East Village

These days, a walk along the lively but somewhat homogenized St. Marks Place barely evokes the neighborhood's former gritty, counterculture scene. The blocks between 2nd and 3rd avenues can feel like a shopping arcade for the vinyl-pants set, crammed with body-piercing and tattoo salons; shops selling cheap jewelry, sunglasses, incense, and caustic T-shirts.

East of 1st Avenue is Alphabet City, a once burned-out slum and drug haunt that began gentrifying in the '90s that's managed to hold onto some of the neighborhood's young, artistic rawness. Here you'll find Tompkins Square Park, a popular hangout with playgrounds, green expanses, and active dog runs. The Avenue A side now lays claim to one of the city's most interesting arrays of inexpensive ethnic eateries, Internet cafes, collectibles shops, and low-rent bars. The neighborhood's legacy as the birthplace of punk rock, at the now defunct CBGCBs, is also kept alive at small music venues here and on the Lower East Side.