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| Pitt Street Montgomery Street Loisaida Avenue | |
 Avenue C was designatedLoisaida Avenue, in recognition of thePuerto Rican heritage of the neighborhood. | |
 | |
| Owner | City of New York |
|---|---|
| Maintained by | NYCDOT |
| Length | 1.8 mi (2.9 km)[1] |
| Location | Manhattan,New York City |
| South end | South Street inLower East Side |
| Major junctions |  FDR Drive inAlphabet City |
| North end | FDR Drive /23rd Street inKips Bay |
| East | Avenue D |
| West | Avenue B |
| Construction | |
| Commissioned | March 1811 |
Avenue C is a north-south avenue located in theAlphabet City area of theEast Village neighborhood ofManhattan inNew York City, east ofAvenue B and west ofAvenue D. It is also known asLoisaida Avenue. It starts atSouth Street, proceeding north as Montgomery Street and Pitt Street, before intersectingEast Houston Street and assuming its proper name. Avenue C ends at23rd Street, running nearly underneath theFDR Drive from 18th Street. North of14th Street, the road forms the eastern boundary ofStuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.
The street was created by theCommissioners' Plan of 1811, as one of 16 north-south streets specified as 100 feet (30 m) in width; they include 12 numbered avenues, and four (located east ofFirst Avenue) designated by letter.[2]
Avenue C was designatedLoisaida Avenue in 1987, in recognition of thePuerto Rican heritage of the neighborhood.[3]Loisaida isSpanglish and is pronounced/ˌloʊiːˈsaɪdə/LOH-ee-SY-də (Lower East Side). The history of the neighborhood was described in the bookSelling The Lower East Side. Although theEast Village designation of this area has received widespread acceptance, many longtime Loisaida residents still consider it part of the Lower East Side, as evidenced by the public art found on the buildings along Avenue C.
A bicycle lane has existed on the avenue since 1999. It is now a buffered lane for the majority of its route and has been extended to nearly the full length of the avenue.[4]
Avenue C was converted into a two-wayboulevard between 18th Street and 23rd Street as part of the development ofStuyvesant Cove Park, which opened in 2002 and resulted in the shifting of the northbound service road of the FDR Drive from the east side to the west side of the elevated viaduct.[5][6]
On October 29 and 30, 2012,Hurricane Sandy caused extensive damages including this street in specific of many that were flooded out during the storm.
The Public National Bank Building at 106 Avenue C at the corner of East 7th Street (also known as 231 East 7th Street) was built in 1923 as a branch bank, and was designed by Eugene Schoen, a noted advocate of modernism at the time. The Public National Bank was a New York State-based bank, and Schoen designed a number of branches for them. This building was sold in 1954, and turned into a nursing home with the addition of a third story. It was converted to residential use in the 1980s.[7]
At the corner of Loisaida and9th Street, there are two sizable (by Manhattan standards)community gardens that are maintained by the surrounding community. Their hours vary with the season and ability of their volunteers, but they are open to everyone and there is no admission fee. The famouspunk houseC-Squat sits at another corner of 9th Street. TheMuseum of Reclaimed Urban Space, which opened in 2012, is located at C-Squat.
TheM9 is the primary server of Avenue C, running the entire route. Uptown service turns left onto East 20th Street. Additional service is provided by theM14D SBS between 14th and 10th Streets, and the eastboundM23 SBS from 23rd to 20th Streets, where it terminates.[8]
Notes
It was called the Lower East Side, the East Village, Alphabet City. But in Nuyorican, the local Latino vernacular, it is Loisaida. Popularized by the poet Bittman Rivas in 1974, the name became official when the city sanctioned Loisaida Avenue as another name for Avenue C in 1987.
