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I became aware that a trendy new neighborhood was blossoming near my Greenwich Village backyard a few years ago when a friend, jazz pianist Kirk Lightsey, mentioned the NoHo Star restaurant on Lafayette Street, a block east of lower Broadway. I had never heard of it. Lightsey, who is fluent in the tastes of cutting-edge Manhattanites, told me he loved the food--the hazelnut waffles and brioche French toast in particular. "It's a wonderful place. I thought everybody knew about it," he said.
The NoHo Star has a typical SoHo ambience--not surprising since Lower Broadway is an architectural and spiritual offshoot of SoHo, an acronym for South of Houston Street, the artists' neighborhood. White pressed-tin ceiling, wall tiles painted with stars, wicker chairs, critically praised food and piped-in, calming harpsichord music are part of the NoHo Star package.
During the past few years I've watched the revitalization of lower Broadway spread east to the side streets as New Yorkers scratch for more affordable living and working space. The newly flourishing area slices not just through NoHo (the area north of Houston street with New York University on the west, Astor Place on the north and the East Village on the east) but south down a corridor from Union Square through Greenwich Village, NoHo, SoHo and Little Italy to Canal Street and Chinatown.
On the northern end, revitalized Union Square is surrounded by new high-rise apartment buildings. Sidewalk cafes and restaurants border the square and its popular green market (Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays). A statue of Mohandas K. Gandhi remains un-vandalized, and people have actually planted a little garden around it and placed flowers around Gandhi's neck.
Book publishers congregate around Union Square; magazines have settled in the Village/NoHo/SoHo sections. Some publishers came here to escape the high rents in Midtown and others have never set up shop anywhere else. Time Out magazine, emulating the well-known London guide, began publishing last year at 627 Broadway, between Bleecker and Houston streets. Details, a men's magazine at 632 Broadway, is on the same block. The trendy Paper--a hip guide to New York--entered the action in the late '80s at 529 Broadway in SoHo. New York Press, a news and entertainment magazine, moved into the Puck Building, a...