NYC's East Village/Lower East SIde Green Map Travelogue

Green Apple Tour
of NYC's
East Village &
Lower East Side

Originally designed as a bike tour on July 10, 1999, you can walk or skate.
Start at the Cube in Astor Place,
follow the directions below and enjoy our neighborhoods!

This travelogue has a MAP and a GARDEN LIST

City-wide Green Apple Map website:
www.greenmap.org/nyc

Island-wide Tourist View of Lower Manhattan by Emma

Things change all the time, and you must take responsibility for safety!

	Astor Place Cube is across from The Cooper Union, at 4th Ave. and St. Mark's Place. Cooper Union is the US's first university with a co-ed, multi-racial student body, and it's still free. By the subway entrance, the greened triangle is by NYC Parks Greenstreets:1-800-201-PARK.
Head east on St. Marks Pl. Turn left on Third Ave. and right on 9th St.

	The so-called "Hard Park" at Third Ave & 9th St. is new. It was funded as a pedestrian project, but draws criticism because it does so little to address real needs of walking people. With close to a million cars entering Manhattan daily, how can we foster non-motorized mobility?
Take Stuyvesant Place to 2nd Ave. Continue East on 10th St

St Mark's Church Greenmarket is every Tuesday during the harvest season (2nd Ave. & 10th). A wealth of art events take place regularly inside St. Mark's. Peter Stuyvesant and his family are buried in the churchyard.

Commodities is one of several organic food sources nearby. Prana, Good Food Coop, Urban Roots are markets. We have some herbal apothecaries, such at Penny's General Store, Angelica's Herb, Flower Power, Estroff and a healthy petshop, Whiskers, too.

	Organic cafes include Angelica Kitchen (the original!), Caravan of Dreams and Black Eyed Suzie's, plus many other healthy options. For write-ups on these cafes and more, visit http://www.vegdining.com
Continue east on 10th and turn left on 1st Ave and right into 11th St. Walk into the garden on the left side of the street

		Lower East Side Garden (E. 11th St btw 1st & A) is wonderful! It's open on Sat noon-2, Mon 3-5 and Th 5-7, and possibly other times. If you want to create a solar-powered waterfall, youth trained here can help you. Email Open Road for more info.
Continue through the garden. On the other side at 12th St, turn right

Bikes by George has good used bikes (on E12th & A), as does Recycle a Bicycle (currently based inside Charas Community Center, but opening an Avenue C storefront soon) (260-7055 - refer to C on Map) Bike Works (formerly inside the Hub, new address: 106 Ridge at Rivington) & Frank's Bike Shop (533 Grand St).
Continue south on 12th

Art & Nature! On E. 12 btw Aves. A & B, El Sol Brillante is surrounded by Julie Dermancy's exuburant fence, and in the Junior Garden on the corner of Ave. B, PS 60's kids and Claudia Keel created a colorful garden mural. For more information on the neighborhood's many community gardens,visit Earth Celebration's website.
	View the famous wind turbine & solar panels that helped change the laws about who can supply utility companies with electricity. This urban homestead's meter can run in reverse! The book "No Heat, No Rent" tells the whole story, beginning in the 1970's (519 E. 11th, best view from 12th St. ).
Turn right on Ave C and head south to 9th St. Stop on the corner.

The Intersection of E. 9th & Ave. C shows the neighborhood in a state of change.

It has a terrific community garden open Sat-Sun, noon to 6 on the northeast. Wander in and enjoy the many personal touches the gardeners have nurtured.

On the southwest, LaPlaza Cultural includes a City Farm demonstrating how veggies grow on the bigger farm which supplies fresh organic produce to subscribing households in the neighborhood - CSA info from Farmer Rich.

You can see urban homesteads and gardens, present and past (Dos Blacos Garden was bulldozed May 6, 1999, as painted by Jael, age 11), as well as upscale housing under construction.

Continue south on Ave. C to 7th St. Turn right.

	On E. 7th bw B & C is the Lower East Side Ecology Center, a venerable drop-off site for recyclables & compostables, and scrap art too (-reference A on Map). When you take your food scraps to Union Square Greenmarket for composting, it used to come here, but now, there's a large new site in East River Park at the foot of Delancey St. Information on getting compost & worms: 212-420-0621.
Turn left onto Ave B. Continue south along B, then turn left on 4th St.

Along Ave B, you'll pass several wonderful community gardens (including the famous "tower of art" at 6th & B's Garden, and the Earth School (Ave B & 5th - reference F on Map) with an ecological curriculum for primary kids

		There are healthy cafes like Kate's (58 Ave B) & Mama's (200 E. 3rd); the radical readers' info center, Blackout Books (50 Ave B, 212-777-1967); and Puerto Rican style-Casitas in gardens along E. 4th.
Continue along 4th St to Ave. D, then turn left. Turn right at 6th St. go over the Bridge to cross the FDR highway. Continue south along the bike path.

	Ride through East River Park's playfields & relaxing zones on a path that stretch for about a mile (soon to be linked to a new ecology center being built on E. 23rd St.). To the south, with just a few on-road sections and construction zones, you can ride auto-free all the way around the tip of Manhattan on new esplanades through the Seaport, Battery Park & all the way along the west side's Hudson River Park, practically to West 59th (park events: 533-PARK)! Coming soon, links to the Greenway stretching north to 155th St.!
	Across the River, check out Brooklyn! View some industrial sites that emit pollution and contribute to Greenpoint-Williamsburg's problems on a regular basis. Find out more about the toxic release locations online at the Environmental Defense Fund's website, Scorecard.
	The East River offers refreshing vistas: a favorite is the Statue of Liberty welcoming newcomers to America, south in the Harbor. The River connects with the Hudson-Raritan Estuary, a vital marine habitat with a tremendous diversity of birds and sealife. To learn more about the waterways surrounding Manhattan, visit Van Alen Institute's website.
Continue south along the bike path.

On the NYC side, there's solar phone boxes, the Lower East Side Ecology Center's big composting facility, fishermen, sunbathers and an old ampitheater to become a cafe soon) that leads into a pleasant park at Cherry St., taking us to a historic area of Grand Street.

(cross over the FDR at 15th, 11th, 6th, Houston and Cherry Streets.)

Turn right at the Ampitheater and continue over the FDR Bridge. Turn left onto Cherry St and right on Jackson St, continue til it ends and turn left onto Grand. Ride on!

Cultural sites along Grand St. include the Henry Street Settlement, which has art shows and public classes (233-1320). The Cathedral at Attorney St. is one of the oldest in America.
	Crossing Delancey is pretty dangerous with the Williamsburg Bridge getting much needed repairs...traffic is downright overwhelming, as are the microwave spires spiking out of rooftops. There is a bike/pedestrian path on the Bridge that is nearly completed, accessible by stairs on the BridgeÕs south side between Clinton & Pitt Streets (unfortunately, there are other stairs to portage atop the Bridge, too, but it is quite rideable & scenic).
Turn right on Clinton St. and turn right again when you get to the Bridge at Delancey. Turn left under the Bridge at Pitt St. and continue north. Pitt St turns into Ave C when you cross Houston St.

		Pass the Hamilton Fish Pool (for people!) on Pitt St. at Houston, then cross to Ave. C, into Loisada. Pass urban homesteads, turning west on E. 3rd, and pass the historic Holy Redeemer Catholic Cathedral (1866), the US's first housing project from the 1930's, and a lovely schoolyard garden.
Turn left on E. 3rd from Ave. C. Continue west and cross 1st Ave.

	The Hub (formerly at 81 E. 3rd) is a haven for human powered mobility! Pedicabs, workbikes, skates, even EVs and solar-powered ice cream carts & more have come from this inspiring eco-business (the Hub left the East Village and relocated in Soho in August 1999. Find it at 519 Broome St...for info call George Bliss: 212 - PONY222). Good Luck to the Hub collective in their new location!
Continue west on 3rd St and turn left at 2nd Ave. Turn left again at 2nd St.

Second Ave. has Manhattan's newest bike lane. Though it's less than a mile long (14th St. to Houston), it's much appreciated...shouldn't we have one of these "no smoking lanes" on every street? Get a free copy of NYC's Cycling Map from City Planning's bookshop at 22 Reade St.
On 2nd St btw 1st & 2nd Aves, the wonderful Marble Cemetery (-reference E on Map has stood since 1831, the resting place of notables like Preserved Fish and early mayors of NYC. Check online for open hours!
Return to 1st Ave and turn left. Continue north and turn right on E. 6th St. Continue east along 6th and cross Ave C.

Ride past the organic cafe, Caravan of Dreams (E 6th St. btn 1 & 2), and past other delightful gardens to the tour's ending point, the lush 6BC Botanical Garden, a remarkably picturesque satellite of Manhattan's decentralized Botanical Garden (E. 6th btw B & C, open Weds evenings & Sunday afternoons) with native plant grotto, fish ponds, compost drop-off, grape arbor, solar waterfall, butterflies and fireflies. Enjoy an eco-spiritual moment in this permanent green spot.

We hope you enjoyed the Green Apple Tour!

Special thanks to dedicated interns at the Green Map System, Emma McGregor-Lowndes and Beth Ferguson, for documenting the sites on the tour and designing this webpage, and to Wendy Brawer, GMS's director, for leading the Tour, which was co-sponsored by TIME'S UP! (ride line: 212-802-8222).

Many thanks to friends of the Green Apple Map, including its supporters at the New York City Environmental Fund!

This page is dedicated to all who keep the green spirit growing downtown!

Green Apple East Village/Lower East Side Links:

TRAVELOGUE with lots of great pictures!

Detailed East Village Map

GARDEN LIST

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Green Apple Lower Manhattan Close Up Map Project

GREEN APPLE MAP CITY WIDE

This is www.greenmap.org/nyc/tour/ev.html
Copyright 1999 Green Map System
Green Map Icons Copyright 2003 Green Map System
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