New York

Neighborhoods

In the busy financial district in lower Manhattan, the maze of narrow streets laid down during the oldest period of the city's history are home to the towering skyscrapers of Wall Street, the nation's foremost symbol of financial power and prosperity. To the north of the financial district lie New York's teeming, colorful Chinatown and Tribeca ("Triangle Below Canal Street"), a former market district whose warehouses have been converted to artists' lofts and galleries to create one of Manhattan's trendiest upscale residential neighborhoods, graced by fashionable shops and restaurants.

The chic SoHo ("South of Houston"; pronounced HOW-stun) neighborhood just to the north of Tribeca has had a similar history of rejuvenation fueled by its popularity with the artistic community; today, however, gentrification has brought the district out of reach of many artists—like the ones who were responsible for the rebirth of the neighborhood in the 1960s. To the east of SoHo are Little Italy, known for its authentic Italian cuisine, and the Lower East Side, the former home to a teeming population of Eastern European immigrants and today a mecca for shoppers in search of both local color and bargains on Orchard Street.

Greenwich Village, between Houston (pronounced HOW-stun) and 14th streets and west of Broadway, is the historical capital of Bohemianism in America, once home to a dizzying array of artists, writers, musicians, and political radicals. Like other once-marginal areas of New York, the Village has become a prime upscale neighborhood with soaring rents, including some of the highest in the city. However, it is still a colorful area and cultural mecca, as well the center of the city's gay community and home to three colleges: New York University, Parsons School Design, and the New School for Social Research. The East Village, located, as its name suggests, east of Greenwich Village, is the edgier counterpart of the Village, although even this formerly gritty area has become more fashionable and expensive since the 1980s. However, it remains a focal point for the city's pierced and tattooed youth culture, a popular site for after-hours clubs, and an ethnically diverse area.

Chelsea, stretching from 14th Street to about 30th Street, west of Sixth Avenue, is yet another neighborhood traditionally linked with artists and writers, especially through its most famous landmark, the Chelsea Hotel. Today it is home to large Hispanic and gay communities, and its "main drag," Eighth Avenue between 15th and 23rd streets, is known for its cafes, bistros, boutiques, fitness clubs, and the Chelsea Piers sports complex, which includes a climbing wall. Midtown Manhattan is primarily a business rather than a residential neighborhood. Home to numerous corporate head-quarters—including those of many entertainment and communications giants—it is also the site of landmarks including Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, the Museum of Modern Art, and the main branch of the New York Public Library, "guarded" by the famous stone lions outside its front entrance.

New York's Upper West Side is a colorful, heavily residential area that is home to many middle-class families and young professionals, although its residents run the gamut from homelessness to upper-echelon wealth. The neighborhood's landmarks include the Lincoln Center performing arts complex, the Museum of Natural History, and, at its northernmost point, Columbia University. The major thoroughfare in this district is Broadway, which offers a wide variety of shopping experiences, including Zabar's gourmet foods and Shakespeare & Company's eclectic book selection. The Upper East Side is New York's most exclusive neighborhood. Its residents live in posh apartment buildings with uniformed doormen; its visitors stay at luxury hotels. It is home to Christie's and Sotheby's auction houses, Bloomingdale's, and a host of foreign embassies and consulates, as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim and Frick museums.

Washington Heights, at the northern end of the city, is primarily a Latino enclave. Home to the largest Dominican population in the United States, in recent decades it has been plagued by problems associated with the drug trade. However, it is still the site of noteworthy landmarks, including the Cloisters (home of the Metropolitan Museum's medieval collection), the Audubon Ballroom, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, and Yeshiva University. Beginning at 125th Street on the West Side and 96th Street on the East Side, Harlem is America's most famous black neighborhood. From the days of the 1920s literary and cultural phenomenon known as the Harlem Renaissance until urban decay and violence set in the 1960s, the neighborhood was a unique cultural and political center and home to many famous black musicians and intellectuals, and such historic venues as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater.