Showing posts with label Koho School of Sumi-E. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Koho School of Sumi-E. Show all posts

February 28, 2009

MacDougal St.

In the northwest corner of SoHo is the tail end of MacDougal St., which is only one block long south of W. Houston St. on the east side. On this part of MacDougal St.'s west side, it's broken up by a short, one-way block of King St. that barely gets any traffic at all. MacDougal St. ends at Prince St., where the angle of Sixth Avenue doesn't give it room to continue, and the street merges into the narrow Father Fagan Park.

North of W. Houston St., MacDougal St. is a busy bazaar of little stores, coffeehouses, head shops, restaurants, bars, and unique, international take-out joints, mostly catering to the tourist trade and feeding the NYU students' appetites. On the south side of W. Houston St., in SoHo proper, MacDougal St. is quiet and mostly residential, and has St. Anthony's school building on it, so there is only room for a few out-of-the-way restaurants . . . and just two storefronts on the whole block.


At 51 MacDougal St. is the mysterious and eccentric Something Special, which offers mailbox and notary public services, makes keys, and sells offbeat gift items. Apparently, the store has quite a following with the local celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker, Lucy Lawless, and Patti Smith.

The reflection of St. Anthony's school can be seen in the window. The school is now being used by the Cardinal Cooke Academy for Learning and Development, a school-based special education provider.


Across the street is the Koho School of Sumi-E (64 MacDougal St.), where the instructor Koho Yamamoto conducts classes in brush painting and calligraphy, and displays her own art. This is the storefront school's northern window.


Here's the southern window at the Koho School of Sumi-E, showing a Sumi-E portrait perhaps done by Koho herself.

And that's the entirety of the storefronts on the SoHo side of MacDougal St.