Exploring street art and the best places to take our dogs.

Hi! I’m Kit, and we’re on the corner of 1st Street and 1st Avenue. This is the East Village.

OUR ROUTE

First Street Green Art Park: It’s gate is hidden on 1st Street, so it’s really easy to walk right by and miss one of my favorite places.

Lil' Frankies: Probably the best Italian food ever. Absolutely.

DBA: They have a great beer selection. And you can bring your dog. I can't mention that enough.

La Taqueria: California tacos in New York. Another reason New York is better (laughs).

Verameat: It's beautiful jewelry for the girl who isn't cutesy.

Social Tees: An East Village mainstay. Doing good by saving dogs.

STREET ART AND ROCK STARS

Let’s walk west on 1st Street. We’re about to walk by my old building, I was on the fifth floor, at the very top, and this was my door with the mural on top. For as long as I can remember, and I lived in the East Village for over 7 years, there has been giant crate-thing outside my building, it’s actually a Parks Department thing that has like office space and equipment inside for when they do construction on Houston Street. And the crate is covered with all these murals that change, the Parks Department will commission different artists to do a new mural every six months.

Okay, lets keep walking on 1st, Julian Casablancas used to live on this street (laughs), I’m not a fangirl or anything. The Strokes were such an early 2000's band. We’re walking by Prune, Gabrielle Hamilton’s restaurant. She lives in my old building, so she has a really short commute I bet, it’s only a couple storefronts away (laughs). Prune has won a lot of awards, and is known for having the best brunches. I watch a lot of food shows, like Mind of A Chef on PBS. One night, Gabrielle was on!

I really want to show you the First Street Green Art Park that goes in and around to Houston Street. Inside it’s all covered in street art. The first wall you see is owned by this artist named Hektad, it’s covered with this mural of a bunch of little hearts that started out really small. And over the years the hearts just became more and more to become a bigger heart. The art in this park started really ad hoc and now it’s commissioned. Like this one mural that reads “Don’t F With Us, Don’t F Without Us,” was commissioned by Planned Parenthood and done by artist Arianna Margulis.

GOOD MUSIC MAKES THE RESTAUARANT

I lived in the East Village from 2009 to 2016, until two years ago I lived here my entire adult life. And I knew when I was living here that I would have to move otherwise I would never move. But when the time to move did come, I was so reluctant. It was so hard. You just get so attached. It’s like a person.

Lil Frankie’s on First Avenue is my favorite restaurant in the whole world. It’s phenomenal Italian food, and just really fun music. There’s just something really special about this place. They play East Village Radio, which is actually aired from right next door. The food is good, and they just play bangers.

FAVORITE DOG FRIENDLY BAR

This is the bar I wanted to show you, it’s called DBA. I don’t know what DBA stands for, but it’s dog friendly. You can take your pup here, and have a pint. They have a little thing outdoors, like a little garden in the back you can sit in, and they have trivia. It’s kind of divey, but its the best.

Let’s continue up First Avenue to La Taqueria which just has the most bomb, cheap tacos. It’s basically like a LA bar, but with dirt cheap options. And they have great vegetarian ones too, like cactus tacos.

COOL GIRL JEWELRY

Make a left with me onto Ninth Street. Ninth Street between 1st Avenue and 2nd Avenue has all these really great boutiques. There’s some vintage stuff, little jewelry places, and a lot of hidden gems. I used find these places intimidating but one day I just went in and the people were so nice! One of my favorite pieces of jewelry is from Verameat. It’s a little charm bracelet but instead of a normal heart charm, the charm is in the shape of an anatomically correct heart. It’s also got little rocker hands, and a little earthworm.

WHERE TO ADOPT YOUR NEXT PUP

Let’s go a couple blocks down to Fifth Street. This is where the brick and mortar headquarters of Social Tees is. It’s animal rescue organization. They go to kill shelter all across the country and rescue pets and set them up for adoption. This is where I adopted my dog Carter from. He’s always been an East Village doggy (laughs).

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