Shopping Where Personality Comes With The Price One Mall Is Pretty Much Like The Next. But In And Near Philadelphia, There Are Still Some Shopping Centers Of Distinction. There's No Sameness To The Stores Or The Stuff They Sell.

When I was a kid growing up in Glassboro, going shopping meant heading to Main Street. It was a happening place where you could buy most everything you wanted: shoes, household items, hardware, toys, sporting goods, candies, a gift for dear old Dad.

Nowadays, one-stop shopping usually means a visit to the mall. Big malls, little malls, strip malls, upscale malls with predictable stores selling cookie-cutter merchandise. Clean and dependable, perhaps, but if you want to discover offbeat things, forget it.

You can still find neighborhood blocks out there offering one-stop shopping. Some, like Manayunk's Main Street, have changed dramatically over the years. Others, like Passyunk Avenue, have stayed pretty much the same. And then you have spots like Peddler's Village that popped up from scratch. Most are accessible by public transit.

There aren't as many as there used to be, but seek and ye shall find. We did, and here's what we came up with:

MANAYUNK

Here there's an energy you can feel. A mass, too: Manayunk is jammed on weekends, when finding a parking spot is a maddening proposition. (There's talk of a parking lot going in next to the farmer's market.)

Just 10 minutes by car from Center City (and easily reached on public transportation), Manayunk is a place of contrasts. It has a 19th-century small-town look. Some of its shops are urbane, such as Simply Skins (4254 Main), which has elegant handbags, Pat King's (4357 Main), a sophisticated women's clothier, and Classique Structure (4386 Main), a home decor and gift shop where most items are of innovative design and emphasize neoclassical and Gothic motifs.

Then, too, Manayunk is funky, catering to those who devour magazines like Details and Interview. They love People People (4419 Main), a forward fashioneer specializing in duds made from natural fabrics.

Manayunk storefronts sport colorful signage. Some are sculptural: The sign for Jake's (4365 Main), an upscale restaurant serving New American cuisine, looks like a dinner table set with food where wine is being poured. Vera Redmond Gallery (4223 Main) hangs an abstract wooden carving.

Main Street is where most of the action is, though a few notable shops lie on the side streets. Among them is Ecomania (100 Levering St.), purveyor of goods made from recycled materials - check out the braided picture frames.