brewsta brewsta #3

On Monday march 1st at 3 in the afternoon w.chen and i took advantage of the great weather and went to st.marks place in search of private,public and mix used places. Starting at Astor all the way down to Tompkins square park we dodged these mildly filled side walks (that are crowded at night, especially on weekends)scattered with vendors in front of stores selling bongs, i love new york hats,beanies and small nick knacks...walking down these street i noticed not only local Japanese restaurants,but small chain stores like pink berry, red mango,chipolte and BBq, in addition to piercing shops,irish bars, tiny book and music stores..but the thing that makes this area grand is that it has just as many apartments as it has shops.....with the exception of the block before tompkins park being mainly residential.. the majority of this area is made of apartments on top and stores below...this area at first sight appears to be purely private ..being that it is either residential or business owned.. but when taking a closer look i noticed that st.marks is actually shared space with little difference between whats public and whats private and thats all before reaching the park...i supppose it has something to do with the air or the feel of the enviroment which holds a very relaxed and welcoming feel to it.....because there people tend to gather and sit on stoops or just hang outside of resaurants without any fuss from store owners (who, ive noticed would even welcome the crowd by holding conversations of their own)....now when we finally reached the bbq block (last block before the park) it dawned on me that it was way emptier that the previous ones and that this one was filled with more apartments with the exception of boutiques towards the end of the block... this i would discribe as being private sincce it was a more residential neighborhood.. while the park that was just across the street by all means to me would be veiwed as completely public space (even with park regulations), because ive seen all types of people doing just about everything there...