New York City (Fodor's, 2012) - Fodor's [34]
Be sure to 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 progressive arts events, including readings by poet Carl Sandburg and dance performances by Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. The tradition has continued with Danspace, the Poetry Project, and the Incubator Arts Project, which give performances throughout the year. | 131 E. 10th St., at 2nd Ave., East Village | 10003 | 212/674–6377 | Subway: 6 to Astor Pl.; L to 3rd Ave.
Sculpture for Living.
A few steps down from the Public Theater near Cooper Union sits this residential skyscraper, an anomaly among the predominantly low-rise, traditional architecture of this neighborhood. The curving-glass building was designed by postmodern architect Charles Gwathmey (known for his addition to the Guggenheim Museum), who passed away in 2009. | 445 Lafayette St., at Astor Pl., East Village | 10003 | Subway: 6 to Astor Pl.; R to 8th St./Broadway.
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 (21 Stuyvesant St., East Village | 10003), 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. | Subway: 6 to Astor Pl.
LOWER EAST SIDE: TOP TOURING EXPERIENCES
GATEWAY TO AMERICA
Directly south of the East Village, on the other side of Houston Street, is the traditional Lower East Side, a juxtaposition of old and new worlds, where a hot nightlife scene is growing amid aged businesses that hark back to the area’s immigrant heritage. The historic heart of the Lower East Side is Orchard Street, the center of New York’s fabric and garment district at the turn of the 20th century.
At the Lower East Side Tenement Museum different tours draw you into Irish, German, Polish, Jewish, and Sicilian family life of the period. Some of the old building fronts remain, as do discount shops (the so-called Bargain District), but younger fashion-furious boutiques and other cool shops have moved in as well.
THE LIVES OF JEWISH IMMIGRANTS
Several historic synagogues, their gorgeous facades squeezed among the tenements, are still in use. The Eldridge Street Synagogue was the first Orthodox synagogue erected by the large number of Eastern European Jews who settled on the Lower East Side in the late 1880s. A glorious restoration of its main sanctuary has just been completed, allowing the synagogue to become a permanent museum and home to its practicing Orthodox congregation.
The only Romaniote (Greek Jewish) synagogue in the Western Hemisphere, Kehila Kedosha Janina also functions as a museum to this obscure branch of Judaism. The city’s oldest synagogue, dating to 1850, is now the funky Angel Orensanz Center for the Arts, named for the sculptor who purchased the synagogue when it fell into disrepair. This originally German synagogue was modeled after the Cathedral of Cologne, and now hosts exhibits and dramatically lighted events such as the wedding of Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick.
The busiest of the Lower East Side synagogues today is the Orthodox Bialystoker Synagogue, with its dramatic blue-sky-clouds-and-stars ceiling; scenes from the zodiac; and “hidden” balcony door (you can open it), which was once used by the Underground Railroad to hide slaves during the synagogue’s former days as a Methodist church.
Starting on Houston Street and heading south along Essex, Allen, and Orchard streets, munch on traditional pickles, bialys, knishes, and strudel as you walk by buildings with