Manhattan’s Lower East Side “Loisaida” is a legendary immigrant neighborhood that is becoming a hip art and night club district.
Lower East Side tenements were the first New York homes for generations of immigrant families. It was once New York City’s “Little Germany.” It became a legendary Jewish community. It’s become a Puerto Rican and Dominican neighborhood and is now gentrifying.
Of all of Manhattan, the Lower East Side retains some of the feel of anything-goes 1970s New York City. It’s mostly visual now in terms of art and graffiti. The New Museum changed the neighborhood completely.
Latin Culture in the Lower East Side
The Nuyorican Poets Cafe was one of the centers of the Nuyorican literary movement of the 1970s. Today it serves all communities.
Abrons Arts Center
Performing arts center of the Henry Street Settlement social services organization
New Museum of Contemporary Art
The New Museum is Manhattan’s only museum dedicated solely to contemporary art. New Museum Tickets…
Teatro SEA
Teatro SEA is NYC’s bilingual children’s puppet theatre. The director is Puerto Rican, but the…
Teatro SEA
Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center LOWER EAST SIDE, NYC Bilingual young people’s puppet theatre whose world-class productions are fun for children, teens and adults too.
New York City Council District #2
East Village, Gramercy Park, Kips Bay, Lower East Side, Murray Hill and Rose Hill
New York City Council District #1
Battery Park City, Civic Center, Chinatown, Financial District, Little Italy, Lower East Side, NoHo, SoHo, Seaport, South Village, Tribeca, Washington Square
Nydia Velázquez
U.S. Representative NY District 7. First Latina on the New York City Council and first Puerto Rican woman in U.S. Congress. MANHATTAN Lower East Side, East Village BROOKLYN Brooklyn Heights, Bushwick, Carroll Gardens, Greenpoint, Red Hook, Williamsburg QUEENS Maspeth, Ridgewood, Woodside
Carlina Rivera
New York City Council District #2 East Village, Gramercy Park, Kips Bay, Lower East Side, Murray Hill, Rose Hill
Loisaida
“Loisaida” is the Puerto Rican name for the neighborhood. It comes from a poem by Nuyorican pioneer Bimbo Rivas.
East Village
The Lower East Side used to run up to 14th St. Above Houston St, it was rebranded as the “East Village” in the 1960s. This was partly due to the development of New York City’s contemporary art community which began in SoHo and moved up to Greenwich Village, then moved east into the Lower East Side.
Alphabet City
The Manhattan street grid has twelve avenues running north and south on the island. The bump on Lower Manhattan’s East Side is filled with Avenues A through D in the Lower East Side and East Village.
It was rough in the 1970s and kept getting rougher as you headed east. Avenue A was edgy. Avenue B was edgier. Avenue C was hard core and Avenue D was dangerous. It’s all changed now, but that’s how it was.