To say the Lower East Side of Manhattan was nothing like I imagined is to say nothing. I booked a little Airbnb on Ludlow Street for my family of four for two weeks in September. My reasoning was: several iconic places to eat in NYC, like Katz’s Deli and Russ’s Daughters were just around the corner. And given that I primarily travel for food, I decided LES was the perfect place to be. The fact that there are plenty of things to do in the Lower East Side of Manhattan didn’t hurt either.
Fast forward to me getting out of the taxi with a toddler, a baby, several pieces of luggage, and a stroller at 9pm only to realize the Lower East Side was party central at night. Loud music, crowds drinking on the streets, and everything that comes with young people having fun. To be fair, were I a 20-something-year-old, I would totally dig it (trying to talk like a 20-year old, too). But oh well, I am a 37-year-old mom of two, and if you heard me complain about the state of affairs you’d think I was no less than 70.
Anywho, for the next two weeks we barricaded ourselves in the Airbnb at night: we would close the windows and suffer from the heat, open them — and fall asleep to the cacophony of screaming and loud music. During the day though we explored and ate some of the most delicious foods New York had to offer.
This guide for the best things to do in the Lower East Side is slightly skewed towards eating, but who would complain about that, right?
Disclosure: this post contains some affiliate links which means if you buy something by clicking the link I will earn a small commission at absolutely no extra cost to you.
Named “one of the most beautiful buildings in the world” by Time Out, Eldridge Street Synagogue is a National Historic Landmark and one of the most mind-blowing things to do in the Lower East Side.
I am usually quite skeptical about lists trying to rate the best of the best, but here I have to agree: the interior of Eldridge Street Synagogue made my jaw drop. And to think it is still a hidden gem: at some point me and my kids were the only people inside, one-on-one (three-on-one?) with this architectural masterpiece.
The building went through a massive 20-year restoration process that started in the 1980s. You can see pictures of the old and restored parts of the building side by side on the official website.
The most striking element is, without a doubt, the dramatic blue stained glass window designed by artist Kiki Smith and architect Deborah Gans which looks like a galaxy filled with stars. The celestial theme is echoed throughout the church: the blue of the sky and the gold of stars also appear on the ceiling dome.
Today, the Museum at Eldridge Street is housed inside the synagogue, so you can also learn about Jewish immigrant history and life in the Lower East Side.
I wish I had a better picture to share with you, alas, I was so surprised to spot Lenin with his arm raised on the rooftop in New York, I completely forgot to properly document it. You can read the full story behind the sculpture and see good pictures here or simply Google “Lenin Statue New York” — it’s marked as a historical landmark.
In short, the bronze statue was made by sculptor Yuri Gerasimov and brought from Moscow by property developers Michael Rosen and Michael Shaoul. It was first installed on the rooftop of a building aptly named Red Square on East Houston Street in 1994.
However, when the building was sold in 2016, the sculpture was taken down. A year later it reappeared on the rooftop of a building not too far away at 178 Norfolk Street, where it still stands today. You can see it from the street level as it is located close to the edge of the rooftop and — as you can tell from my photo — from quite far away in the neighborhood, too.
Lenin Statue — 178 Norfolk Street
One of my personal favorite things to do in the Lower East Side was spending quiet time at Pier 35. New York can be incredibly hectic, noisy, and busy. And when you visit with little kids, the overwhelm is real. Coming to Pier 35 was my way of getting a little bit of my peace back. You couldn’t find a more relaxing, quaint, and at the same time breathtaking spot if you tried.
Pier 35 is part of the East River Waterfront Esplanade, a long stretch of pedestrian and cycling paths by the waterfront. It is hard to imagine today, but easy access to the waterfront is a relatively new development. For years, the Lower East Side was an industrialized part of New York with highways instead of walkways.
Today, the best part about coming here is swinging on giant swings with the view of the Manhattan Bridge and the NYC skyline. People come here for a stroll, to exercise, and to have a picnic. The pier has just enough people to feel lively, but not crowded.
A relatively new addition to the Lower East Side is Sweet Pickle Books. Opened in 2020, it has already become an unmissable and almost iconic part of the neighborhood. Selling used books and pickles might not be as unusual as you might think, when you dig a bit deeper into the history of the Lower East Side.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, several waves of Eastern European immigrants settled in this part of Manhattan. With them, they brought recipes for inexpensive, delicious foods, like cucumbers fermented in brine. Pushcarts selling pickles have eventually become a part of the Lower East Side cultural code, so much so the neighborhood earned the name “pickle district”. You can read more about the pickle sellers and the wars between them in this article on Food52.
So Sweet Pickle Books continues the long standing tradition of selling pickles in LES, as well as used books! Not the most conventional combination, but having grown up with pickles on my plate all through winter, I am not the one to complain.
Sweet Pickle Books — 47 Orchard St.
Children’s Magical Garden is a green space for kids right in the city, free to use in the warmer months from April to October. Important to know is that this is not a touristy thing to do in the Lower East Side, but rather a space for the local community to come together, run by volunteers.
The garden has been around for 40 years and hosts events regularly. If you travel with little kids and find yourself in LES, this can be a perfect spot to let the kids unwind, run around, and connect with nature.
You can check their Instagram page (linked below) to see if there’s an event on the day you visit. Generally, the garden is open from 3 to 6 pm daily.
Children’s Magical Garden — 129 Stanton St.
I love a good food market, and New York has no shortage of them. Essex market has some of the best food NYC has to offer, but no crowds like some other more popular alternatives (looking at you, Chelsea Market.)
The history of this place goes back as far as 1818, when dozens of independent pushcart peddlers sold foods under open sky steps away from the current location of the market. Today, Essex Market is situated in a newly renovated building at the intersection of Essex and Delancey streets.
Some places you might want to check out are Unregular Pizza, Zerza Moroccan, Sugar Sweet Sunshine bakery (try their banana pudding), Kotti Berliner Döner Kebab, and Nordic Preserves.
Essex Market — 88 Essex St.
Since this is a guide for things to do in the Lower East Side, I am only including places to eat that are truly iconic. And if you find yourself in LES, you simply try Katz’s Delicatessen.
I used to be the girl that didn’t mind getting in line at 7 am under pouring rain just to get her hands on a cronut (back when there was a line to get a cronut, these days you just come by the opening of Dominique Ansel Bakery and buy it.)
Now that I have two little kids, standing in line doesn’t seem as fun. Still, there are some places that are worth it and Katz’s Deli is one. It’s an icon, a legend, a cultural phenomenon, a filming location for the infamous scene with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal from When Harry Met Sally (the scene that inspired the name of this very blog, too.)
Pastrami on rye is what people line up for. But do try the matzo ball soup, too.
Katz’s Deli — 205 E Houston St.
Another iconic thing to do in the Lower East Side is grabbing a bagel at Russ & Daughters. You will find two places with that name in the neighborhood, a cafe where you can have a proper sit-down meal and a so-called “appetizing store”. The latter is what you need to check out!
Don’t get me wrong, I love a beautiful cafe and food served to the table as much as the next girl. But it is the store on East Houston Street that was founded in 1914. It is one of the city’s oldest family-run businesses. What you find inside is an array of Jewish appetizing foods like bagels, smoked fish, cream cheese, and traditional sweets. The store doesn’t have any tables so you will have to find a park bench to enjoy your bagel.
Tip: their 7-layer halwa is fantastic and makes for a great edible present.
Russ & Daughters — 179 East Houston St and 3 other locations – check google maps
Economy Candy, officially established in 1937, is New York’s oldest candy shop and one of the most fun, nostalgic, and delicious things to do in the Lower East Side.
Believe it or not, Economy Candy was once Economy Shoes, a shoe and hat repair shop located on the corner of Essex St and Rivington St, with a small push cart selling candy just outside the store. During the Great Depression years the candy cart was doing much better than the shoe store, and so the business grew. The store eventually moved a few blocks away to Rivington St.
The selection of candy might be overwhelming, with over 2000 varieties to choose from. There are popular American brands, imported candy from all over the world, and vintage varieties that are not easy to find in regular stores.
Economy Candy — 108 Rivington St.
Some of the best coffee I had in New York was from this tiny unassuming coffee shop on Ludlow Street, called Vita. As it was just outside our Airbnb, I started every day with a cappuccino and sometimes came back in the afternoon for more. The coffee is that good! Which comes as no surprise if you dig a little and realize Vita originated 30 years ago in Seattle.
They currently have two locations in New York: a roastery in Brooklyn where beans are roasted by hand and the coffee shop in the LES. They use a LaMarzocco coffee machine which is always a good sign in my experience. There’s no sitting inside, only a narrow ledge where you can have your coffee standing up.
Caffe Vita — 124 Ludlow St. (LES location) and 576 Johnson Ave.
The Lower East Side comes to life at night. And while I did not check out the bar scene, what with traveling to New York with toddlers and all, I could hear all the fun from my window as I was putting said toddlers to sleep.
LES is famously one of the best neighborhoods in Manhattan for wine and cocktails. Condé Nast Traveler went as far as naming it “a hub of the natural wine movement not dissimilar to Paris’s 11th Arrondissement”. Check out this guide for the best wine bars and this guide to the best places to drink in LES to find a good spot.
If you are in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, it only makes sense to venture out to Chinatown and Little Italy that are located just steps away. In Chinatown, you can try black sesame or lychee rose ice cream at Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, visit the Museum of Chinese in America, and see the Mahayana Buddhist Temple on Canal Street.
In Little Italy, walk on Mulberry Street, visit the Italian American Museum, and try pizza at Lombardi’s. These are just a few suggestions. There are multiple in-depth guides to these neighborhoods that will help you plan your day.
I am going to tell you exactly how to plan your day to cover as many things to do in Lower East Side that I mentioned above as possible, but if you simply want to relax and be guided by a knowledgeable person, this tour can be a good option. It includes Chinatown and Little Italy, and you can try all the delicious foods these neighborhoods have to offer along the way.
Not visiting the Tenement Museum might be my biggest frustration of the last trip to NYC. You can only see it on a guided tour, but unfortunately kids under 5 are not allowed on most tours of the museum. The exceptions are Meet Victoria tour and neighborhood walking tours (that take place outside).
I was in New York with 2 kids under 5, so it wasn’t meant to be I guess (we did do a lot of kid-friendly stuff, though, in case you are wondering how to explore New York with toddlers.)
Tenement — in case you are wondering, because I, for one, had to Google it — refers to apartment buildings where multiple families live. The museum is housed in two such buildings on Orchard Street. The apartment tours (of which there are 8 to choose from) take you through actual well-preserved apartments where immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Puerto Rico and China, once lived.
The interiors were painstakingly recreated to bring individual stories of each family to life. The best part about taking this tour is that you are learning personal stories rather than broad history, which makes the whole experience more intimate and emotional.
This might be the most unconventional way to see street art as it is not located in the street, but rather inside the fancy CitizenM Bowery Hotel. To be precise, on the walls of the stairwell. To visit the Museum of Street Art, you have to take the elevator to the 20th floor and then descend the staircase all the way down while admiring pieces of art created by some of the most famous street artists. If you’d like to learn more about how these artworks found a home at the hotel, read this piece.
It doesn’t hurt that CitizenM Bowery in itself is a beautiful hotel. There’s also a highly-rated cloudM bar on the 20th floor that offers beautiful views of Manhattan.
MoSA — 189 Bowery
We touched on the topic of pickles when talking about Sweet Pickle Books, but I have something else for you. The Pickle Guys, as described on their own website, is “the last standing pickle store on Essex Street, a neighborhood once known for its bustling pickle markets.”
Here, you will find all kinds of pickles made using old-fashioned Eastern European recipes. Water, salt, spices, and time is all they use. Pickles stay in barrels for as long as 3 months. Needless to say, there are no preservatives used.
The Pickle Guys — 357 Grand St.
Start your day with a classic bagel at Russ & Daughters. Take it to go (there’s no other option anyways) and proceed to Caffe Vita for your morning shot of caffeine.
After breakfast, head to the Museum at Eldridge Street (opens at 10am). Make a stop at Sweet Pickle Books and The Pickle Guys on the way (both open at 10 am, too.) After admiring the synagogue and learning about Jewish history, head to Pier 35 for some fresh air and stunning views of Manhattan.
Head back to the heart of the Lower East Side (perhaps by way of Chinatown and Little Italy?) If you feel hungry, now is the time to hit Essex Market. Afterwards, take a tour at the Tenement museum. Most of their guided tours take place between 12 and 4 pm, make reservations in advance. Another option is to visit the Museum of Street Art at the CitizenM Bowery.
Afterwards, head to Economy Candy for a sweet treat. The Lenin Statue is only steps away from the candy store.
As the day comes to an end, have a cocktail at one of the many bars in the neighborhood. Perhaps, bar hopping is a fun idea? For a late night meal, stop at Katz’s and have the famous pastrami on rye. There’s usually no line at night, so it’s the best time to visit.
I write stories about food, travel, and my life as a mom of two boys. Home is Russia, but somehow also Sri Lanka and Hamburg, Germany. Go figure.
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