Sceney nightlife, trendy restaurants, art galleries, and high-end hotels

All attributes that one might use to describe of Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. But I was not describing the Meatpacking District; I am describing the Lower East Side.  The Lower East Side has always been considered one of Manhattan’s most gritty neighborhoods, but that has changed in a major way.

Head down to the LES for a night out on a Thursday through Saturday and you will see lines wrapped around the block for nearly every venue. New restaurants, such as Dirty French, required reservations days, if not weeks in advance when they first opened last year. Still today, there are a line of black cars and their drivers in front of its Ludlow Hotel location. Even the classic neighborhood stables such as Katz’s deli and Russ & Daughters have lines out the door all day.  Art galleries, which were formally established on the Westside, are now also calling LES home. This is due largely in part of the high rent rises of their Westside neighborhoods.