Howard Street Irregulars.(retail stores on New York City's Howard Street)(Brief Article)

"My lease was up, and my walk to work was becoming less and less interesting. Greene Street was just getting too spiffy," the jewelry designer Ted Muehling says of his decision to pull up stakes and migrate east to the new location of TED MUEHLING (27 Howard St.; 431-3825). Howard Street, a hidden enclave a half block north of Canal between Mercer and Center Streets, is still home to plenty of Chinatown businesses--Muehling's neighbors include Happy Bride and the Canal Golden Mall--but, then again, there's also that Sotheby's International Realty sign looming over the co-op conversion right next door.

Muehling, who is renowned for his austere, graceful designs--his rice earrings, rendered in gold, silver, crystal, or carnelian, are so popular he calls them his bread and butter--got into the jewelry business in 1976, after he received a degree in industrial design and realized that he hated the field. "I was very shy," he says. "I liked working by myself. I don't really have training in jewelry. I sort of figured it out as I went along. I'm so lucky I can support myself, though it is sort of relentless work.'' Asked what he's proudest of, he cites some of his earliest creations, the long thick-to-thin earrings. "They look easy, but they're very difficult to make," he says. He also mentions some of his more opulent pieces, including a brooch made of a perforated gold disk that Muehling thinks resembles Queen Anne's lace: "I add a lot of little natural pearls, and then I have to have a diamond--even though I'm not really into stones. I just add things until I can't stand it anymore.''

The custom boot- and shoemaker E. VOGEL (19 Howard St.; 925-2460) may have moved to the ...