New York Songlines: Norfolk Street

West:

ABC Playground

Corner: Features a giant bronze coqui frog, a symbol of Puerto Rico, donated by the sculptor Tom Otterness.

Anna Silver School (P.S. 20)

Corner (166 Stanton): Named after the mother of a former board of education president, P.S. 20 was educating the children of immigrants since 1898—mostly Eastern European Jews like George Gershwin, Edward G. Robinson and Jacob Javits. It's been on this block since 1964—now most of the students are from families that come from China, Latin America or Bangladesh—though there's also a new wave of Eastern Europeans.

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East:

Corner (245 E Houston): Remedy Diner, the Platonic ideal of a diner. Formerly Never, then Lunar Blue.

178: When Lenin was evicted from Red Square, he found a new home atop this six-story building in 2017.

Angel Orensanz Foundation

172: This building is the oldest in New York City originally constructed as a synogogue—built in 1849-50 for Anshe Chesed ("People of Kindness"), the city's third-oldest Jewish congregation (established 1828) and one of the first to embrace the Reform tradition. At its opening, the synagogue was the largest in New York; the architect was Alexander Saeltzer, whose inspirations included the Cologne Cathedral, reflecting Anshe Chesed's German roots. The congregation moved uptown in 1874, replaced with Orthodox worshippers from places like Hungary and Belarus.

In 1974, the last worshipers moved out, leaving the building disused and neglected. It was rescued in 1986 by Spanish artist Angel Orensanz, who turned it into an arts center in a truly gorgeous restoration. It's been used as a performance space by the likes of Arthur Miller, Phillip Glass, The Grateful Dead and Lady Gaga. Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick got married here.

Corner (140 Stanton): Was State Drug, c. 1960. Owned by Ben Durst.

West:

Children's Magical Garden

A community garden founded in 1982 and devoted to giving Lower East Side kids a green space. It survived an attempt to give it to developers in 2006-07.

151: BBQ Productions

Grand Opening

139: A conceptual boutique that has transformed itself into a barn, a drive-in theater, a wedding chapel, a talkshow set, a trade school....

Corner: New York Mortgage Bankers Ltd.

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Lower East Side Prep School

Corner (145 Stanton): A public high school that serves many non-English-speaking students and transfer students who have struggled elsewhere--and is said to do a good job educating this challenging population. Housed in the same building is the Marta Valle High School, named for the first commissioner of the Youth Services Agency and the founder of the Puerto Rican Institute for Social Research, who died in 1975 at the age of 41.

The AIA Guide admires the 1977 building's New Brutalist design, by David Todd & Assocs.

West:

Corner (129 Rivington): Tiny's Giant Sandwich Shop moved here from around the corner. Was Lower East Side Locksmith.

115: This glassy condo, completed 2010, has been nicknamed Son of THOR due to sharing an architectural team, Grzywinski+Pons, with The Hotel On Rivington.

111: The Community Technology Center, which provides Internet access and computer education, is run by Asian Americans for Equality, a community group formed in the mid-1970s.

109: The Switch Building, a six-story condo building whose facade juts out 18 inches on one side--switching from the left side to the right side with each floor. Built in 2006-07 to a design by nArchitects.

107: Was Kedem Wines, a business founded in the early 1800s in the Austro-Hungarian Empire that provided wine to Emperor Franz Josef. The founder's great-great-great-grandson, Eugene Herzog, fled the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1948, resettling here under a Hebrew name that means "in the beginning" or "as before." After Herzog's death in 1995, the space was transformed into a winery-themed jazz and experimental club called Tonic, with a kletzmer brunch and a literary bookstore annex called Incommunicado. Rising rents in 2007 forced the club's relocation to Third Avenue and 29th Street, where it's a much less interesting busines.

Blue

103-105: One of the most distinctive and controversial buildings on the Lower East Side, this assymetrical 16-story condo clad in multiple shades of blue glass, completed in 2007, was designed by Bernard Tschumi, former dean of Columbia's architecture school. It's a fine building, but not appropriate for one of America's most historic neighborhoods—any more than it would be appropriate for Williamsburg, Virginia.

Corner (128 Delancey): Gem Supervalue Stores

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East:

Corner (131 Rivington): From 2002-17, was Schiller's Liquor Bar, a "bohemian" restaurant from the owner of Balthazar. Noted for its cozy, semi-coed bathroom. It seems to be the model for Cafe Berkman, the restaurant managed by Eric Cash, the main character in Richard Price's novel Lush Life.

106: Nurse Bettie, a pin-up-themed bar (named for Bettie Page) with burlesque on Thursday nights.

102: The Back Room, hidden bar with a Prohibition Era vibe. Was Saro, which featured "cuisine of lost empires"— namely the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian—and "comfort food you did not get to grow up eating." Took its name from the chef's grandmother's nickname.

West:

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East:

This entire block is a parking lot. This part of the neighborhood reminds me of a losing game of Sim City.

West:

Corner (62 Essex): Seward Park Extension, a 23-story NYCHA building completed in 1973. The AIA Guide praises the design by William Pedersen & Associates, noting its "rich, plastic, 3-dimensional, balconied facade."

The middle of this block is a playground.

Corner (56 Essex): Seward Park Community Center

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East:

Beth Hamedrash Hagadol Synagogue

60: Built in 1850 as the Norfolk Street Baptist Church, whose congregation now worships as Riverside Church on the Upper West Side. In 1860 it became a Methodist church, and in 1885 it was acquired by the current Orthodox Jewish congregation, which has a history of learned rabbis--including the revered Jacob Joseph, whose funeral in 1902 sparked an anti-Semitic riot on Grand Street, and Ephraim Oshry, the spiritual leader of Lithuania's Kovno ghetto during World War II and later the president of the Rabbis' Survivors From Concentration Camps.

50 (corner): Hong Ming Housing for the Elderly, federally subsidized apartments sponsored by the Chinese-American Planning Council; the name means "good health." The 14-story building was designed by Harold Edelman and built in 1982; the Chinese characters on the building read "Health Peace Quiet Serenity."

Kossar's Bialys

367 Grand: Founded 1936. A bialy is something like a holeless, oniony bagel--and these are widely considered the best in the city.

Doughnut Plant

379 Grand: These are the best doughnuts on the planet. It's not just me who says so-- Martha Stewart does too.