Cleveland Pl, Little Italy

Cleveland Place is a tiny run of a street that starts at Lafayette and turns into Centre a couple of blocks later. There's a cute little park right at Lafayette -- parks are few and far between in this area so this little guy is pretty awesome and a beautiful old building right across the street that used to be a bank but is now condos. Next to the condos is a little restaurant, a dive bar called Mexican Radio (I, weirdly, love that name) and an awesome cheesecake place. It's a pretty well-rounded little block if you ask me. The only downer is that this great block is right off of Lafayette which is a really busy street that is loud and full of traffic.
Right at Kenmare there's a fantastic Mexican place called La Esquina that has a taco shop on top with an underground not very well kept secret, secret restaurant. The restaurant is gorgeous and has very good Mexican food. I'm from California so I'm pretty judgmental about Mexican: this place is fantastic. It used to have a lot of trendy buttwads but now it's leveled out and I love the place. There's a little antique shop across from La Esquina and the block is tiny so that's all that fits.
Once you cross Broome, Cleveland is no longer Cleveland so that's all for its run. You can't really live on it aside from the condos but it's a great little street as long as you ignore the noise.

The street starts at Petrosino Square, crosses a piece of Kenmare Street, and ends as quickly as it began at Broome Street. Yup, it really is a street only two blocks long, barely a footnote of a place. But I like these kinds of tiny, eccentric little corners which make life in a major metropolis a thing of beauty and surprise. What's special here is of course Petrosino Place, a triangular bit of turf with a drinking fountain and some benches, apparently all newly built. For all my complaining that there's nothing to do in SoHo but shop, here finally is a little place for respite just a block away from the weekend crowds and madness, where you can rest your consumerist body and think about the meaning of life for just one second. Before you go back to the fray, you might also grab a burger at The Corner Diner (technically on Kenmare, but you just have to turn your head to see it) and then run across the street for some of Eileen's Special Cheesecake. Okay, and here's the real reason I wanted to review this street: go stand at the corner of Broome and Cleveland Place, looking downtown. Something about the angle of the streets aligning to make for one of those dramatic city views you can only find in New York. There are so many views like this opening up when you least expect it in this city.