New York Songlines: Houston Street

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Corner (375 Hudson): Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency; this building contains some of the extensive Saatchi art collection.

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Block (395 Hudson): Home to Hot 97, the hip-hop radio station whose studios have become a traditional site for inter-artist rivalries to escalate into violence. In February 2001, a feud between Lil' Kim's posse and Foxy Brown's Capone-N-Noreaga crew broke into gunfire, resulting in one injury and a perjury conviction for Lil' Kim. The 50 Cent/The Game beef turned into a shooting here in February 2005. And rapper Jamal "Gravy" Woolard took a bullet here in April 2006--though it didn't prevent him from giving a previously scheduled on-air interview.

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Block (201 Varick): Designed by Albert Buchman and Eli Jacques Kahn, this was built in 1929 as the United States Appraisers' Stores Building, a federal building that warehoused goods seized by the Customs Bureau. During World War II, the building was reportedly used for secret atomic experiments. The Atomic Energy Commission moved offices to the building in 1959.

The building houses an INS detention center, used to hold what would be called "political prisoners" if they were in another country. After September 11, it is believed to have held numerous "special guests"--though the point of a secret jail like this one is that one doesn't know who or how many. As commentator John Bloom wrote, "I've seen buildings like this in other countries--in Moscow, in Istanbul, in Mexico City--but I had never before seen an unmarked urban detention center in the U.S."

Also in the building is the Environmental Measurements Laboratory, which is the government's main radiation-testing lab. It helped monitor the environmental consequences of September 11. It's now part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Other offices in the building include Manhattan's main passport office, a branch of the National Archives and the local office of Rep. Jerry Nadler.

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250: Manhattan Occupational Training Center, special education, ages 14-21

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Corner (200 Varrick): S.O.B.'s, nightclub featuring the Sounds of Brazil (and many other parts of the world, particularly Africa and Latin America).

Film Forum

209: Calls itself "the only autonomous nonprofit cinema in New York City"; a leading venue for alternative and classic movies.

195: Gilda's Club; support center for cancer patients named for comedian Gilda Radner.

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226: Alphaville, vintage toys and other pop culture collectibles

220: Was 220 Club, noted gay/transgender club of the early 1970s; later Bar Cichetti.

196: The last address of Grove Press, a counter-cultural publisher that fought censorship by publishing Lady Chatterly's Lover.

BEDFORD ST         ===> N

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Corner (51 Macdougal): Something Special, a coffeeshop and mail drop used by numerous nearby notables, including Patti Smith, the Beastie Boys, Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker (who also used to work here). The building to the north, demolished for the widening of Houston Street, is said to have housed a bar that was part of Joseph Kennedy's rumrunning business.

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William F. Passannante Playground

Named for a speaker pro tem of the New York State Assembly, a lifelong Villager and a booster of the neighborhood.

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146 (corner): De Marco's pizzeria; in March 2007, employee Alfredo Romero Morales was shot and killed here by David Garvin, a troubled ex-Marine and crime reporter, who went on to kill two auxilliary cops before being gunned down. The space was formerly Nellie's, a tony lounge, and before that Aggie's, a nice breakfast spot.

144: Raffetto's, old-school pasta-maker, has been at this location since 1906.

142: Mr. Sushi, affordable

136: Tibet on Houston

134: El Paso, affordable lobster; until 1966 was Kiwi, described by New York Unexpurgated as the "evilest bar in Village."

132: La Quinze, bistro named for a French rugby team.

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St. Anthony of Padua Church

Corner (155 Sullivan): Catholic church built c. 1888. It's said that the Italians of the South Village, seeing how the Irish of the Lower East Side had honored St. Patrick with a cathedral, wanted to honor one of their own countrymen with an equally nice church (though Anthony was originally from Portugal). Anthony is the saint invoked against fires, and some believe he's helped the Village have less than its share.

Corner (151 Thompson): St. Anthony's Pious League; dates to c. 1880.

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128: XR Bar, Cajun club with live music, is in this 1895 tenement; NL, Manhattan's only Dutch restaurant, is on the Sullivan side.

114: Pageant Book and Print Shop is a great source for old maps and the like.

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106 (corner): Arturo's Pizzeria, long-running pizza joint. Arturo Giunta opened it in 1957 and passed away in 2006.

100: Jane, American

94: Madame X, bordello-themed bar/jazz club. Good date spot.

92: Yama, acclaimed sushi mini-chain

90: Zinc Bar, notable venue for Afro-Latin music; Zamir Furs has a sidelight making furs for Barbie.

Corner (490 LaGuardia): Silver Spurs, Western-themed burger joint.

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Corner (475 W Broadway): Dos Caminos was Nello, the SoHo branch of a pricey Upper East Side Northern Italian, and before that Amici Miei, noted for its stylized horse sculpture.

S <===         WOOSTER ST

S <===     GREENE ST

Corner (146-150 Greene): An 1884 stone building with ironwork elements by William Worthen. Houses Moss furniture.

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Time Landscape

76: Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollack lived at this no-longer-existing address in the mid-1930s.

University Village

Designed by modernist architect I.M. Pei in 1966. Two are owned by NYU, the other a co-op. Check out Bust of Sylvette in center of complex, monumental cubist Picasso sculpture (1970). Most cities would make a bigger deal out of having a colossal Picasso.

NYU Coles Sports Center An NYU athletic facility, where the school's basketball, volleyball, swimming, wrestling and fencing teams compete.

Mercer-Houston Dog Run Association

Private dog park--hard to get into.

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Corner: This building's north wall features a 1972 art installation called The Wall, by Forrest Myers, consisting of blue girders arranged in a grid. The owner of the building had it removed in 2003 so that he could sell the wall as ad space, but after a long legal struggle it was replaced in 2007-- spiffed up and moved up somewhat so an ad can fit underneath.

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Cable Building

18: Angelika Film Center, popular art-house cinema, is on the ground floor of a building designed in 1894 by Stanford White for the Broadway Cable Traction Co., cable car operators. Theaters are in basement, where machines once pulled cable cars from as far away as 36th Street.

Before the Cable Building, this was the site of St. Thomas Church, built 1824. John Jacob Astor was put to rest in the Astor family crypt here in 1848; Washington Irving was an honorary pallbearer. Astor was relocated in 1851 to Trinity Church Cemetery at 155th Street. The congregation moved to 5th Avenue and West 53rd in 1866.

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11: Now a parking lot, this address was once the site of The National, the top venue in Yiddish theater.

The mob boss in the book The Pope of Greenwich Village crawls to this corner after being poisoned at his Mulberry Street social club. That's quite a crawl.

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Block (610 Broadway): The Adidas Building is on the former site of "Whale of a Wash," a car wash that mostly served taxis. It had the one billboard on Houston that I actually liked.

BROADWAY/LAFAYETTE STATION: B/D/F/Q trains to West 4th
F train to 2nd Avenue
B/D/Q trains to Grand Street

In the 1980s, as many as 200 people were living in the subway tunnels between this and the 2nd Avenue station.

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Block: Gaseteria station, a local brand now almost extinct, was replaced by a high-tech BP Connect.

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22-32: Around here was the location of Harry Hill's Concert Saloon, a low-life dive that kept the peace so effectively that it became a magnet for slumming tourists.

Corner (318 Lafayette): Win Restaurant Supply

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Puck Building

Block (295 Lafayette): This Romanesque Revival landmark was built between 1885-1893, with additional construction in 1899 to replace part of the building that was torn down to make room for the extension of Lafayette Street. (The northeast corner is the original entrance.) The building housed the offices and printing plant of the Puck humor magazine, which was published until 1918. (William Randolph Hearst bought it in 1917 and closed it a year later.) Years later, the offices of Spy magazine were here. Billy Crystal proposes here in When Harry Met Sally.... Grace works here on Will and Grace.

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Corner: Here was the godawful Yahoo sign, an embarrassing symbol of the dot.com mania. It was replaced by a giant handheld videogame, forcing at least one Songlines reader to "endure movie ads and Playstation demos 24/7."

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41: A new condo with a wavy brick pattern going up here. Formerly Houston Village Farm, built on the site of Horn and Hardart, maker of Automats.

There was an outdoor exhibit here on the magazine Puck, photojournalist Jacob Riis and inventor Nikola Tesla--all neighborhood figures.

47: Botanica, slightly New Age bar, and the cheese-featuring Nolita House were the Knitting Factory music club, and earlier an actual knitting factory.

49: Was the Print Shop, which in its later years housed Time's Up, radical environmentalist bikers. Now a vacant lot with (possibly scuttled) plans for a high-rise cantilevered over...

51: Milano's, skinny, atmospheric bar

55: Emilio's Ballato. ''If Little Italy had good restaurants, they'd be like this''--Voice.

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46-48: The site of Nikola Tesla's lab from 1895-99, when he was inventing radio and the first robot.

56 (corner): Soho Billiards. Clearly this is in no way South of Houston. It's not even across the street from Soho--that's Nolita over there.

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Corner (301 Elizabeth): Soho Court, apartment building that is not in Soho. Has a strange rock fountain that can be seen from the street, though.

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73 (corner): Cafe Colonial, Brazilian

75: New York Bars and Backbars, restaurant equipment, including vintage Automats.

Corner: Adams Co. Restaurant Equipment Supply

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76: Lot 76 NYC, aka Manhattan Castles and Props; outdoor antique store selling vintage signs, statuary, ceramic fixtures etc.

Corner (294 Bowery): Chef Restaurant Supply Co.

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Avalon Chrystie Place

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Liz Christy Gardens

One of the first community gardens-- founded in 1973 by a leader of the the Green Guerrillas. A beautiful oasis. A reader notes: ''The garden includes a rare dawn redwood and a blue Atlas cedar drapes its branches over a turtle pond. Open Saturday afternoon year-round, Tuesday evening and Thursday afternoon in summer, and other times when any of the volunteer gardeners are there.''

This is said to have been the southeast corner of Peter Stuyvesant's farm ("bouwerie" in Dutch).

2ND AVENUE STATION: F trains to Broadway/Lafayette
F train to Delancey Street

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Sara D. Roosevelt Park

In 1929, the Jimmy Walker admistration destroyed seven blocks of decaying tenements; they were supposed to be replaced by model apartments, but corruption got in the way. In 1934 they were turned instead into this strip park, named for FDR's mother, a formidable woman who took credit for her son's political success, and who was something of a terror to her daughter-in-law Eleanor.

S <===         FORSYTH ST

135 (corner): Gem Soho, the upscale brand of the Clarion hotel chain; was fairly recently a Howard Johnson Express, an affordable if generic place to sleep on the Lower East Side.

Yonah Shimmel Knish Bakery

137: Hasn't changed much since 1910, when it was opened by its namesake, a Bulgarian rabbi who needed extra money. (For non-New Yorkers, a knish is a hand-held potato-based snack food-- and these are the city's most famous.)

Sunshine Cinema

143: Originally a Dutch Reformed church that became a German Evangelical Mission church in 1844. In 1908 it was turned into the Houston Athletic Club, a prizefight arena, which in 1909 became the Houston Hippodrome, a Yiddish theater and nickolodeon. Open as the Sunshine cinema from 1917 to c. 1945. Served for decades as a warehouse for a hardware store before reopening as a plush art house. Arguably the best cinema in New York, it sadly closed in 2018.

145: White Rabbit, an Asian/Spanish tapas bar with a white-heavy color scheme. Was Idlewild, airport-themed bar; before that Den of Thieves.

147 (corner): Dopey Benny's features variations on the cheese steak theme. Named for Dopey Benny Fein, an early 20th Century Jewish mob boss. On the corner was Chickpea, local falafel chain, then videogame-fonted Mario's Pizza, now (since 2011) Lucky's Famous Burgers, local fast food chain.

I almost got an apartment in this handsome, c. 1900 building in 1991; another renter got in just ahead of me, and I took my current place instead. I could've been a Lower East Sider instead of an East Villager.

S <===     ELDRIDGE ST

151 (corner): Was a Discount Pet Shop that also sold bait.

153: Taste Good Noodle Manufacturing Corp.

159: National Underground, happening music venue. The booths downstairs are from a set from The Godfather. Was Carnaval, Brazilian-themed lounge.

161 (corner): Oliva, Spanish bistro; formerly Mojo's Pub.

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Corner: Vacant lot was the building of Irreplaceable Artifacts, an architectural salvage company whose building collapsed during illegal renovations on July 13, 2000. The fire department punitively demolished what was left. The company seems to be carrying on, with a stock of outdoor sculpture on display here.

First Park

Corner: A sliver of playground created in 1935 from land left over from widening Houston. Renovated in 1997. The snack stand, formerly known as Le Kiosk, is now run by Veselka, the popular East Village Ukrainian diner, and serves an abbreviated version of their menu.

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Near the corner of Allen and Houston, on June 24, 1993, serial killer Joel Rifkin picked up his final victim, Tiffany Bresciani, who was working as a prostitute. He killed her in the New York Post parking lot on South Street and was caught with her body in the back of his pickup truck four days later.

Corner (200 Allen): Sugar Cafe is an eclectic 24-hour neo-diner in the former Economy Foam & Futon space, which was founded here in 1937. A huge American Apparel ad looms over the restaurant.

177: Burkina Hip-Hop Shop

Russ & Daughters Appetizers

179: Classic LES delicacy store--lox, herring and the like-- opened in 1914, at this location since 1920. Now run by a grandson of one of the daughters.

Corner: American Apparel, soft-core sportswear

S <===         ORCHARD ST

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187 (corner): Bereket, terrific 24-hour Turkish takeout, opened 1996; popular with clubgoers.

189: Ashkara, kosher falafel; was Cafe Cairo

191: Philly's Cheese Steak was Pomme Pomme, Belgian fries

193: Teiz Grocery

195: Famous Original Ray's Pizza; not the original, but it has its partisans--in business since 1964.

201: Yoshi Japanese Restaurant

203: Hot Bagels, 24-hour

Katz's Delicatessen

205: A Lower East Side institution since 1888, with the Katz name since 1912. (It's described on the east wall as a "wurst fabric"--i.e., a sausage-maker.) During World War II, it urged customers to "Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army." Visited by presidents seeking ethnic votes from Carter to Clinton. Vice President Al Gore had lunch here with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. The location of When Harry Met Sally's famous deli scene; Johnny Depp meets his FBI contact here in Donnie Brasco. They Might Be Giants' "New York City" sings of "Statue of Liberty, Staten Island Ferry, Co-op City, Katz's and Tiffany's."

S <===         LUDLOW ST

Corner: The Ludlow, enormously out-of-scale residential building

Mercury Lounge

217: An intimate music venue; originally was servant's quarters for the Astor mansion, later Garfein's Restaurant, and from 1933 to 1993 a tombstone workshop--a leftover monument is now part of the bar. They Might Be Giants have played more shows here than anywhere else.

225 (corner): Element, a dance club. Was Manhattan Gentlemen's Club, a strip club; a goth nightclub known as Chaos and The Bank; and artist Jasper John's home and art vault. Originally the Provident Loan Society, whose name can still be seen on the building.

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Peretz Square

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ABC Playground

S <===         NORFOLK ST

245 (corner): Remedy Diner. Formerly Never, then Lunar Blue

247: Abaya, chi-chi bar

253: Was El Mirage, underground club.

257: In 1939, was the restaurant Little Hungary.

S <===         SUFFOLK ST

269 (corner): Was Meow Mix Manhattan's coolest lesbian club; took over a bar called The Far Side in 1994. Sleater-Kinney played here; Chasing Amy has a scene here.

293 (corner): Clinton Restaurant, Spanish diner

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Corner: Houston Deli & Grocery

244: Formerly Spiral, an industrial-themed live-music club that opened in 1990.

Red Square

250: Luxury apartments named in 1989, during a wave of Soviet nostalgia. Note the statue of Lenin on the roof and mixed-up numbers on the clock.

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S <===         ATTORNEY ST

S <===         RIDGE ST

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Hamilton Fish Park

Named for the New York governor who served as U.S. Secretary of State under Grant.

Hamilton Fish Branch

415: This branch of the New York Public Library is in a 1961 building, replacing a 1909 Carnegie-funded library that was demolished when Houston was widened. The namesake was a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant who was a New York governor and President Grant's secretary of state.

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Gustave Hartman Square

Hartman was a judge and a Jewish community leader who founded the Israel Orphan Asylum.

At No. 376 on this stretch of Houston was the Rabbi Solomon Kluger School, a yeshiva and synagogue designed by H.I. Feldman in 1924. Apparently demolished during the widening of Houston.

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437: Site of Engine Co. No. 11 (founded 1865; disbanded 1957)

Mangin School

525: Joseph Mangin was a city surveyor who helped design the present City Hall in 1802.

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Lillian Wald Houses

PS 196/Island School

442: This elementary school was formerly PS 188, where future New York State Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz and Jerome Weidman, author of I Can Get It for You Wholesale, went to school.