North 9th St, Williamsburg

North 9th is a little bit quieter than the main drag of Williamsburg but not quite quiet enough. There are only a couple of different restaurants, but the restaurants are good so I guess I can't complain. The nice thing about North 9th is that is close to everything. There's a crappy gym right there, it's easily walkable to every cool place in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. And, it's really close to both East River and McCarren Parks. It's a nice street to live on if you want to be close to pretty much any of the action that Williamsburg has to offer.
The new restaurant, Trix, may be one of the best things about North 9th. It is a really cool, cozy space with a great energy. The food is pretty stellar and the cocktails menu is from the dude behind Employees Only-- which I'm sure means that this place is gonna be around for a while. It's really nice to see a quality place go up in the northern part of Willy. Hysterically, just up the street is Sugarland which is the gay, hipster nightclub of Williamsburg. The most interesting thing about really any neighborhood in New York is that you can have an old school restaurant with snobby food next to a gay bar with tranny go go dancers. It's pretty cool but not so cool if you actually live on North 9th because those dudes are loud as beep when they leave Sugarland. Another cool discover on North 9th is a place called Miranda. It is so cute and the food is incredible. I would recommend for a fall brunch, but really you can go whenever you want. I'm not the boss of you.
The apartments are standard for Willy on North 9th: Condos toward the water and crapholes toward Bedford. But, the parks add some definite appeal to making North 9th your residence. It's not cheap on North 9th and I think pretty much all of Williamsburg is loud, dirty and scary at night. But, it's a cool street that's very central.