have there.

This place was popping many, many years ago. The go to hang out spot but things have really change since. A huge pharmacy downstairs now and just a couple of cute stores that still sells plushies and cute little trinkets. There’s a clothing store, beauty store and a cute shop with Japanese treats. Pretty empty though but still nice to walk around and reminisce about the past.

Always loved coming here as a kid. While there is a lot of bootleg merch, there's also a ton of genuine gems. In one of the little anime stores, an employee was super sweet and gave me a Kirby themed highlighter as a gift. It made my day. Best birthday ever!

cute mini mall. It has a hair salon, pharmacy, anime, asian snack store, sanrio, gachapons, asian beauty supplies & more! Has a bit of everything & prices are relatively cheap/reasonable! Only con is that the stores are tiny & can get claustrophobic.

Everything here was really cute and the underground mall has a lot of stuff but there were only a few shops. The shops reminend me of a Japanese store. Many of th things bein sold at quite pricey tho.