The Lower East Side

One of my favorite places for walking these days is the Lower East Side.  What I like is the wonderful mix of things.  You find evidence of the past in the old buildings and the remnants of when the area was the center of New York Jewish life, and of all the other immigrant cultures that have passed through.  And now you see contemporary manifestations of nightlife, art galleries, high end restaurants, as well as social housing, wholesale clothing stores, and restaurant equipment dealers.  There is the touristic "Little Italy", which exists more as a tourist destination than anything else; and, of course, the ever expanding Chinatown.   I took a few pictures:

(As always, click to enlarge photos)

Here is the former Kletzer Brotherly Aid Association, set up to help newly immigrated Jews from Kletz, Poland.  It is now a Chinese funeral home, but still has the original name on the facade:

A beautiful synagogue facade:

And its peculiar side door:

A Ukrainian Orthodox church:

The Bowery Savings Bank, designed to impress:

Self-portrait with peculiar undergarments:

A primary school gets primary colors, as Jean-Luc Godard would have painted them back in the day:

Always something to see!


On a previous walk, I saw the new Fulton Street subway station, with its geometric ceiling:

It certainly doesn't look like your normal subway station in New York.

But this is what it does:

Calatrava's giant prehistoric beast continues to grow; maybe some day it will be an actual station:

Here it is reflected in a window:

A nearby colorful facade, newly restored: