Everybody knows Chinatown. Most people know the LES. But what about South of Delancey and East of Bowery? It’s the fringe of both Chinatown and the LES. This slice of Manhattan has always been one of the coolest neighborhoods. In true New York style, it is multicultural, full of young and old alike, and without shortage of grunge. It’s a place where real people actually live.

There are a few logistical reasons why this neighborhood retains a neighborhood feel in a city where that idea is somewhat laughable. Bowery leads straight down to the Manhattan Bridge and Delancey leads across the Williamsburg bridge. The FDR wraps around the bottom of the island between them. This means that relatively little car traffic passes through the neighborhood since all the big roads lead around it.

Smack dab in the middle is the East Broadway F station. Without this station, the neighborhood would feel isolated since the only subways would be on its borders: The Bowery JZ stop, Essex and Delancey FMJZ, and the slightly better Grand Street BD. In abbreviated tile, E BWAY is the heart of the neighborhood.

For a long time, there wasn’t much new development in the area. There was plenty of churn among the old storefronts, and plenty of “upgrades” from dingy to hipster, but almost no new buildings. That all changed in 2015 when the Essex Crossing project started. Momentarily reserving judgment on the overall effects of the development, two parts are enormous boons to the neighborhood.

The first is the Trader Joe’s on Grand and Clinton, which opened in October 2018. The food situation wasn’t terrible since there are plenty of reasonable groceries available in Chinatown, but there wasn’t a proper supermarket close by. Trader Joe’s is definitely the best of the New York supermarkets. It’s nothing special but it affords a welcome convenience to the neighborhood. It also underscores that people of all income levels live here and Trader Joe’s is something nice for everyone.

The second part is the new Essex Market, which opened in May 2019. I was pretty skeptical when they closed the old Essex Market since it was so old and iconic and full of character. Upon completion of the new space: it’s even better. As one of the few public markets in NYC, the Essex Market and its vendors may have had some extra clout in negotiations concerning its relocation. The old vendors are (almost?) all still there. The space itself is awesome, without any of the pretense of the Time Out Market in Dumbo or, god forbid, Hudson Yards. There is a fantastic pubic seating area overlooking the market. There is free wifi. It is truly a defining place for the neighborhood as well as the city.

Just in the last month, we got another peek at the future of the neighborhood: OS NYC. Waypoint Cafe opened in Fall 2017 as coffee shop - PC Bang combo and is still in business, which is impressive by itself. OS makes Waypoint look positively small time. Opening in what used to be an expensive hotel-adjacent restaurant space. OS is an enormous gaming center with a full kitchen. It looks to be bankrolled by quite a significant investment. Between Waypoint and OS, as well as a few fledging gaming centers just on the other side of the Manhattan Bridge in Dumbo, it looks like downtown gaming is going strong.

Between the two gaming centers, there are now two movie theathers. In Febrauary 2016, the old-school cool Metrogaph opened on Ludlow. Now, there’s a brand new Regal above the Essex Market and a bowling alley coming across the street. Before long, everybody is going to figure out that East Broadway is best station to live near until the whole place goes underwater from global warming.

Cheers!