The neighborhood I currently identify with is the East Village of Manhattan. I spend a vast majority of my time in the area of St. Mark’s Place. St. Mark’s Place is a stretch of eighth street in between Third Avenue and Avenue A, culminating near Tompkins Square Park.
I have never been to St. Marks to find it empty. There are always people milling about – students, artists, and vagabonds galore. It is always a lovely experience to walk out of the subway at Astor Place and see a performing artist dancing around in front of the famous Cube statue.
I frequent St. Marks for both the atmosphere and the food – Mamoun’s Falafel has become a major part of my diet, along with breakfast specials and chai tea from Yaffa Café and Physical Graffitea. Japadog has ice cream on fried buns, and there is a Pinkberry frozen yogurt store.
St. Marks is really about food and shopping- Trash and Vaudeville is there, as is Search and Destroy, two stores that I frequently look in – but never make purchases, since the prices are outrageous. There’s a cute comic book store and a massive bookstore as well, and you can haggle with street-side vendors for sunglasses, earrings and scarves. Yoga To The People, a donation based yoga studio, has classes here several times each day.
The first time I went to St Mark’s was only once I had come here to college. I had recently made friends with a boy named Sam, and he wanted to go get something called “falafel”. After an incredibly unsatisfactory explanation of what falafel was, we were on our way downtown to Mamoun’s. It was quite the adventure. I’d never had falafel before, and I’m sad to say it was a few trips before I was brave enough to try it. The real hysterical part was Mamoun’s hot sauce – no one realized quite how hot that was going to be. Another friend, Stacey and I both tried it. I didn’t regain full use of my tongue for quite a few days. We walked around a bit afterward, exploring the vendors and the little convenience stores, and then headed home.
I think I love St. Marks so much because it symbolizes bittersweet change. So many of the buildings on St. Mark’s Place have an amazing past – the building that now holds a Chipotle and a grocery store was once the club where Andy Warhol produced The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, featuring the Velvet Underground. Lenny Bruce lived on St. Mark’s place. Trash and Vaudeville’s building was owned by Alexander Hamilton’s son. All the places on St. Marks have these beautiful histories.
But it makes me sad to look at these new commercial places that have sprung up – how many of the people who shop in that grocery store have any idea that Andy Warhol hung out there? Do they know that they could be standing where he stood? Do people realize that the tea store is called Physical Graffitea because the album cover for the Led Zeppelin album is actually a picture of the building it is below?
It is similar to the way I am moving forward in college. I have my own history, but it’s changing to become something new. The spirit of St. Marks is still the same – anything goes, footloose and fancy-free people just trying to have a good time expressing themselves. It makes me wonder how much of my personality is going to change in the upcoming decades, and how much is going to remain the same.
