West Village Apartments in Manhattan

West Village in Manhattan Apartment Rentals

The West VIllage is home to some of New York City's prettiest blocks: those quiet, winding, leafy streets lined with charming townhouses and brownstones. This neighborhood has it all, from adorable boutiques and fabulous restaurants to great public schools to a genuine sense of community. Numerous celebrities live in this nabe, although they tend to be low-key and keep to themselves.

Due to strict height restrictions on buildings in the West Village, developement has been limited, preserving the historic brownstones and smaller apartment buildings and maintaining the historic character of the neighborhood. However, this also means that, unlike in other neighborhoods, developers cannot just "build up" to meet the increased demand for more West Village apartments. From there it's simple supply and demand... a high demand for housing, plus a limited supply that can't be increased, equals higher prices.

Even the inevitable development over the past two decades has, for the most part, been executed with good taste and respect for the West Village's history, exemplified most forcibly by Richard Meier's superb glass-walled Perry Street towers. But also found in less-hyped projects in the area, such as the mid-rise Horatio House, and the conversion of the historic Greenwich building on 7^th Avenue into handsome lofts.

Though sometimes included under the broader Greenwich Village rubric (they are two distinct neighborhoods, nonetheless), neighborhood boundaries runs east to west from Sixth Avenue to West Street, and in bounded on the north by 14^th Street, and to the south by Houston Street (with some overlap into the newly-named Hudson Square area in the southwest).

The West Village: A Rich Heritage

Even though strict boundaries are up for discussion in this popular nabe, all New Yorkers agree that this is one of the most-desirable neighborhoods in town, for the high quality of life you'll experience on a daily basis, for the enviable number of outstanding local dining and shopping options, for the deep sense of pride--and, so, a willingness to fight to keep the character of the community unchanged--felt by long-term West Village residents.

The history of the area has been colorful, and enormously impactful on the city as a whole, and is critical to understanding the neighborhood today. Because it's been a while since the West Village was truly as bohemian as it was in the days of the artists and avant-gardes of the early 20^th century, or the beatniks and folkies of the 1950s and '60s, or the hippies of the '60s and '70s--not to mention the men who stood up for themselves at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 and ignited the nationwide gay liberation movement-the community remains fiercely tolerant and unabashedly liberal. 

Amazing Restaurants and Classic Landmarks Surround Apartments in the West Village

If you want to live in a downtown NY apartment that's surrounded by first-rate local restaurants, off and off-off Broadway theaters, and small jazz venues, the West Village is the place to be. Just a very few of our favorites would include the always-packed, always-delicious gastropub Spotted Pig; the Little Owl, home of, among other things, the city's best pork chop; Bar Pitti, where the Italian food is terrific and a third of what they charge next door at Da Silvano; Blue Hill and its fabulously fresh haute-barnyard cuisine; and Soto, on an unlovely stretch of Sixth Avenue that nonetheless delivers amazing Japanese dishes, both cooked and raw.

Other neighborhood landmarks include the White Horse Tavern, where literary legends such as Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer and James Baldwin  have all over-indulged; the beautiful Cherry Lane Theater, New York City's oldest continually-running off-Broadway theater; and the internationally-known Village Vanguard, where jazz greats still play hot and cool, deep into the night.

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