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East Village | Lower East Side
Updated by Kelsy Chauvin
Vibrant, bold, and bohemian: the streets of the East Village and the Lower East Side are some of the most electric in New York City. Both neighborhoods have a deep immigrant past, and have evolved into nighttime destinations where you can dance till dawn any day of the week. This area of downtown is tamer than it used to be (as the arrival of Whole Foods and several glass-and-chrome condos attests), but a gritty edge lives on in the dive bars, sultry live music venues, and experimental restaurants. Spend time wandering these side streets, and you’ll be struck by the funky pastiche of ethnicities whose imprints are visible in the neighborhood’s shops, eateries, and, of course, people.
Making the Most of Your Time
Houston Street runs east–west and neatly divides the East Village (north of Houston) and the Lower East Side (south of Houston). The eastern boundary of the East Village and Lower East Side is the East River; the western boundary is 4th Avenue and the Bowery. So many communities converge in these neighborhoods that each block can seem like a neighborhood unto itself.
The East Village lets loose on weekends, when nightlife-seekers descend on the area, filling up the bars and spilling onto the sidewalks. Weekday evenings are less frenetic, with more of a local vibe—although the term “local” around here always means a large number of students from New York University. Daytime is great for shopping in local boutiques, and brunch on weekends generally means lines for hot spots like Prune and Back Forty, which fill with patrons lingering over coffee.
The Lower East Side does not tend to be an early-riser destination any day of the week. Although there’s plenty to see during the day, nightfall offers a more exciting vision: blocks that were previously empty rows of pulled-down gates transform into clusters of throbbing bars. On Rivington and Stanton and their cross streets, stores, bars, and cafés buzz all week.
Getting Here and Around
For the East Village, take the N or R subway line to 8th Street–New York University (NYU), the 6 to Astor Place, or the L to 3rd Avenue. To reach Alphabet City, take the L to 1st Avenue or the F to 2nd Avenue. For the Lower East Side, head southeast from the 2nd Avenue stop on the F, or take the F, M, J, or Z to the Delancey Street–Essex Street stop.
Top Experiences
People-watching on St. Marks Place or at Tompkins Square Park
Shopping at boutiques and vintage clothing stores
Visiting the Lower East Side Tenement Museum
Coffee and Quick Bites
Il Laboratorio del Gelato.
Seasonal flavors make this gelato la crème de la crème. There are 48 flavors offered each day. | 188 Ludlow St., at E. Houston St.
,
Lower East Side
| 212/343–9922
|
www.laboratoriodelgelato.com
| No credit cards
| Station:
F to 2nd Ave.
Katz’s Delicatessen.
Given Katz’s location and its equally lost-in-time vibe, this deli goes as well with visits to the Tenement Museum as a Cel-Ray soda goes with pastrami. | 205 E. Houston St., at Ludlow St.
,
Lower East Side
| 212/254–2246
|
www.katzsdelicatessen.com
| No credit cards
| Station:
F to 2nd Ave.
Veniero’s Pastry.
This Italian bakery has been churning out cookies, coffee, and elaborate cakes and tarts since 1894—and the late hours it keeps only sweetens the deal. The fruit-topped minicheesecakes are always a good idea. | 342 E. 11th St., between 1st and 2nd Aves.
,
East Village
| 212/674–7070
|
www.venierospastry.com
| No credit cards
| Station:
L to 1st Ave.
East Village
Many opposites coexist peacefully in the East Village: dive bars and craft-cocktail dens, Ukrainian diners and the latest chef-driven restaurant, stylish boutiques and counterculture stores. Famous for its nightlife, the East Village has become increasingly more upscale in recent years with St. Marks Place trading in some of its grit for a hodgepodge of students, well-earning postgrads, and international expats. At its roots, the neighborhood is a community of artists, activists, and social dissenters—and though this is still the essential vibe here, the finish is much more polished these days.
East of 1st Avenue is Alphabet City, once the city’s seedy drug haunt but now an ever more gentrified neighborhood. There is still a young, artistic (and sometimes seedy) vibe in and around Tompkins Square Park.
Top Attractions
Alphabet City.
The north–south avenues east of 1st Avenue, from Houston Street to 14th Street, are all labeled with letters, not numbers, which gives this area its nickname: Alphabet City. Avenues A, B, and C are full of restaurants, cafés, stores, and bars that run from the low-rent and scruffy to the pricey and polished—the streets are more mixed than in other neighborhoods downtown. Parts of Avenues A and B run along Tompkins Square Park. A close-knit Puerto Rican community makes its home around Avenue C, also called “Loisaida” (a Spanglish creation meaning “Lower East Side”). Although it’s still filled with many Latino shops and bodegas, it’s also now home to some trendy restaurants and bars. Avenue D remains rough around the edges—in part because of the uninterrupted row of housing projects that are on its east side. The East River Park, farther east, provides some nice views of Williamsburg and other parts of Brooklyn. To reach the park, cross Avenue D and take one of the pedestrian bridges that crosses FDR Drive at East 10th or East 5th Street, or cross the road at East Houston Street. | East Village
| Station:
L to 1st Ave.; F to 2nd Ave.
East Village Architecture
The East Village’s reputation for quirkiness is evinced not only by its residents and sites but also in the many incongruous structures that somehow coexist so easily that they often go unnoticed. Keep your eyes open as you explore the streets. You never know what might turn up: the Hells Angels’ Headquarters, for example, tucked into a residential block of 3rd Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues, surrounded by a bevy of showstopping bikes; the architectural “joke” on New York City atop the Red Square building on Houston Street at Norfolk, where a statue of Lenin points to the sky and a clock has lost its notion of time; or the shingled Cape Cod–style house perched on the apartment building at the northwest corner of Houston and 1st Avenue, one of the city’s many unique rooftop retreats (it’s best viewed from the east). Two privately owned, nearly hidden, but airy “marble” cemeteries (New York Marble Cemetery and the New York City Marble Cemetery) established in the 1830s on 2nd Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Streets hold the remains of thousands in underground, marble-lined vaults thought to prevent the spread of disease in a time marked by cholera epidemics. The gardens are surrounded by 12-foot walls made of Tuckahoe marble, and are entered through wrought-iron gates. Although rarely open to the public, they can be visited by appointment.
St. Marks Place.
The longtime hub of the edgy East Village, St. Marks Place is the name given to idiosyncratic East 8th Street between 3rd Avenue and Avenue A. During the 1950s, beatniks Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac lived and wrote in the area; the 1960s brought Bill Graham’s Fillmore East (nearby, at 105 2nd Avenue), and Andy Warhol’s Dom and the Electric Circus nightclub (both at Nos. 19–25), where the Velvet Underground performed. The studded, pink-haired, and shaved-head punk scene followed, and there’s a good chance of still seeing some pierced rockers and teenage Goths on the block. Farther down, at No. 33, is where the punk store Manic Panic first foisted its lurid hair dyes and makeup on the world. At No. 57 stood the short-lived Club 57, a church basement that attracted such ‘80s stalwarts as Keith Haring, Ann Magnuson, Klaus Nomi, Kenny Scharf, and Fab Five Freddy.
These days, there’s not much cutting edge left. Some of the grungy facades lead to luxury condos, and the area has become a Little Japan, with several ramen and dumpling shops, some sake bars, and lots of young Asian students. The blocks between 2nd and 3rd Avenues can feel like a shopping arcade, crammed with body-piercing and tattoo salons, and shops selling cheap jewelry, sunglasses, incense, and wacky T-shirts. The cafés and bars from here over to Avenue A attract customers late into the night—thanks partly to lower drink prices than in other downtown neighborhoods. | 8th St., between 3rd Ave. and Ave. A , East Village | Station: 6 to Astor Pl.; N, R to 8th St.–NYU .
Tompkins Square Park.
This leafy park fills up year-round with locals partaking in picnics and drum circles, and making use of the playground and the dog run. Free Wi-Fi (strongest on the north side of the park) joins the shade, benches, and an elegant 1891 water fountain (donated by a teetotaling benefactor) as some of the best amenities here. There are movie screenings and music gatherings throughout the summer, a year-round farmers’ market on Sunday, and an annual Halloween dog-costume event. But it wasn’t always so rosy in the park: in 1988, police followed then-mayor David Dinkins’s orders to evict the many homeless who had set up makeshift homes here, and homeless rights and antigentrification activists fought back with sticks and bottles. The park was reclaimed and reopened in 1992 with a midnight curfew, still in effect today. | From 7th to 10th St., between Aves. A and B
,
East Village
|
www.nycgovparks.org/parks/tompkinssquarepark
| Station:
6 to Astor Pl., L to 1st Ave.
Worth Noting
Astor Place Subway Station.
At the beginning of the 20th century, almost all of the city’s Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) subway entrances resembled the one here—an ornate cast-iron replica of a Beaux Arts kiosk marking the subway entrance for the uptown 6 train. This traffic-island entrance, which was—and still is—the stop nearest to the venerable Cooper Union college, is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Inside, plaques of beaver emblems line the tiled station walls, a reference to the fur trade that contributed to John Jacob Astor’s fortune. Milton Glaser, the Cooper Union graduate who originated the “I [heart] NY” logo, designed the station’s murals. | 8th St. and 4th Ave., traffic island
,
East Village
| Station:
6 to Astor Pl
.
The Hole.
Run by Kathy Grayson, the former director of the highly influential Deitch Projects, this contemporary-arts gallery generally hosts two simultaneous shows a month. Its artists lean more toward the up-and-coming rather than the establishment. The on-site Hole Shop carries lots of quirky zines, posters, books, and art objects. | 312 Bowery, between Bleecker and E. Houston Sts.
,
East Village
| 212/466–1100
|
www.theholenyc.com
| Wed.–Sun. noon–7
| Station:
6 to Bleecker St.; B, D, F, M to Broadway–Lafayette St.
Merchant’s House Museum.
Built in 1832, this redbrick house, combining Federal and Greek Revival styles, provides a glimpse into the domestic life of the period 30 years before the Civil War. Retired merchant Seabury Tredwell and his descendants lived here from 1835 until 1933. The home became a museum in 1936, with the original furnishings and architectural features preserved; family memorabilia are also on display. The fourth-floor servants’ bedroom, where the Tredwell family’s Irish servants slept and did some of their work, offers a rare and intimate look at the lives of Irish domestics in the mid-1800s. | 29 E. 4th St., between the Bowery and Lafayette St.
,
East Village
| 212/777–1089
|
www.merchantshouse.org
| $10
| Thurs.–Mon. noon–5; guided tours Thurs.–Mon. at 2, and Thurs. at 6:30
| Station:
N, R to 8th St.–NYU; 6 to Astor Pl.; B, D, F, M to Broadway–Lafayette St.
Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space.
Opened in late 2012, this self-described “living archive of urban activism” covers the vexatious postwar period in New York, during which the city’s public housing was often woefully mismanaged and hundreds of apartments lay abandoned and crumbling. Zines, photographs, and videos fill the small exhibit space inside a tenement’s storefront and its basement. Squatters, community gardens, the Tompkins Square riots, and the renaissance of bicycling in the city are all given their due, as is Occupy Wall Street. Tours of community gardens, activist landmarks, and other squats, both legal and otherwise, are also run by the museum. | C-Squat, 155 Ave. C, between 9th and 10th Sts.
,
East Village
| 973/818–8495
|
www.morusnyc.org
| $5 suggested donation; tours $20
| Thurs.–Sun. and Tues. 11–7
| Station:
L to 1st Ave.
St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery.
This charming 1799 fieldstone country church, which is Episcopalian, stands on what was once Governor Peter Stuyvesant’s bouwerie,
or farm. It’s Manhattan’s second-oldest church, and both Stuyvesant and Commodore Matthew Perry are buried in vaults here. Check out the gorgeous modern stained-glass windows on the balcony, which replaced the more traditional windows (like those on the ground level) after a fire in the late ‘70s. Over the years St. Mark’s has hosted many avant-garde arts events, including readings by poet Carl Sandburg and dance performances by Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. The tradition of art partnerships has continued with Danspace, the Poetry Project, New York Theatre Ballet, and LocoMotion, which give performances throughout the year. Services are held Sunday at 11. | 131 E. 10th St., at 2nd Ave.
,
East Village
| 212/674–6377
|
www.stmarksbowery.org
| Station:
6 to Astor Pl.; L to 3rd Ave.; N, R to 8th St.–NYU
.
Stuyvesant Street.
This diagonal slicing through the block bounded by 2nd and 3rd Avenues and East 9th and 10th Streets is unique in Manhattan: it’s the oldest street laid out precisely along an east–west axis. Among the handsome 19th-century redbrick row houses are the Federal-style Stuyvesant-Fish House
at No. 21, built as a wedding gift for a great-great-granddaughter of the Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant, and Renwick Triangle,
an attractive group of Anglo-Italianate brick and brownstone residences, that face Stuyvesant and East 10th Streets. | Stuyvesant St.
,
East Village
| Station:
6 to Astor Pl.; N, R to 8th St.–NYU
.
Ukrainian Museum.
From the late 19th century through the end of World War II, tens of thousands of Ukrainians made their way to New York City—and particularly to “Little Ukraine,” as much of the East Village was known. This museum, which opened in 2005, examines Ukrainian Americans’ dual heritage, with a permanent collection made up of folk art, fine art, and documentary materials about the immigrants’ lives. Ceramics, jewelry, hundreds of brilliantly colored Easter eggs, and an extensive collection of Ukrainian costumes and textiles are the highlights. TIP
To continue the experience, sample a little Ukrainian food at nearby Veselka diner.
| 222 E. 6th St., between 2nd and 3rd Aves.
,
East Village
| 212/228–0110
|
www.ukrainianmuseum.org
| $8
| Wed.–Sun. 11:30–5
| Station:
6 to Astor Pl.; N, R to 8th St.–NYU
.
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side (or simply LES) is a center of all things cool: arts and nightlife, restaurants and cafés, boutiques and salons. What was once the “Gateway to America”—and home to waves of Irish, German, Jewish, Hispanic, and Chinese immigrants—is now a quickly gentrifying neighborhood where modern high-rises, the ultracontemporary New Museum, and low-key hangouts all exist in the same corner of Manhattan.
On Saturday night, the scene can be as raucous as in a college town, especially on Rivington and Orchard Streets. But Ludlow Street, one block east of Orchard, has become the main drag for twentysomethings with attitude, its boutiques wedged between bars and small restaurants.
The best time to experience the neighborhood’s past is by day. The excellent Lower East Side Tenement Museum movingly captures the immigrant legacy of tough times and survival instincts. You might not find many pickles being sold from barrels anymore, but this remains a good place to nosh on delicious Jewish food like matzo-ball soup, corned beef, and knishes from Katz’s Delicatessen or Russ & Daughters.
Top Attractions
Fodor’s Choice |
Lower East Side Tenement Museum.
Step back in time and into the partially restored 1863 tenement building at 97 Orchard Street, where you can squeeze through the preserved apartments of immigrants, learn about the struggles of past generations, and gain historical perspective on the still contentious topic of immigration. This is America’s first urban living-history museum dedicated to the life of immigrants. The museum itself is only accessible by guided tour, each run at various times each day and limited to 15 people, so it’s a good idea to buy tickets in advance. The building tour called “Hard Times” visits the homes of Natalie Gumpertz, a German-Jewish dressmaker (dating from 1878), and Adolph and Rosaria Baldizzi, Catholic immigrants from Sicily (1935). “Sweatshop Workers” visits the Levines’ garment shop/apartment and the home of the Rogarshevsky family from Eastern Europe (1918). “Irish Outsiders” explores the life of the Moores, an Irish-American family living in the building in 1869, and shows a re-created tenement backyard. “Shop Life” looks at the various businesses operating on local streets, including a German-style bar, a kosher butcher, an auctioneer, and, in the 1970s, a discount underwear store. TIP
A two-hour extended experience tour with a chance for in-depth discussion is hosted daily, as are walking tours of the neighborhood; most tours don’t allow kids under five.
| 103 Orchard St., at Delancey St.
,
Lower East Side
| 877/975–3786
|
www.tenement.org
| Most tours $25
| Fri.–Wed. 10–6:30, Thurs. 10–8:30; last tour at 5
| Station:
B, D to Grand St.; F to Delancey St.; J, M, Z to Essex St.
New Museum.
This seven-story, 60,000-square-foot structure—a glimmering, metal-mesh-clad assemblage of off-center squares—caused a small neighborhood uproar when it was built in 2007, with some residents slow to accept the nontraditional building. Not surprisingly, given the museum’s name and the building, shows are all about contemporary art: previous exhibitions have included the popular Carsten Höller: Experience,
featuring an adult-size tubular metal slide connecting the fourth and second floors, and a sensory-deprivation tank, among other things. If you’re visiting on the weekend, check out the seventh-floor Skyroom and its panoramic views. TIP
From 10 to noon on the first Saturday of every month, the museum runs free family-oriented programs and events designed for kids ages 4 to 12.
Thursday’s pay-what-you-wish night always brings a fun-loving, hipster-heavy crowd out of the woodwork. | 235 Bowery, at Prince St.
,
Lower East Side
| 212/219–1222
|
www.newmuseum.org
| $16 (pay-what-you-wish Thurs. 7–9)
| Tues., Wed., and Fri.–Sun. 11–6, Thurs. 11–9
| Station:
6 to Spring St., F to 2nd Ave.
Worth Noting
Essex Street Market.
Started in 1940 as an attempt by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia to corral street pushcarts and vendors (and thereby get them off the streets), the Essex Street Market was defined early on by the Jewish and Italian immigrants of the Lower East Side. After several incarnations and owners, the city Economic Development Corporation took the reigns in 1995. These days the market is reinvigorated and filled with proprietors selling meat, fish, cheeses, produce, baked goods, and more. Standouts include Saxelby Cheesemongers and local favorite Shopsins, an eccentric and strangely appealing restaurant that moved here after decades in Greenwich Village. | 120 Essex St., between Rivington and Delancey Sts.
,
Lower East Side
| 212/312–3603
|
www.essexstreetmarket.com
| Mon.–Sat. 8–7, Sun. 10–6; vendors’ hrs vary
| Station:
F to Delancey St.; J, M, Z to Essex St.
Gallery Onetwentyeight.
Inside this narrow space, artist Kazuko Miyamoto directs crisp and provocative group and solo shows. | 128 Rivington St., between Essex and Norfolk Sts.
,
Lower East Side
| 212/674–0244
|
www.galleryonetwentyeight.org
| Wed.–Sat. 1–7, Sun. 1–5
| Station:
F to Delancey St.; J, M, Z to Essex St.
International Center of Photography.
Founded in 1974 by photojournalist Cornell Capa (photographer Robert Capa’s brother), this top-notch photography museum and school has a collection of over 150,000 original prints spanning the history of photography from daguerreotypes to large-scale pigment prints. The museum left its Midtown space in early 2015 to relocate to a new outpost on the Bowery in 2016. Check the website for updates. | 250 Bowery, between E. Houston and Prince Sts.
,
Lower East Side
| 212/857–0000
|
www.icp.org
| Station:
6 to Spring St., F to 2nd Ave.
Museum at Eldridge Street.
The exterior of this 1887 Orthodox synagogue-turned-museum (and community space) is the first to be built by the many Eastern European Jews who settled in the Lower East Side in the late 19th century, and is a striking mix of Romanesque, Gothic, and Moorish motifs. Inside is an exceptional hand-carved ark of mahogany and walnut, a sculptured wooden balcony, jewel-tone stained-glass windows, vibrantly painted and stenciled walls, and an enormous brass chandelier. The museum can be viewed as part of an hour-long tour, which begins downstairs where interactive “touch tables” teach all ages about Eldridge Street and the Lower East Side. The crowning piece of the building’s decades-long restoration is a stained-glass window by artist Kiki Smith and architect Deborah Gans, which weighs 6,000 pounds and has more than 1,200 pieces of glass. | 12 Eldridge St., between Canal and Division Sts.
,
Lower East Side
| 212/219–0302
|
www.eldridgestreet.org
| $12
| Sun.–Thurs. 10–5, Fri. 10–3; tours on the hr
| Station:
F to East Broadway; B, D to Grand St.
Sperone Westwater.
Founded in 1975 in SoHo, and after spending nearly a decade in Chelsea, Sperone Westwater now finds itself a major part of the “artification” of the Lower East Side. In 2010, the gallery moved into this nine-story building, which it commissioned for itself—a vote of confidence in both its Bowery surroundings and the continued importance of its artists, which have included Bruce Nauman, William Wegman, Gerhard Richter, and a host of blue-chip minimalists. The narrow building, designed by Norman Foster, rivals the New Museum (a few doors down) for crisp poise: in 2011 New York’s Municipal Art Society deemed it the best new building of the year. Its Big Red Box, essentially a huge roomlike freight elevator visible from the street, is a major contributor to the building’s personality. | 257 Bowery, between E. Houston and Stanton Sts.
,
Lower East Side
| 212/999–7337
|
www.speronewestwater.com
| Tues.–Sat. 10–6
| Station:
6 to Spring St., F to 2nd Ave.