Allen St anarchy – a little LES history
we moved onto Allen St around 1988. at that time, just 16 years ago, the lower east side was like the wild west. raw, lawless, druggy – even friends who lived in the EV hesitated to venture down. here are some random memories from back in those dayz to help paint the picture…

the Allen St Mall (the center island between the north and south lanes) was a virtual tent city of homeless people (with a heavy concentration of drug addicts and prostitutes) the main “city” was the area between Houston and Delancy (but trickling down all the way to where Allen becomes Pike and then hits the river) at this time the mall had built-in benches up and down on both sides. everything from tents and tarps to large cardboard boxes and construction debris were used to make make-shift homes. the city and police rarely, if ever, set foot in this area, and let the homeless be with no raids/evacuations.

in the Allen St mall there was also a notorious entrance/hatch door to one of the deserted underground subway tunnels used by the homeless. we believe it was near the old, abandoned public bathrooms located right across the street from bragging gentrifiers at 115 Allen

during the 80’s and early 90’s just about any drug you wanted could be purchased at a number of store fronts along the east side of Allen between Stanton and Rivington. around 1989, Jane Fonda’s daughter, Vanessa Vadam, was busted for buying heroin on this block

there were many houses of prostitution in the area. one of the most well known ones was at 167 Allen. now a restaurant, but for decades a bodega was in this spot with an infamous whore-house in the basement. in the 12 years we witnessed its operation; it was very well known by everyone in the hood and never had a single bust by the cops. open in the daytime (closed around 6 pm) it usually had a busy business going by 9 am. the bodega was owned and run by this handsome old guy, Caesar. he had a big sign that said “Mr. Credit no here today”

the Yemen guys who own the deli on Allen and Stanton had a homey fried chicken place on the corner across the St. in what later became the Living Room (coincidentally – we noticed today construction is going on in this spot and were told a new bar/restaurant is coming in)

a little off the Allen… Castillo De Jagua was the neighborhood food mainstay, serving up delicious cheap Latin food. they treated everyone who came in like family and fed everyone in the hood (you could eat and pay them back later if you were hurtin.) they still make one of the best and cheapest Cuban Sandwiches in the city. the then un-renovated, dark and dirty Sarah Delano Roosevelt park was hands-down the most dangerous park in all of NYC. and Adam Purple was still fighting the good battle to keep his community garden alive.

in the early 90’s the city decided to start raiding the homeless city and kick out all inhabitants. The raids didn’t seem to take permanent effect – so the city came in and REMOVED every single bench up and down the mall from Houston to Delancey, and the people living there moved for good.

that’s just a taste of what Allen St was like back then. and now we’ve come full circle, as the Parks Dept website has put up a notice that this summer they will start a redevelopment project of the Allen St Mall