Uploaded January 2008 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The impulse to post this video of New York's changing Lower East Side (LES) was inspired by something I read this week about a MTV web site based on the neighborhood. The LES has morphed in the last ten years. The launch of an MTV virtual world (VLES.com - link below) based on a few blocks below Houston St. now called "Hell Square" dramatizes this. This 10(?) block party zone has more bars and clubs than just about anywhere and most all of them popped up in the last ten years.
A major factor that will contribute to the area's "party-zone" flavor are the luxury towers going up around Houston, Ludlow and Orchard Streets. This area is sort of a gateway to the Lower East Side- see the mural that says so? Compared to the East Village next door (beg. with the numbered streets), the LES was a backwater, the snow shot conveys this feeling. Now c/o the luxe towers, goodbye backwater, goodbye bohemia hello "Hell Square."
Here is the web site for the tower on the left which is removed from the VLES site (see Katz's rendering in the article) because it spoils the "urban grit" of the fantasy playland.
theludlownyc.com
nytimes.com/2008/01/06/arts/television/06itzk.html?scp=1&sq=vles
The impulse to post this video of New York's changing Lower East Side (LES) was inspired by something I read this week about a MTV web site based on the neighborhood. The LES has morphed in the last ten years. The launch of an MTV virtual world (VLES.com - link below) based on a few blocks below Houston St. now called "Hell Square" dramatizes this. This 10(?) block party zone has more bars and clubs than just about anywhere and most all of them popped up in the last ten years.
A major factor that will contribute to the area's "party-zone" flavor are the luxury towers going up around Houston, Ludlow and Orchard Streets. This area is sort of a gateway to the Lower East Side- see the mural that says so? Compared to the East Village next door (beg. with the numbered streets), the LES was a backwater, the snow shot conveys this feeling. Now c/o the luxe towers, goodbye backwater, goodbye bohemia hello "Hell Square."
Here is the web site for the tower on the left which is removed from the VLES site (see Katz's rendering in the article) because it spoils the "urban grit" of the fantasy playland.
theludlownyc.com
nytimes.com/2008/01/06/arts/television/06itzk.html?scp=1&sq=vles
