It's best to use St Mark's Place (aka 8th St) as a base and branch out from here. Start between Second and Third avenues, where independent book and discount record stores struggle for space amid hippy-chic clothiers and head shops in a somewhat contrived atmosphere of MTV cool. Seventh Street boasts used-clothing stores as well as several original boutiques, while 6th Street, between First and Second avenues - also known as " Indian Row " - offers endless choices of all things curry.

On Cooper Square , a busy crossroads formed by the intersection of the Bowery, Third Avenue and Lafayette Street, countless teenage style-gods and hipsters from out of town mill around. The square is dominated by the seven-story brownstone mass of Cooper Union , erected in 1859 by the wealthy industrialist/inventor Peter Cooper as a college for the poor, and the first New York structure to be hung on a frame of iron girders. It's best known as the place where, in 1860, Abraham Lincoln wowed an audience of top New Yorkers with his so-called "might makes right" speech, in which he criticized the pro-slavery policies of the Southern states and helped propel himself to the White House later that year.

St Mark's Place and Cooper Square

• St Mark's Place and Cooper Square

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