Alphabet City is a quiet NYC neighborhood with loud history. The area has gained fame and name for naming its streets after letters in the alphabet. A hotbed for immigrants for most of the 19th century, the area continued to serve as a cultural enclave into the 20th Century, acting as the headquarters of the artistic Nuyorican Movement of the 1960s and 70s. Alphabet City is dominated by pre-war tenement and row houses. Most of the buildings have been preserved for more than 100 years, thanks largely to the area’s historic district designation in 2012. The authenticity of old world New York is so dead-on that The Godfather (Part II) filmed on these very streets to replicate the 1920’s. Alphabet City’s borders blend into East Village and Stuyvesant Town. In fact, most of Tompkins Square Park is technically in Alphabet City. The borderlines start with Houston to the south and go up to 14th Street to the north. The eastern border starts at Avenue A and finishes at the East River.
