At the corner of Washington Square South and Thompson Street you'll see the square-towered Judson Memorial Church. One block east, at La Guardia Place, NYU's rebuilt student center stands on the site of a boardinghouse that had been nicknamed the House of Genius for the talented writers who lived there over the years: Theodore Dreiser, O. Henry, and Eugene O'Neill, among others. Another block east is the hulking red sandstone Bobst Library, built in 1972, which represents an abortive attempt to create a unified campus look for NYU as envisioned by architects Philip Johnson and Richard Foster. At one time plans called for all the Washington Square buildings to be refaced in this red stone; the cost proved prohibitive. On the east side of the square, you can take in a contemporary art exhibit at Grey Art Gallery, housed in NYU's main building.

From Washington Memorial Arch and the park, cross Washington Square North to the east corner of 5th Avenue, where there's a portico entrance to 7-13 Washington Square North. Beyond the white columns of this entrance is the small, attractive Willy's Garden. A statue of Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, stands at the far end. The likeness, cast in 1724, was a gift from the mayor of Madrid.

Another half a block north, on the east side of 5th Avenue, is Washington Mews, a cobblestone private street. A similar Village mews, MacDougal Alley, lies between Washington Square North and 8th Street, one block west. Continue up the west side of 5th Avenue; you'll pass the Church of the Ascension, a Gothic revival brownstone building. At 12th Street you can stop in the Forbes Magazine Galleries.

Backtrack to West 11th Street and turn right to see one of the best examples of a Village town-house block. One exception to the 19th-century redbrick town houses here is the modern, angled front window of 18 West 11th Street, usually occupied by a stuffed bear whose outfit changes day to day. This house was built after the original was destroyed in a 1970 explosion of a basement bomb factory, which had been started by members of the Weathermen, the revolutionary faction of the Students for a Democratic Society. Toward 6th Avenue, behind a low wall on the south side of the street, is the Second Shearith Israel graveyard, used by the country's oldest Jewish congregation after the original cemetery in Chinatown and before the one in Chelsea.

East Village- Lower East Side Walking Tour / 6th Avenue and West walking / Washington Square Area walking tour / A Greenwich Village Walking Tour / A SoHo and TriBeCa Walking Tour

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