Borders Defined

The neighborhood, with about 72,000 residents, is typically seen as bounded by 14th Street and East Houston Street, the Bowery/Fourth Avenue and the East River.

There is a reasonable argument to be made that, while the formal dimensions of the East Village have been long settled, perhaps its perimeter should be redefined so that the eastern side of Second Avenue is its westernmost boundary, owing to the emergence of a region that might be termed “NYU Village,” whose barbaric hordes encompass college students as well as auxiliary invaders from the shores of New Jersey, the fetid swamps of Murray Hill, and the wilds of “upstate,” who regularly swarm the entire corridors of the Bowery and western Second Avenue on weekends. Though appeasement is not always the best strategy, voluntarily giving up a sizable portion of the East Village may dampen their frenzy enough to save the rest of the neighborhood before it winds up completely conquered, like the Lower East Side — a neighborhood we have already lost in its entirety. It might even convince them to give back the eastern portions of St. Mark’s Place and Avenue A.