Meatpacking District, Ninth Avenue at Little West 12th Street

Mary Sargent © 2009 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

At Greenwich Street, Little West 12th Street joins in, and, along with Gansevoort, forms a plaza. The shock of this encounter prematurely transforms Greenwich Street into Ninth Avenue.

This shot is taken looking back from where we came. See the Charles Nolan store off in the background? This gal in the foreground is carrying a bag from Zadig & Voltaire, a store on Washington Street, around the corner. The New York Times's Critical Shopper wrote an amusing article about checking out the merchandise. But skip the first half, which is not amusing, just confusing.

Apparently, until last year, this area was not a plaza, just a really wide and unregulated meeting of three streets, very difficult for pedestrians to navigate. I don't know if this is considered complete. I hope not. Anyway, it's safe. Read about it here.




Mary Sargent © 2009 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

The northern edge of the Plaza is defined by the famed restaurant Pastis on Little West 12th, famed more for its scene than its food although the food is judged reasonably good.

Oh, okay, why Little West 12th? Because it's only one block long, from Ninth to Tenth Avenues. It's separated from 12th Street proper by a mess of streets typical of Greenwich Village, so I suppose it's always been that way.

P.S. If you link to the map below, and go to the street view, you can get a good sense of what it must have been like to try to cross that street.

See map.