Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce

The neighborhood of Chelsea spans 15th Street to 34th Street between the Hudson River and Sixth Avenue. Chelsea is a former farm turned center of industry, known for its bustling factories and warehouse piers that lined the river.

Over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Chelsea transformed into a hub of culture, which it remains today, offering theatre and film, to contemporary art and some of cities finest restaurants. Within the small expanse of streets that make up Chelsea, there are more than 200 art galleries. A strong residential presence has grown over the last 20 years, and Chelsea is now on of the pricier Manhattan neighborhoods in which to live. In addition to its reputation as a home for the fine arts, Chelsea is also known for its thriving gay community. Contemporary Chelsea also contains a historic district running from 9th to 10th Avenue between 20th and 21st Streets, within which you can find architecture dating back to the 1800’s.
Chelsea has diverse public attractions including the Chelsea Market, where patrons can find both retail and restaurants in a large indoor arena. The Chelsea Hotel is a famous, or somewhat infamous, landmark of the area having housed famous artists, musicians, actors, and authors. Such famous residents include Bob Dylan, Robert Mapplethorpe, Janis Joplin, and Mark Twain. The Chelsea Hotel is also the site of the infamous death of Nancy Spungen, girlfriend of Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols. The High Line is also a Chelsea favorite. A raised train line implemented in the 1930’s to remove the dangers of freight trains among roadway traffic; The Highline has since been converted into an elevated public park.

The East Village spans east of Astor Place, south of 14th street and north of Houston Street. Within its bounds it encompasses smaller districts including Alphabet City (avenues A, B, C, and D) and The Bowery (the former Manhattan lighting district).

The East Village is characterized by its vibrant community and radical history. The East Village has been home to counter culturists of every decade. The Beatniks of the 1950’s settled here, attracting the Hippies of the 1960’s, and in the 1970’s and 1980’s the East Village was marked by its population of Punks, some even credit the East Village as the birthplace of American Punk Rock. Some of the East Village’s most famous residents include Allen Ginsberg, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, W.H. Auden, and Iggy Pop.

Like most of its downtown neighbors, the East Village is a creative haven and at its center is Cooper Union a renowned school for art and architecture. Additional venues such as The New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Metropolitan Playhouse, and the Bowery Ballroom can all be found within the East Village boundaries. In addition to artistic scenes, tourists and locals alike flock to Saint Marks Place, a popular nightlife spot that features a host of bars and restaurants. The East Village also acts as a popular shopping destination for those who value variety. Here you can find anything from small independent record stores to high end boutiques.

The Flatiron neighborhood is located in the center of Manhattan; it reaches from 14th Street to 23rd Street and is bordered by Park Avenue South to the East and 6th Avenue to the West. Flatiron garners its name from a city icon and architectural novelty, The Fuller Building, more commonly known as The Flatiron Building. The Flatiron Building was built in 1902 and is one of New York’s oldest original skyscrapers. It is nearly exclusively referred to by its nickname, gained because of its unusual triangular shape and its likeness to a flat iron.

Flatiron boasts a range of attractions including retail, restaurants, and historical sites; such as the birthplace of Theodore Roosevelt, a National Historic Site located at 28th E. 20th Street between Broadway and Park Avenue South.

The Flatiron district serves a diverse population both residential and commercial. Formally called the “Photo District,” Flatiron’s large well-lit lofts were an ideal alternative studio space for many photographers who could not afford the rent of the more traditionally “artistic” neighborhoods of Soho and Chelsea. Within the Flatiron district there are also a number of well respected educational institutions including Baruch College, The School of Visual Arts, and the New York University Medical School.

Greenwich Village extends from 14th Street to West Houston, the Hudson River to Broadway. The West Village is the area of Greenwich Village west of 7th Avenue.

Greenwich Village is one of New York’s oldest neighborhoods with a history spanning nearly two centuries. Originally a small farming community, the area’s initial expansion was triggered by recurring cholera epidemics in New York City, which lay farther south in what is today the Financial District. At the time, the Village was considered “the country” and believed to be a safe refuge. The village experienced another surge of growth when the area was converted into a military parade ground and park in 1826.

From its earliest days, artists, writers and intellectuals flocked to what is now known as the West Village and made it their home. Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women while living on MacDougal Street. Other famous authors who have lived and worked in the Village include e.e Cummings, Eugene O’Neill and Edgar Allen Poe. Painters, sculptors, musicians, singers and theatrical performers have helped to create a thriving artistic community. Today, the diversity and variety of the arts available in the entirety of Greenwich Village make it a unique and interesting place to live or visit.

The creative and diverse population of Greenwich Village is mirrored in its wide range of architectural styles, including early Federal-style row houses, grand Greek revival town houses, quaint carriage houses and brownstones, along with tenements and office buildings of the late 19th century and towering 20th century apartment buildings.

The NoHo Historic District, or the area “NOrth of HOuston Street,” extends from north of Houston St. to East 9th St., and east from Broadway and Mercer St. to Lafayette St. and the west side of Cooper Square. Noho sits between the East Village and Greenwich Village.

In the early 1900’s NoHo was primarily a commercial area and warehouse district known for the storage and sale of dry goods. The spacious industrial sites were ideal for commercial storage, but as the surrounding neighborhoods developed and changed so did NoHo and the once largely commercial site transformed into a community balanced by its industry and its residents. Like its neighbors, the East Village and Greenwich Village, NoHo attracted many artists with the residential potential of the open industrial loft space. Today, NoHo is still an active marketplace teeming with small boutiques.

NoHo has maintained, despite rigorous development, the architectural evolution of New York City from nineteenth century edifices to twentieth century commercial construction. The effect of which is a striking aesthetic that combines styles and materials juxtaposing periods in our history in an incomparable way.

SoHo, or the area “SOuth of HOuston Street,” extends from Houston Street on the north, Lafayette Street/Centre Street on the east, Canal Street on the south, and West Broadway on the west. SoHo is one of New York’s most famous districts and has survived through the century by continually reinventing itself.

SoHo began as sprawling farmland, by the 19th Century it had transformed into a residential area for the middle-class, and by mid century a wave of commerce flowed into the area in the form of department stores, tailors, jewelers, small merchants, restaurants, theatres, and hotels. These new businesses, along with wholesale merchants and the manufacturing industry, prompted SoHo’s architectural rebirth in the form of cast iron buildings. At the turn of the century the residential population had migrated uptown bringing with it the retail and leisure business. SoHo’s darkest piece of history occurred in the wake of this change. SoHo was left as a purely commercial zone and became riddled with sweatshops and poor working condition for its laborers. As a result SoHo was called “Hell’s Hundred Acres.” However, after labor regulation and reform, SoHo was largely abandoned.

It was in this industrial wasteland that grew the SoHo of almost mythical importance. Up and coming artists, authors, dancers, and actors of the 1960s, flocked to live in the inexpensive industrial lofts that offered large workspaces. SoHo acted as a creative Mecca that fostered an urban, bohemian art movement that gave us some of contemporary arts most influential members, including Julian Schnabel, David Salle, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Jeff Koons. But SoHo increasingly became a more popular residential and commercial area, pricing out the artists that only a decade before revived the dying neighborhood. Today, SoHo is one of the most stylish neighborhoods in New York City, housing everything from high end boutiques, restaurants, bars, clubs, hotels, offices, and upscale apartments.

Union Square is a neighborhood that centers on one focal point, its namesake, a public park and national historic landmark, Union Square Park. Union Squares parameters are 14th to 17th street, between Broadway and Park Avenue in lower mid-Manhattan. Union Square is imbued with a rich legacy of historic public meetings, protests and rallies beginning with the first Labor Day Parade in 1882. The Union Park has been redesigned and modified numerous times to accommodate the needs of park visitors, such as placing a fountain, various sculpture, a pavilion, and a restaurant within its boundaries, but none more important than the removal of the original perimeter fence in 1872 making it a welcome and open space for gatherings of all sizes.

The Union Square Park of today, while still a celebrated meeting place, is used primarily for recreation and often visited for the Union Square Greenmarket. The Union Square Greenmarket is an open air market founded in 1976 where farmers bring fresh produce every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday (8 am-6 pm), promoting healthy eating and regional agriculture while supporting a grow local, shop local movement. The market also makes the park an attraction for local residents, cooks, and avid food-lovers alike.

The Union Square neighborhood is a prosperous educational, commercial and creative hub. The thriving Union Square community is often celebrated for the diversity of experience and resources offered to its residents and visitors; from the legendary Pete’s Tavern, to the large retailers such as Whole Foods, and its first-rate educational institutions and hospitals.