East 26th St, Kips Bay

Uptown on 3rd Avenue leaves much to be desired. Although the UES is the most elite part of town, it is seriously lacking in things to do, places to go and cool buildings to look at. I'm really never up here because it's so stuffy and sleepy.
Bloomingdale's at 3rd Ave and 60th is the best Bloomingdale's I have ever been to. That sounds ridiculous but this particular store is really stunning. It's massive too. Just down 3rd (at 56th) is a bar called PJ Clarkes that I really enjoy. It's a chain now, but I just think there's so much cool history to it that it's a shame to not go to the Flagship. The building is from the mid 19th Century and the bar was opened in 1912. It's really old and cool looking.
There are a lot of massive, corporate buildings on 3rd Avenue which makes it a really boring part of town in the uptown and midtown areas. I find them all pretty bland but the Lipstick Building at 3rd and 54th is quite famous. So, if you're into buildings, then this is something worth checking out. There are a lot of Irish pubs on 3rd Avenue and I have yet to find out why, exactly, that is. I don't know if that's where they all had to live, but I don't think I have seen so many Irish hangs on one avenue anywhere as I have seen on 3rd.
Like the rest of the East Side Avenues, things don't really get cookin for 3rd until you get below 14th Street. There is, suddenly, then a ton of things to do. It's not the prettiest part of town by any stretch of the imagination, but it is definitely one of the liveliest. 13th and 3rd has some great old tenement buildings, a great furniture store and the original Bar None and that's just one block. There is a movie theatre and two huge sports bars on the corners of 11th and 10th. I can't attest for the soccer bar, but Village Pourhouse is most certainly the best bar to watch a football game. That place is really cheesy and a total meatmarket, but I love it and I don't know anyone that doesn't love it as well.
Across the street from the Pourhouse is a restaurant called the Smith that isn't the best food in the world but it's pretty decent and the walls open up in the Spring which I like.
There is definitely a huge student constituency around 3rd because of NYU, the New School, and Cooper Union. That can be, at times, annoying because there are so many people around. But, it's also great because that means there are tons of bars, hole in the wall restaurants and a lot of energy. The buildings all look like tenements downtown (and, a lot of them were), but the insides can be pretty cool. I really like 3rd Avenue once you get into the East Village realm but uptown it is really boring in every possible way.

Running from Cooper Square north into Harlem, Third Avenue has a character that changes with the street number. While uptown Third Avenue can be rather over-crowded - in the East 80's, 3rd joins Lexington in becoming a commercial thoroughfare, the Broadway of the Upper East Side. But as the avenue swings further south, chain stores and Starbucks outlets give way to the beginnngs of neighorhoods like Kips Bay and the virtual diplomatic village cropping up around the U.N. - wih slightly trendier bars, more upscale restaurants, and nearby posh residential enclaves like Sutton Place, Beekman Place, and Tudor City - all a bit further east near the river. Third Avenue itself is more defined by its location and surrounding streets than by its own attractions, although some Third Avenue venues - such as the Mexican restaurant Dos Caminos, have become to-go places in their own right.

Taco bell. 3rd Avenue. Gone, Early 2007.

Taco Bell was a great institution to have on this part of 3rd Avenue (between 10th street and 11th Street). It provided valuable fast food resources at a great price to the local community and I was sad to see it go. Things are going the wrong way on 3rd avenue. 3rd Avenue used to be the one you could rely on for cheap, suburban type crap mixed in with regular NYC stuff. Not quite the same anymore, it's a little too fake now.

Only 1 street away from the Lexington Avenue 4/5/6, Third Ave is a place filled with food, fun and plenty to do. Whether it's going out all night at the bars strewn along Third Ave. between 2nd St.-17th St., or making it all the up to those in the 70's and 80's you're guaranteed to find a good place to get down. 82nd and 3rd ave hosts "Our Place" Chinese Restaurant - one of the best in town. Give it a shot.