Poetry Below 14th Street

From Walt Whitman to the Beat generation to modern-day slam poets, New York has inspired writers to immortalize in verse its streets, its crowds, its taxis and drunks and skyscrapers. But these poets have given the city more than their stanzas—Manhattan below 14th Street is chock-full of their homes and hangouts, not to mention the hallowed spaces where today’s poets continue to read works.

BY MATT GROSS

Now it’s time for some actual poetry: Zigzag east-ish, passing a host of landmarks: 137 Waverly Place, where Edgar Allan Poe once lived, now occupied by a branch of Douglas Elliman; the church at 55 Washington Square South, which hosted the avant-garde 50s-era Judson Poets Theater; and 653 Broadway, whose basement once housed Pfaff’s beer hall, where Whitman used to hold court with friends like Thomas Nast and William Dean Howells (the space is now a “piercing spa”). Eventually, you’ll hit St. Mark’s Poetry Project, which, back in the days of heroin and street crime, was home base for New York School poets like Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery (who returns once in a while to take part in the ongoing reading series). Head south, and you’ll notice Telephone Bar & Grill (149 Second Avenue; 212-529-5000), where “$1 comedy” on Thursday nights recalls—if you’ve had enough Bass—the staccato self-consciousness of the Beat poets who used to hang out here back when it was Le Metro café.

• St. Mark’s Poetry Project, Second Avenue at 131 E.10th Street, 212-674-0910; poetryproject.com; admission $8, $7 students and seniors, $5 members)
• Telephone Bar & Grill, 149 Second Avenue, 212-529-5000