There were pedestrians ambling and drinkers drinking alfresco on the warm June day that Carla Sozzani stood outside what would shortly become 10 Corso Como New York, the American outpost of her pioneering Italian concept shop. That descriptor, now common for boutiques that stock not only fashion, but also art, furniture, books and whatever else tickles their proprietors, could well have been coined for hers. (According to her, it was.)

“It has the feel of an Italian piazza, no?” Ms. Sozzani said on a site visit to New York, looking out toward the water. “I hope it stays like this.”

But we were at the South Street Seaport — cobblestoned, yes, but not often imagined as Italianate — a New York landmark that has had many lives: bustling port, scrubby artists’ community, hurricane victim, tourist trap. Ms. Sozzani’s store is part of its continuing transformation.

10 Corso Como is to be one of the tent poles of the new new Seaport, which its developer, the Howard Hughes Corporation, hopes to coax into a hub of culture and commerce in New York City.