Wander round East Village

I met Morton, who took me on an impromptu guided tour of the East Village, after lunch at the Café Rakka in St Marks Place.

St Marks Place

Inside Two Boots Pizza - which began on Avenue A 25 years ago.  It was named because its founders had roots in Italy and Louisiana, both boot-shaped, and the restaurant serves unusual pizza toppings.  It has also always been notable for its child-friendliness, which was rare in the eighties. The area was pretty run-down when they started, but is now a safer, vibrant part of the city. Two Boots has branches in lots of other places and other cities now.

The counter is a collage of posters, photos and other ephemera.

 

The New York City Marble Cemetery  was founded in 1831, after an epidemic of yellow fever caused concern about normal burials in the earth.  One block west is the New York Marble Cemetery founded in 1830, which is entered via an alleyway with iron gates at each end. The funeral home nearby is a four-storey or so high building, on the roof of which is a strange stone or iron (?) owl with apparently cloth or similar wings.

List of interesting places - Tomkins Square Park,  Avenue B and A, Two Boots Pizza, Marble Cemetery, funeral home building with spooky owl on top, Colonnades on Lafayette(?) , Cooper Union building,  TD Bank with old photo of 2nd Avenue 'el' and corner of St Marks, La Mama theatre and others . . . Stuyvesant St,  Hamilton Fish House, First Houses public housing . . .