Neighborhoods in Brief (Downtown)

Lower Manhattan: South Street Seaport & the Financial District At one time, this was New York -- period. Established by the Dutch in 1625 (hence the city's original name, New Amsterdam), New York's first settlements sprang up on the southern tip of Manhattan island; everything uptown was farm country and wilderness. This is still the best place in the city to search for the past.

Lower Manhattan constitutes everything south of Chambers Street. Battery Park, the point of departure for the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Staten Island, is on the southern tip. The South Street Seaport, touristy but still a reminder of times when shipping was the lifeblood of the city, is a bit north on the East Side; it's south of the Brooklyn Bridge, which stands proudly as the ultimate achievement of New York's 19th-century industrial age.

The rest of the area is considered the Financial District, but may be more famous now as Ground Zero. Until September 11, 2001, the Financial District was anchored by the World Trade Center, with the World Financial Center complex and Battery Park City to the west, and Wall Street running crosstown a little south and to the east. Construction has begun on the new complex, but it will be years to complete. What won't take so long to build are the hundreds of new condo developments in the area.

City Hall remains the northern border of the district, abutting Chambers Street (look for City Hall Park on the map). Most of the streets around here are narrow concrete canyons, with Broadway serving as the main uptown-downtown artery.

Just about all of the major subway lines congregate here before they either end or head to Brooklyn.

TriBeCa Bordered by the Hudson River to the west, the area north of Chambers Street, west of Broadway, and south of Canal Street is the Triangle Below Canal Street, or TriBeCa. Since the 1980s, as SoHo became saturated with chic, the spillover has been transforming TriBeCa into one of the city's more cutting edge, exclusive neighborhoods, where celebrities and families coexist in cast-iron warehouses converted into expensive apartments. Artists' lofts and galleries as well as hip antiques and design shops pepper the area, as do some of the city's best restaurants.

Robert De Niro gave the neighborhood a huge boost when he established the TriBeCa Film Center, and Miramax headquarters gave the area further capitalist-chic cachet. Still, such historic streets as White (especially the Federal-style building at no. 2) and Harrison (the stretch west from Greenwich St.) evoke a bygone, more human-scale New York, as do a few holdout businesses and pubs.

The main uptown-downtown drag is West Broadway (2 blocks west of Broadway). Consider the Franklin Street subway station on the 1 line to be your gateway to the action.

Chinatown New York City's most famous ethnic enclave is bursting past its traditional boundaries and has encroached on Little Italy. The former marshlands northeast of City Hall and below Canal Street, from Broadway to the Bowery, are where Chinese immigrants arriving from San Francisco were forced to live in the 1870s. This booming neighborhood is a conglomeration of Asian populations. It offers tasty cheap eats from Szechuan to Hunan to Cantonese to Vietnamese to Thai. Exotic shops offer strange foods, herbs, and souvenirs; bargains on clothing and leather are plentiful. It's a blast to walk down Canal Street, peering into the stores and watching crabs escape from their baskets at the fish markets.

The Canal Street (J, M, Z, N, R, 6, Q, W) station will get you to the heart of the action. The streets are crowded during the day and empty out after around 9pm; they remain quite safe, but the neighborhood is more enjoyable during the bustle.

Little Italy Little Italy, traditionally the area east of Broadway between Houston and north of Canal streets, is a shrinking community, due to the encroachment of thriving Chinatown. It's now limited mainly to Mulberry Street, where you'll find most restaurants. With rents going up in the trendy Lower East Side, the chic spots are moving in, further intruding upon the old-world landscape. The best way to reach Little Italy is to walk east from the Spring Street station (on the no. 6 line) to Mulberry Street; turn south for Little Italy (you can't miss the year-round red, green, and white street decorations).

The Lower East Side The Lower East Side boasts the best of both old and new New York -- though the new is eking out what is left of the old. But still, witness the stretch of Houston between Forsyth and Allen streets, where Yonah Shimmel's Knish Shop sits shoulder-to-shoulder with the Sunshine Theater, an arthouse cinema. Some say the Lower East Side has come full circle: Self-important hipsters with Ivy League educations and well-honed senses of entitlement (and trust funds) have come back to the neighborhoods their immigrant grandparents worked to escape.

Of all the successive waves of immigrants and refugees who passed through this densely populated tenement neighborhood from the mid-19th century to the 1920s, Eastern European Jews left the most lasting impression. The Jewish communities, which popped up between Houston and Canal streets east of the Bowery, are now just part of history. The neighborhood has experienced quite a renaissance over the last few years and makes a fascinating stop for both nostalgists and nightlife hounds. There are some remnants of what was once the largest Jewish population in America along Orchard Street, where you'll find great bargain-hunting in its old-world fabric and clothing stores still thriving between the club-clothes boutiques and lounges. Keep in mind these shops close early on Friday afternoon and all day on Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath). The exponentially expanding trendy set can be found in the blocks between Allen and Clinton streets south of Houston and north of Delancey, with more new shops, bars, and restaurants popping up every day.

This area is not well served by the subway system (one cause for its years of decline), so your best bet is to take the F train to Second Avenue (you can get off closer to First) and walk east on Houston; when you see Katz's Deli, you've arrived. You can also reach the LES from the Delancey Street station on the F line, and the Essex Street station on the J, M, and Z lines.

SoHo & Nolita No relation to the London neighborhood of the same name, SoHo got its moniker as an abbreviation of "South of Houston Street." This fashionable neighborhood extends down to Canal Street, between Sixth Avenue to the west and Lafayette Street (1 block east of Broadway) to the east. It's easily accessible by subway: Take the N or R to the Prince Street station; the C, E, or 6 to Spring Street; or the F, B, D or V train to the Broadway-Lafayette stop.

An industrial zone during the 19th century, SoHo retains the impressive cast-iron architecture of the era, and in many places, cobblestone peeks out from beneath the street's asphalt. In the early 1960s, artists began occupying the drab, deteriorating buildings, turning it into the trendiest neighborhood in the city. SoHo is now a prime example of urban gentrification and a major New York attraction thanks to its restored buildings, fashionable restaurants, and stylish boutiques. On weekends, the cobbled streets and narrow sidewalks are packed with shoppers, with the prime action between Broadway and Sullivan Street north of Grand Street.

Some critics claim that SoHo is a victim of its own popularity -- witness the departure of art galleries and boutiques that have fled to TriBeCa and Chelsea as well as the influx of mall-style stores such as J. Crew and Victoria's Secret. Still, SoHo is one of the best shopping neighborhoods in the city, and few are more fun to browse. High-end street peddlers set up along the boutique-lined sidewalks, hawking jewelry, books, and their own art. At night the neighborhood is transformed into a terrific (albeit pricey) dining and barhopping neighborhood.

In recent years SoHo has been crawling east, taking over Mott and Mulberry streets -- and Elizabeth Street -- north of Kenmare Street, an area now known as Nolita for North of Little Italy. Nolita is becoming known for its hot shopping prospects, which include a number of pricey antiques and home-design stores. Taking the no. 6 train to Spring Street will get you closest by subway, but it's just a short walk east from SoHo proper.

The East Village & NoHo The East Village, which extends between 14th Street and Houston Street, from Broadway east to First Avenue and beyond to Alphabet City -- Avenues A, B, C, and D -- is where you can still find some of the city's real bohemians. Once, flower children tripped along St. Marks Place and listened to music at the Fillmore East; now the East Village is a mix of affordable ethnic and trendy restaurants, clothing designers and kitschy boutiques, some music clubs, and Ukrainian dive bars. Several Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theaters also call this place home.

The gentrification that has swept the city has made a huge impact on the East Village, but there's still a seedy element some won't find appealing -- and some will. It's here where you can spend an afternoon at the sparkling new New Museum of Contemporary Art, and then have a drink at the celebrity-magnet bar of the Bowery Hotel, while around the corner you'll see a line of homeless men making their way to a nearby soup kitchen. It's here where yuppies and other ladder-climbing types make their homes alongside old-world Russian immigrants, who have lived in the neighborhood forever, and the drag queens and squatters who settled here in between. The neighborhood still embraces ethnic diversity, with strong elements of its Ukrainian and Irish heritages, while 6th Street, between First and Second avenues, is referred to as Little India.

The East Village isn't very accessible by subway unless you're traveling along 14th Street (the L line will drop you off at Third and First aves.) or take the 4, 5, 6, N, Q, R, or W to 14th Street/Union Square; the N, R, or W to 8th Street; or the 6 to Astor Place and walk east.

Until the 1990's, Alphabet City resisted gentrification and remained a haven of drug dealers and other unsavory types -- no more. Bolstered by a major real-estate boom, this way-east area of the East Village has blossomed. French bistros and smart shops have popped up on every corner. Nevertheless, the neighborhood can be deserted late at night, since it's generally the province of locals. It's far off the subway lines, so know where you're going if you venture out here.

The southwestern section of the East Village, around Broadway and Lafayette between Bleecker and 4th streets, is called NoHo (for North of Houston), and has a completely different character. As you might have guessed from its name, this area has developed much more like its neighbor to the south, SoHo. Here you'll find a crop of trendy lounges, stylish restaurants, cutting-edge designers, and upscale antiques shops. NoHo is fun to browse; the Bleecker Street stop on the no. 6 line will land you in the heart of it, and the Broadway-Lafayette stop on the B, D, F, and V lines will drop you at its southern edge.

Greenwich Village Tree-lined streets crisscross and wind, following ancient streams and cow paths. Each block reveals yet another row of Greek Revival town houses, a well-preserved Federal-style house, or a peaceful courtyard or square. This is "the Village," from Broadway west to the Hudson River, bordered by Houston Street to the south and 14th Street to the north. It defies Manhattan's orderly grid system with streets that predate it, virtually every one chockablock with activity, and unless you live here, it may be impossible to master the lay of the land -- so be sure to take a map along as you explore.

The Seventh Avenue line (1, 2, 3) is the area's main subway artery, while the West 4th Street station (where the A, C, and E lines meet the B, D, F, and V lines) serves as its central hub.

Nineteenth-century artists such as Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, and Winslow Homer first gave the Village its reputation for embracing the unconventional. Groundbreaking artists such as Edward Hopper and Jackson Pollock were drawn in, as were writers such as Eugene O'Neill, E. E. Cummings, and Dylan Thomas. Radical thinkers from John Reed to Upton Sinclair basked in the neighborhood's liberal ethos, and beatniks Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs dug the free-swinging atmosphere.

Now, like so many neighborhoods, gentrification and escalating real-estate values have just about pushed out the artistic element, but culture and counterculture still rub shoulders in cafes, renowned jazz clubs, neighborhood bars, Off- and Off-Off- Broadway theaters, and an endless variety of tiny shops and restaurants.

The Village is probably the most chameleonlike of Manhattan's neighborhoods. Some of the highest-priced real estate in the city runs along lower Fifth Avenue, which dead-ends at Washington Square Park. Serpentine Bleecker Street stretches through most of the neighborhood and is emblematic of the area's historical bent. The anything-goes attitude in the Village has fostered a large gay community, still in evidence around Christopher Street and Sheridan Square (including the landmarked Stonewall Bar). The streets west of Seventh Avenue, the West Village, boasts some of the city's most charming, historic brownstones. Three colleges -- New York University, Parsons School of Design, and the New School for Social Research -- keep the area thinking young.

Streets are often crowded with weekend warriors and teenagers, especially on Bleecker, West 4th, 8th, and surrounding streets, and have been known to become increasingly sketchy west of Seventh Avenue in the very late hours, especially on weekends. Keep an eye on your wallet when navigating the weekend throngs. Washington Square Park was cleaned up a couple of years back, but it's still best to stay out of the area after dark.

Visiting the Lower East Side -- The Lower East Side Business Improvement District operates a neighborhood visitor center at 261 Broome St., between Orchard and Allen streets (tel. 866/224-0206 or 212/226-9010), that's open daily from 10am to 4pm. Stop in for an Orchard Street Bargain District shopping and dining guide (which they can also send you in advance), plus other information on this historic yet freshly hip 'hood. You can also find shopping, dining, and nightlife directories online at www.lowereastsideny.com.

Downtown -- For those of us who live uptown, lower Manhattan is practically a different planet, but one which has much to offer. The website for the Alliance for Downtown New York (www.downtownny.com), updated daily; is a trusty source to keep abreast on new developments and exciting downtown events.