Bond St, NoHo

Bond Street is one of the few streets left on the East Side that has cobblestones. There are a few on the west side, but I think this is it for the east. And, everyone in New York is a sucker for cobblestone so most people tend to like this street. It's pretty tiny. It only starts at Broadway and then turns into 2nd street at Bowery. What's nice about Bond is that while much of this area has been renewed, the buildings remain nearly as old as the street. Most of the structures around Broadway are from the 19th century. The founder of NYU lived at 5 Bond which still stands, and one of the first Brooks Brothers stores was opened directly across the street in the 1870's. The buildings are lovely and when you combine it with the cobbled pavement, you get a real feel for what a commercial area was like 150 years ago.

The block between Lafayette and Bowery is a very interesting mix between old and new. There are a number of high end shops for the trendy set such as Ghost and Daryl K mixed in with some rather old things like the Bouwerie Lane Theatre (which is no longer a theatre but kept everything as is). There are also a new set of Townhouses on this block. It's quite odd because the Townhouses don't mimic the old New York ones but they're on a very old street. And, it's weird because Townhouses are never new. I feel like if I could buy a townhouse, I would rather live in one that has some history to it, but different strokes for different folks, I suppose. There's another really new, high -end condo development that I think is heinously ugly from the outside directly next door. And, a very famous, very old Italian restaurant called Il Buco directly across the street which, apparently, has the wine cellar that served as the inspiration for Poe's Cask of Amontillado.
It's an odd aesthetic on this street; but, I suppose there really is something for everyone.

Bond St is one of those quirky little streets that's different enough from the blocks around it to know instantly where you are. It doesn't look like much on a map, running east from Broadway to Bowery, a couple of blocks above Houston. However, it's still cobblestoned and cavernous loft-filled buildings line the sidewalks, and the road is wide enough to evoke avenues far away from the Village. In this little strip of Noho, you can get a feeling for what Soho used to feel like before it became a fulltime shopping mall. Unfortunately, new luxury condominiums are going up (or have gone up) on both sides of the street, including the admittedly striking 40 Bond (Ian Schrager's venture), so it is unclear how the nature of this little piece of NYC is going to change in years to come. In the meantime, though, you can still sample the Catalan cuisine and red wine at Mercat and drop some bucks at Il Buco (Italian) and Bond Street Sushi (Japanese).