East 5th Street

This is East 5th Street, between Avenues A and B:

It has a lot of bars on it, and very little traffic. The reason it has so little traffic is that it doesn't go past either Avenue A or B.

On the Avenue A side is what's called a NORC, a naturally-occurring retirement community. The official name is Village View Apartments. They don't take applications for apartments; no one who's moved in has ever moved out.

On the Avenue B side is the Earth School. It's very groovy. The building also houses Tompkins Square Middle School, also very groovy. Because so many people want their kids to go there, and because the administrators don't know how to say No, class sizes are seriously high — over 40 kids per class in the middle school. The kids don't do well on state tests either, but then parents don't send their kids there to be educated, but to be groovy. You can see them walking around the neighborhood wearing black hoodies with TSMS printed in red on the front.