Getting off the subway at the West 4th Street Station, you will most likely emerge to the sounds of a pick-up game in The Cage, the West 4th Street basketball courts. But just around the corner from the tattoo parlors and fantasy clothing shops across the street you will find tiny Cornelia Street with all its charm.
The street originally was part of a farm owned by a Dutch settler, Robert Herring, who named the street after his granddaughter, Cornelia, in 1794. Each building has its own character, and even today there are several private residences, some with newly shellacked garage doors, sitting next to a row of Zagat rated restaurants like Le Gigot, Pearl Oyster Bar, Home, Palma and more.
Cornelia Street has often been called one of New York’s best little restaurant streets and is also home to the famous Cornelia Street Cafe’ which opened its doors in 1977 to good food, art, poetry and music.
When you reach the end, you are on Bleecker Street and will be standing in front of my all time favorite Italian Restaurant in Greenwich Village:
Trattoria Pesce Pasta – 10 years old this year. Ahhhh, Bleecker Street. We will save that for another week.
You can view some of AFineLyne’s watercolor paintings on display until the end of the month at Betola Espresso Bar located at 514 E. 6th Street.
