Spring St, Little Italy

The Spring Street has iffy boundaries in regards to when Soho ends and Nolita begins. I usually mark just after Lafayette but sort of in the middle of the block. In my opinion, that's where the neighborhood changes and quite rapidly. The Spring of Soho is marked by heavy tourists and heavy shopping with mostly bad bars and restaurants. Once you get about halfway down the block just east of Lafayette, Spring becomes very Nolita -- or North of Little Italy. The Original Lombardi's was on the corner of Spring and Mulberry if that isn't any indication. I wish it were still there because the building has so much history. It was opened in the late 1890's by Lombardi himself as a grocery store and started selling pizza around 1905. The tourist trap that is Lombardi's now is down the street and it moved there in the 1990's. Directly across the street from the old Lombardi's is Spring Street Lounge. It's definitely a bar not a lounge. If there was any confusion about that point, I'm sure the myriad of sharks on the walls will clear that up for ya. I like this place for football, and, apparently, so do a number of other people.
Across Spring holds the current location of Lombardi's. This place is always packed; and, it is a kitschy good time. But, I don't really think it's worth the wait. As far as sit down pizza joints go, my vote lies with Patsy's. Across the street is a place about whose existence I am continually dumbfounded. It's a rice pudding joint. I'm not kidding. All they sell are different flavors of rice pudding. I'm convinced it's a mob front.
Cafe Habana is just at the corner of Spring and Elizabeth. It's one of my favorite restaurants in New York and it's really cheap! They make a mean mojito, the place is always packed and it's very New York. And, directly across the street is one of my least favorite restaurants in New York: Bread. It's the epitome of Eurotrash (no offense). The food is sub-par, the service is rude and lazy and it's, of course, extremely trendy for no apparent reason.
There's a really interesting building at 11 Spring that has quite a colorful history (and exterior sometimes). It was a carriage house dating from the 1880's. It was owned by a guy that lived in it for 30 years, and he, allegedly, burned the surplus candles from the Chicago World's Fair day in and day out so it came to be known as the Candle Building. Then the building became famous for it's Street Art Murals which were quite vivid and huge. It's now a condo building but people still draw on it. Two buildings over is another interesting building: the Germania Bank building. It's quite beautiful and in some ways it resembles the Flatiron building -- speaking of the Worlds Fair. It was built in the 1890's and had been abandoned for many years when Robert Maynicke bought it in the 1960's. His family still lives there and are its only residents. It has 72 rooms. This building is massive and I can't believe only one family lives there. Maynicke is quoted as saying that when he brought the property for about 100,000 that the neighborhood was very different: "every single thing that can come out of a human body has been left on my doorstep." The building is now worth about $50 million. But, as far as I know, he still hasn't sold. I would have. That's outrageous. It looks like a palace, though, so I can imagine the attachment.
Spring is irksome to me in Soho, but for the few blocks that it traverses Nolita, I really rather enjoy it.