Firmly in touch with its past but peppered with bars and restaurants setting a tone for the future, a stay in the Lower East Side gives an invigorating, 360-degree view of this city. Traditionally the first point of settlement for immigrants arriving via the city’s Ellis Island, it was once known for cramped tenement apartments and the small family businesses that sprang up around them.
In more recent years, it’s become a byword for cutting-edge dining and nightlife, mixed up with indie bookshops and white-box galleries. You’ll find it sleepy each morning, shutters closed on graffiti-streaked streets; but from afternoon into late night, it hums with locals letting off steam. But the LES hasn’t lost touch with its roots: legendary Jewish delis still see queues around the block, while a tradition for pickling vegetables (there was once a “Pickle Alley” here) lives on in several quirky shops.
A sprinkling of new hotels is making this the place to not just drink, eat and soak up the culture ‒ but also stay. Which is handy, as you’ll likely be out until 3am.
What to do
Tenement Museum
The museum reimagines an old tenemet building on Orchard Street
(Lucy Thackray)
A true highlight of an urban adventure here, the compact Tenement Museum reimagines an old tenement building on Orchard Street, which once held 22 apartments. For decades it sheltered families arriving into the US from Ireland, Eastern Europe, China beyond, hoping to make a new life; now, dozens of spellbound preserved rooms tell their stories. Captivating guides present the (often moving) backgrounds of former tenants as you sit on their beds and sofas, perusing ceramic knick-knacks, 1950s kettles, record players and chintzy duvets; you can also join more general walking tours of the neighbourhood. Downstairs a free screening room plays documentary films worth pausing for, while the shop is stacked with books on the immigrant experience, NYC souvenirs and LES tote bags.
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Essex Market
Almost across the street from the museum, covered food hall Essex Market reopened in spring 2019, a loving restoration of a historic market that originally opened in 1940. Behind its neon signs you’ll find independent vendors with strong links to the local Jewish, Latinx and Italian community, from bagels at Davidovich Bakery to cheeseburger empanadas from…
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