15th St Between 3rd Ave and 2nd Ave

The very first week I began posting to NYC Grid, one of the blocks I covered was 15th St Between 1st Ave and 2nd Ave. At the time I remember thinking that I liked the Stuyvesant Park layout and that I should return to take some photos soon. Anyway, it's 15 months later I've finally gotten around to it.

This block is a near-mirror image of its neighbor to the east. Rutherford Place intersects the block in the middle and forms the corner for the park. The short two-block-long street is a bit of an oddity – being south-bound-only between 16th and 15th, and north-bound-only between 16th and 17th.

On the map, Stuyvesant Square looks like a massive block of green plopped down into the middle of the grid - absolutely killing 16th Street in its wake. In reality it's not so foreboding. The unstoppable 2nd Avenue gives you a reprieve from the trees and greenery. Besides, with Beth Israel looming in the background it's hard to even see the park for the trees (I'm pretty sure I mangled that idiom beyond all comprehension and meaning).

23rd St Between 1st Ave and FDR Dr

I'm always amused to get to the far east side and see regular street signs saying "FDR Dr", treating it like a regular, vanilla cross street – suffice to say, I'm easily amused. The way the FDR raises and falls, with it's ups and downs as it leaps over certain streets, it's always hit or miss as to whether or not walking towards it will result in a dead end or not. Around here on 23rd St, the drive leaps over to allow access to a waterfront walkway.

Much of this block is pretty plain and unchanging – with the VA Hospital on the north, and Stuyvesant Town on the south. Right after the hospital is Asser Levy Pl, which separates the medical center from a public pool, which was very active on the hot Saturday during which I visited.

It's very tough to discern any changes between the endlessly repeating building of Peter Cooper Village, but if you look closely, each has little things that make them their own. The wide sidewalk is certainly nice, and there's no lack of trees or plants to provide shade.

1st Ave Between 16th St and 18th St

The last time I documented this area was way back during the first week of the site, when I covered 14th St and 15th St, so it was nice to come back and take a closer look at the 1st Avenue side of things.  This street is dominated by two things: One is the unavoidable Stuyvesant Town to the east and the other is the rounded corner building of Beth Israel Hospital to the west. Because of Stuy-town's 9-block coverage of 1st Avenue, the street here has a secondary north-bound lane which allows for easier access to the mega block and it's stores. 

I noticed as I approached 17th St, that this particular stretch was called Dvorak Pl which – after a little research – I found was named for Antonín Dvořák, a composer who lived here in the late 19th Century.

This area is just on the edge of the east village – it's not quite east or south enough. But there's still a good amount of character (in the form of tags, stickers and miscellaneous street art) to be found.

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15th St Between 1st Ave and 2nd Ave

This street, just south of Stuyvesant Square, has a lot going for it in terms of architectural and natural beauty. It lacks any commercial presence, save for the two bustling avenues which flank it (and 14th St to the south), so don't come here looking for anything other than a brief stroll through the park (or worse, a visit to the hospital). 

Stuyvesant Square has the amusing characteristic of being split down the center by 2nd Avenue- a feature shared only by a handful of other Manhattan parks (Trinity Park, and Sara D Roosevelt Park come to mind)- obviously for the purposes of this blog and post, I can only speak to the eastern side.

When I approached the park today, I initially thought it was closed as no one seemed to be within it's gates. I was wrong, as all the entrances were open, I assume it was just too damn cold for most folks. The park itself features your standard array of wrought iron fencing and plastic signage. Overall it's very pleasant and lends an otherwise dead street some "visitability". 

The buildings on the south side have some great pre-war detailing, which I always appreciate. About 1/3 of the way down the street (walking east) is Nathan D Perlman Place, which creates the eastern most boarder of the park (Beth Israel has buildings across the way). There's a bus shelter right after that, which I can't for the life of me find on any map. I assume it's for some private hospital bus. As one approaches 1st avenue there's Stuyvesant High School, which despite it's years of paint, has some really cool iron work and building design elements. At the very end of the block there's a Chase bank and Ruby's Japanese & Thai Cuisine (though both of their entrances are basically on 1st ave.)

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