Bleecker St, West Village

Bleecker Street is one of the main thoroughfares in the West Village -- or, at least it is to me (I take this street everywhere). It's a really busy street so it's not ideal to live on, per se, but I know a few people with fantastic apartments on this street and very little noise seemed to get in, so it's not a bad street at all. There are always people on this street too, 24 hours a day, so as far as safety, it doesn't get much better than Bleecker in the West Village. It disects the West Village really nicely and there are so many shops and restaurants on this street it can seem overwhelming. I like Bleecker. The bustle of the street is great aside from the weekends when the tourists are out like gangbusters. But, there are a lot of trees for such a busy street and it does have some relatively quiet parts.
Bleecker starts at Hudson right around Abingdon Square, a tiny park that was one of the few to retain a British namesake. There's a little playground here and enough green to be considered a park although it is quite small. In the winter, I find this park to be somewhat depressing but I guess we'll take outdoor space where we can get it. The corner of Bleecker and Bank is where Lauren Bacall first moved when she came to NY at 17 years old. She was discovered shortly thereafter and lived here for a while longer after becoming the Lauren Bacall that we all know. This section of Bleecker is very West Village to me. There are a ton of high end boutiques like Marc Jacobs and Lulu Guinness mixed in with greenery, socialites having a coffee and tourists waiting in line for the famous Magnolia cupcakes which are just ok in my mind. It's quite commercial but the apartments are very expensive, old and beautiful and the crowd runs every through every demographic in the city. Spring weekends find this bit of Bleecker to be particularly crowded but the energy is still pretty tranquil, somehow, so it's not annoying. I think it's all the trees . . .or, maybe all the rich people.
The block right around Christopher Street is also very commercial as most of the mansions that used to take up this block were torn down over the last hundred years. The oldest building in Greenwich is right on the corner of Christopher and Bleecker. It's a pizza place that was put up in 1802. It wasn't a pizza place then but the building is still intact. Bleecker is predominantly high end shops with apartments above until Grove Street. All of a sudden, there are restaurants everywhere. AOC is a lovely little French place right on the corner of Grove. And, the same block houses a Mexican chain, an Indian restaurant and Five Guys which is renowned for their burgers. If you live on this block, you will definitely never want for food options, that's for sure. My good friend lives above the Indian Place and his apartment is really cool but outrageously expensive. Anything west of 7th Avenue is some prime real estate. Thomas Paine lived at 309 Bleecker the last year of his life and now Fat Cat is in the basement which I think is pretty funny. I love Fat Cat, a bar with a million pool tables, shuffleboard and board games, but it's funny that the father of our revolution's deathbed is now a cheeky bar.
Once you cross 7th Ave, Bleecker starts to turn into the Bleecker of Greenwich Village which is a completely different vibe. There are a lot of pizza places, like John's and Bleecker St Pizza (both of which are not remotely deserving of their fame) and bizarre sex shops, hat shops, you name it kind of shops and bars. It's a little dirtier and louder but it's still a cool street. Murray's Cheese Shop and Risotteria are two places right here, though, that are a must in my book. This is a highly touristed area, so it's annoying as all get out on the weekends. But, a weekday jaunt to Murray's is well worth whatever boloney you have to endure to get there. The rent is still astronomical as you get into Greenwich, however, and it's not as nice or quaint. So, if you can afford to live here, I say go west of 7th.