2 King Street
mother/assistant manager at a book warehouse on Broadway
I miss West Broadway during the days it wasn’t fancy. There was an old-school coffee shop on the corner of Prince and West Broadway. Like a small diner. It was wonderful. Later it became a t-shirt store. I miss the old “Whole Foods” that was I think, the first ‘health food store’ in New York. I miss FOOD, the restaurant where I once was in the cafeteria line with James Taylor and Kathryn Walker. I miss the original Dean & DeLucca’s that was a huge loft-like space on Spring (or Prince?). with a coffee and pastry bar in the front, and a wide open space with cafe tables in the back. I miss the original Le Gamin on MacDougal Street, the French cafe that we watched from our living room windows as it was being created.
When we lived on King Street we were lucky to have a group of families with young kids living in the building or within a couple of blocks. The parents used to hang out on the wide sidewalk there while the kids rode bikes and played games. It was a real community.
My then-husband got a job in Brooklyn. The apartment we had at 2 King Street was tied to his Manhattan job, so we had to leave.
If I could affort to move back to King Street I would. It’s a truly special neighborhood. But the memories of the past would perhaps overshadow any new life I could live there.