Alphabet City, Manhattan
Alphabet City is a neighborhood located within the East Village in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Its name comes from Avenues A, B, C, and D, the only avenues in Manhattan to have single-letter names. It is bounded by Houston Street to the south and 14th Street to the north, and extends roughly from Avenue A to the East River.[4] Some famous landmarks include Tompkins Square Park, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and the Charlie Parker Residence.
"Alphabet City" redirects here. For other uses, see Alphabet City (disambiguation).
The neighborhood has a long history, serving as a cultural center and ethnic enclave for Manhattan's German, Polish, Hispanic, and immigrants of Jewish descent. However, there is much dispute over the borders of the Lower East Side, Alphabet City, and East Village. Historically, Manhattan's Lower East Side was 14th Street at the northern end, bound on the east by East River and on the west by First Avenue; today, that same area is Alphabet City. The area's German presence in the early 20th century, in decline, virtually ended after the General Slocum disaster in 1904.
Alphabet City is part of Manhattan Community District 3 and its primary ZIP Code is 10009.[1] It is patrolled by the 9th Precinct of the New York City Police Department.
Political representation[edit]
Politically, Alphabet City is in New York's 7th and 12th congressional districts.[165][166] It is also in the New York State Senate's 27th and 28th districts,[167][168] the New York State Assembly's 65th and 74th districts,[169][170] and the New York City Council's 1st and 2nd districts.[171]
Architecture[edit]
Historic buildings[edit]
Local community groups such as the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) are working to gain individual and district landmark designations for Alphabet City to preserve and protect the architectural and cultural identity of the neighborhood.[172] In early 2011, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) proposed a small district along the block of 10th Street that lies north of Tompkins Square Park.[173] The East 10th Street Historic District was designated by the LPC in January 2012.[174][175]
Several notable buildings are designated as individual landmarks. These include:
Loisaida[edit]
Loisaida /ˌloʊ.iːˈsaɪdə/ is a term derived from the Spanish (and especially Nuyorican) pronunciation of "Lower East Side". Originally coined by poet/activist Bittman "Bimbo" Rivas in his 1974 poem "Loisaida", it now refers to Avenue C in Alphabet City, whose population has largely been Hispanic (mainly Nuyorican) since the 1960s.
Since the 1940s the demography of the neighborhood has changed markedly several times: the addition of the large labor-backed Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village after World War II at the northern end added a lower-middle to middle-class element to the area, which contributed to the eventual gentrification of the area in the 21st century; the construction of large government housing projects south and east of those and the growing Latino population transformed a large swath of the neighborhood into a Latin one until the late 1990s, when low rents outweighed high crime rates and large numbers of artists and students moved to the area. Manhattan's growing Chinatown then expanded into the southern portions of the Lower East Side, but Hispanics are still concentrated in Alphabet City. With crime rates down, the area surrounding Alphabet City, the East Village, and the Lower East Side, is quickly becoming gentrified; the borders of the Lower East Side differ from its historical ones in that Houston Street is now considered the northern edge, and the area north of that between Houston Street and 14th Street is considered Alphabet City. But, because the Alphabet City term is largely a relic of a high-crime era, English-speaking residents refer to Alphabet City as part of the East Village, while Spanish-speaking residents continue to refer to Alphabet City as Loisaida.
Police and crime[edit]
Alphabet City is patrolled by the 9th Precinct of the NYPD, located at 321 East 5th Street.[193] The 9th Precinct ranked 58th safest out of 69 patrol areas for per-capita crime in 2010.[194]
The 9th Precinct has a lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 78.3% between 1990 and 2018. The precinct reported 0 murders, 40 rapes, 85 robberies, 149 felony assaults, 161 burglaries, 835 grand larcenies, and 32 grand larcenies auto in 2018.[195]
Alphabet City is served by two New York City Fire Department (FDNY) fire stations:[196]
Alphabet City is located within the ZIP Code 10009.[199] The United States Postal Service operates two post offices near Alphabet City: