Lower East Side: Bowery and Beyond

The Bowery has been up, down, and sideways.

Gilded Age wealth, Yiddish theater, Skid Row, cold lofts where artists worked against a backdrop of sirens. Now it's glass towers next to kitchen supply stores and Supreme (still with lines around the block). The street has never settled. That's the point.

The New Museum, with its new Rem Koolhaas wing, anchors the art scene. Scattered along Chrystie and Stanton off Sara D. Roosevelt Park are a few newcomer galleries worth finding.

But its neighborhood originals are the reason to come. Howl!, named after Ginsberg. Westwood, championing painters who lived in those freezing lofts. Tibor de Nagy carries the Frank O'Hara era forward. And Steven Harvey Fine Arts celebrates the New York Studio School. They're not reviving the archive, they are it.

Slip into Freemans via the alleyway for oysters, steak, and a breather from the noise. Or grab a coffee at Bungee Space, the concept store with vintage clothing and books by way of Beijing.

Don’t drift into NoLita. Head east instead.