Astor Pl, NoHo

Named for John Jacob Astor (his palace was just down the street), Astor Place is a pretty high society little street even to this day. My sister lives at 1 Astor and her apartment is pretty sweet. There's a lot of history and a lot of hustle and bustle on this street. It is never not filled with people. The is a great example of a street that is still somewhat elegant and still quite in the mix of everything.
Harvey Milk Highschool is on Astor between Broadway and Lafayette. It was instituted as a high school that would be a safe haven for lesbian, gay and transexual kids. Next door is the Astor Place Hairstylist. This barber shop has been the place to go for mohawks and odd buzzcuts for a few decades. Across the street is a beautiful building that used to house Astor Opera House. This is the site of the 1849 MacBeth riots. I talk about it in another post. But, I kinda love that people used to get so serious about their theatre that they would kill other people.
Speaking of feuds. There used to be this amazing book store next door to the opera house that was driven out of business when Barnes and Noble went in across the street. Recently, that Barnes closed. Ha ha!! Damn the man!
The 6 train entrance at Astor is really beautiful. It has the old style Parisian entrance and a bunch of beaver terra cotta ornaments as a commemoration to John Jacob Astor -- a man for whom the street is made who made his fortune in beaver trade. Weird, but, the subway station is pretty good looking for New York standards. The whole area around the 6 entrance is kind of bizarre. There's a spinning cube sculpture, about a million crazy people (do not go into the Starbucks right here unless you're hellbent on seeing things such as one man shaving another man's back hair (true story)), and the horribly out of place massive, mirrored building. I hate this building. It's in the midst of all of these beautiful 19th century structures. And, it just doesn't belong. And, it's not only ostentatious. It's blinding when the sun is out.
Astor and Cooper Square houses Cooper Union -- a beautiful school that is insanely hard to get into but completely free if you actually do. The hall has been the site of many famous speeches: most notably, Lincoln's "Rights make Might" speech. It's glorious inside and out. I recommend everyone take a peek inside.

If you go down to Astor Place at around six o' clock in the evening, you'll see a seemingly neverending parade of sixteen-to-twenty-five year old girls in slightly alternative clothing meeting up with equally bohemienne types in front of the "Cube," the massive modern art sculpture that dominates the square and serves as a suitably trendy meeting poTint for generations of artsy New Yorkers, whether from NYU or further-off-Columbia. Located conveniently between two great "young" neigborhoods - NYU's Union Square pseudo-campus and the artsy East Village, with its ethnic eatery enclaves and used bookstores, Astor Place is less a destination in itself than a meeting place. Stick around and watch one pair after another emerge from the 4-5-6 subway stop, then head on to greener pastures - whether the alternative clothing shops of 8th Street (including goth-punk 8th Street Lab) or the Moroccan and Indian restaurants dotting the further-East village. There isn't much to do in Astor Place - though for a while it had not one but two Starbucks lining the relatively small quadrangle, not to mention a branch of the New York Public Library. All totaled, however, Astor Place is a well-worthy entryway into two great neighborhoods. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite belong to either of them.