#east-village

#east-village

What is the one thing that makes life possible in New York City? As mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani would say, it is affordable housing. This was also true in the 1950s, when three women-all newly single mothers-founded an artist haven in a rowhouse in the East Village, a raw neighbourhood at the time better known for shelters like the Bowery Mission.

The Brant Foundation is about to revive the East Village as a downtown arts mecca. This spring, the institution will debut "Keith Haring," a major new exhibition opening on March 11, 2026, that zeroes in on the artist's meteoric early years, when a young Haring was chalking subway walls, working out a new graphic language and helping rewrite the rules of what art could look like. The show will be held at the Foundation's East 6th Street space, just blocks from where Haring's rise began.

"He was not only a wonderful friend, but I learned from Geoffrey," Forristal says. "And then when I was still with Lorne, Geoffrey died."

It was one of the crazier Sundays that I remember, and I've been going there since 1995, Rosenfeld recalled. It was a drunken, wild night, and I woke up the next day thinking that I should be making a movie at the restaurant instead of the other one. In about a week, I had some 60-odd scenes written on index cards on the wall.

The subject of photographer Whitney Browne's new book, Candy Store, is, foremost, Ray Alvarez's iconic shop on Avenue A, Ray's Candy Store. But it's also about the East Village neighborhood, it's a salute to the endurance of a small business owner who has endured economic and health crises, and Browne says, it's a tribute to who I was at that time.

For under a million dollars, one can find all sorts of housing configurations: park- and subway-adjacent studios, one-bedrooms hidden in carriage houses or former shoe factories, and even the occasional true two-bedroom. We're combing the market for particularly spacious, nicely renovated, or otherwise worth-a-look apartments at various six-digit price points. This week, we've got a converted studio on the Upper East Side with a wall of oversize windows and a one-bedroom across the street from Prospect Park with a deeded parking spot.

Beetling around the tatty East Village, casually framing the twin towers downtown, it lifts the lid on a time that has been and gone: when the city was a melting pot of miscreants and misfits, when lowly bar staff could still afford Gotham rents,, and when every car came equipped with a cigarette lighter. Don't they have those any more? says Aronofksy, frowning at his untouched cup of herbal tea.

For 1,200 square feet on the ground level with a Wu-Tang Killa Beez-yellow HVAC barrel running through it, plus 900 square feet in the basement, I offered $186,000 per annum, or $15,500 per month, with 3 percent escalations per year and an initial lease term of 12 years and 8 months. Because the build-out and renovation was going to take time, I also requested eight months of free rent.

The Most Holy Redeemer Church, designed in German Baroque style and completed in 1851, has served as a community center for East Village Catholics and a New York architectural landmark.

The restaurant features hard-to-find regional dishes, showcasing an expansive array of Vietnamese cuisine not commonly found in New York City.

The TWEED Theaterworks production company is offering East Village residents a series of free shows called Garden Variety, featuring diverse performances from drag to burlesque.

Al-Andalus, a new tapas restaurant, opens in the East Village featuring a menu of vegan dishes, all priced at $10 or less, by chef Amira Gharib.

We're just focusing now on the dishes that I grew up eating, the dishes that I love eating every day, said Valdez. Mostly, the food that we're serving at Naks is like the original form of it. What you can see back home, this is the same food that we're serving at Naks.