Neighborhoods with soul: 11-15

Harlem

Central Harlem
Central Harlem boasts some of the most elegant residential architecture in Manhattan: Unique landmarked tracts such as the Mount Morris Park Historic District and Strivers’ Row, as well as long blocks of brownstones, create a small-town atmosphere separate from the rest of the city. There’s green here, too. Scattered throughout the neighborhood, stately parks like Marcus Garvey and St. Nicholas, are well tended and alive with families, their newly renovated playgrounds bustling with kids. On residential streets, seniors sit on stoops and call “Good morning” or “Good evening” to everyone who passes by; on Sundays, crowds spill out of stately old churches, with ladies dressed to the nines and sporting colorful hats. Not everything is peachy, though. Yes, gentrification has brought safer, cleaner streets and thriving new businesses that serve the area’s longtime African-American residents as well as newcomers (want caviar? hit Emperor’s Roe on Malcolm X Boulevard). But as more luxury condo buildings go up, the city’s historic heart of African-American life could become just another bland district of glass towers and chain stores.—Nadia Zonis
Score: 15

Tribeca

Tribeca
Architecturally, Tribeca is windows—huge windows with arced tops, building facades with only narrow strips of stone interrupting the windowed walls, glass bricks. The place has obviously become a popular destination for well-off families, especially those with young kids. With P.S. 234 Independence School and Stuyvesant part of the area, the public-educational opportunities are here. Washington Market Park is a lush and cozy expanse with a great playground and an area designed especially for toddlers. “Tribeca is very quiet as compared to Soho or the Village,” says resident Michael Connolly. “It’s nice that there is some middle-income housing like Independence Plaza, to keep diversity. Otherwise it’s very gentrified—my sons, who are 18 and 21, note this often, and they say it’s gotten too gentrified. All the little bodegas and pizza places are gone that they remember from childhood. I was driving my son back to school the other day and he was asking how anyone his age who isn’t an investment banker can afford to live anywhere in Manhattan anymore.”—Rebecca Shore
Score: 15

West Harlem
Broadway is the busiest part of the neighborhood, filled with shops and crowded with people all the way from 155th Street to 123rd. The big avenues—Broadway, Amsterdam, St. Nicholas—are very wide and open. They don’t feel intimate at all. But Hamilton Terrace, which runs from 141st to 144th Street, just east of Convent, is a lovely, quiet, cozy block. It seems like it’s hidden from the rest of the city. Some of the other blocks nearby (e.g. Sugar Hill) are similarly leafy and peaceful. And in general the area is quite green, thanks to lots of street trees and Riverbank State, Riverside and St. Nicholas Parks, and the Trinity Cemetery, plus several smaller parks and community gardens. Unfortunately, City College has built an awful, characterless modern building (North Academic Center) that creates a solid wall along Amsterdam just above 135th Street. And the least pleasant part of the neighborhood: St. Nicholas from 145 Street to 140th Street. It’s desolate, with more trash than other areas. Still, the future beckons: You’ll find some renovation of existing buildings, and about six or seven Corcoran signs for available brownstones.—Nadia Zonis
Score: 15

Gramercy

Gramercy
Gramercy is home to one lucrative deal: the privatization of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, two residential communities that run from First Avenue to the East River and from 23rd Street to 14th Street. The apartments are being fully renovated and will be rented out for high prices. But the boardwalk at the East River is a very Jane Jacobs–type place, mainly because it is multiuse and attracts a wide range of people. There are poor fishermen. There also people out for a jog, women taking a leisurely stroll with baby carriages, dog trainers leading their dogs through a pavement maze and even tourist groups lining up for cruises around the island. It’s also a nice place to just sit and read a book. But then there are the soul killers: six Starbucks, 13 cell phone stores, 15 fast-food joints…—Julia Israel
Score: 14

Upper East Side

Upper East Side
The busiest part of this neighborhood is the 60th/59th Street Area around Lexington and Third Avenues, which are home to Bloomingdale’s, H&M, Urban Outfitters, Banana Republic, Zara and Dylan’s Candy Store. Where do the shops and people come together? Bebe, Gap, Lucky Jeans, Sephora, Banana Republic, Bare Essentials, Arden B. It’s like a huge outdoor mall, except with fewer teens and more Jewish MILFs.—Monika Fabian
Score: 13