11th St Between 3rd Ave and 2nd Ave

   

This is the type of street I hope every person who visits New York gets to walk down at least once. Sure, there isn't anything of particular note, but to me it's more genuine than most any block you're able to find in midtown. The rows of mismatched apartments with their stoops eating into the already-narrow sidewalk, the small stores which sit close to the avenues, the churches and schools which hide in plain sight as you thoughtlessly walk by. It's a microcosm in just a few hundred feet, and it's what this city used to be filled with.

Now days it's harder to find simple block like this. I generally don't lament the new construction too much, but these plain-jane streets are so charming. They offer little-more than a place to live and a way to get from one avenue to the next…beyond that they're not a destination by any means. It's what you often see when you turn on Sesame Street or any other program which presents a semi-idealized version of urban life.