9. Washington Mews, Greenwich Village

The Washington Mews is a little street that runs between 5th Avenue and University Place, parallel to Washington Square North and 8th Street. Visitors are often surprised by the quaintness and quiet of the street, the endearing European carriage houses and vines that seem to belong to another time completely. The once-stables housed horses of wealthy landowners nearby. A 1881 order from the Department of Public Works ordered gates to be built on both east and west ends to make the distinction between street and mews even more clear. Still privately owned by NYU, the mews are accessible to the public, but maintain an elegant quaintness uncommon in New York.