Guide to Union Square: Restaurants, Book Stores and Other Places to Visit
The square is dense with stores and restaurants. One day wouldn’t be enough to explore all the shopping and attractions here. These are only a few of the many great places of the Union Square:
Barnes and Noble
33 East 17th Street, New York, NY 10001, (212) 253-0810
For better or worse, Barnes and Noble has long ago become the bookseller of choice. Let’s face it: the store has every book and CD under the sun, and often invites customers to meet their favorite authors at readings and autograph sessions. Where else can you say hi to Stephen King and Ralph Nader in the span of a week?
The Barnes and Noble on the north side of the square is easily the best location in the city. It’s open and airy; you can spend hours here without getting bored or claustrophobic. And if you get puckish, you can step over to the Starbucks on the premises, a coffee-flavored reading room where you can flip through the books before you buy them. The place is more than a bookstore: it’s a community space.
Zen Palate
34 Union Square, New York, NY 10003, (212) 614-9291
If you are vegetarian, you know only too well how hard it can be to find a great restaurant. Fortunately, New York is a vegetarian heaven: the city is full of wonderful meatless cuisine from every corner of the world.
The Zen Palate, on the East Side of the square, is an upscale all-vegetarian restaurant where presentation counts as much as taste. Fascinating dishes, rooted in ethnic flavors and adapted for the Western palette, often look like works of art. If you are lucky, you might even get to try the amazing but elusive cauliflower and almond soup, a dish you’ll find nowhere else but here.
The Strand Bookstore
828 Broadway, New York, NY 10003, (212) 473-1452
The front doors of the Strand are a portal into another world: a strange, angular, dusty world of books. You’ll find every type of book here, from leather-bound antiques to tattered paperbacks.
If you can find your way around the labyrinth of 8-foot bookshelves, you’ll be rewarded with amazing finds. The books are separated into sections, and the staff is helpful and informative. But beware: the books are alphabetized by author, so you better know who wrote it!
The Irving Plaza
17 Irving Place, New York, NY 10003, (212) 777-6800
No matter where in the city you are, the signs of its rich punk history are never far away. Here, the ghosts of punk reside at the Irving Plaza, one of the city’s famous concert clubs.
This is the place where you can get a beer with a local band and get to catch a world-famous rockstar who’s taking a break from touring arenas. Thanks to the Irving Plaza’s rich history and stellar sound, the best musicians in the world clamor to play here.
The New School for Social Research
66 West 12th Street, New York, NY 10011, (212) 229-5600
Though not as famous as the NYU and Columbia, the New School for Social Research is considered one of the best universities in the country. Founded as University in Exile in 1933, it employed intellectuals who had been forced to flee Europe before World War II. Since then, it has embodied the spirit of intellectual freedom, with the faculty that has included Frank Lloyd Wright, Aaron Copland, Lewis Mumford, Bertrand Russell, Lee Strasberg, and Stella Adler.
The acting department is the university’s pride and joy. This is where the Actors’ Studio is filmed; the New School’s students fill its audience. Tennessee Williams studied here, along with Marlon Brando and Walter Matthau, Harry Belafonte and Tony Curtis.
