Lower East Side, Allen Street at Delancey

Mary Sargent © 2009 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

This comfort station, so called, faces Delancey Street. The signs on the building read, "____________ is the Keeper of this Park" and "Allen Mall Six." This is a park? says I. And This is comfort?

I have discovered that the entire mall, so called, has been maintained by the Parks Department since 1929 "as the result of an agreement with the Manhattan Borough President." I wonder what the terms of that agreement were. Anyway, I guess if it's maintained by the Parks Department, it becomes a park.

Upon further investigation, however, I learned that things are looking up, and if I had only crossed Delancey, I would have seen a newly redone block of the Allen Mall with a brick path, benches, sculpture and shrubs. I'll save that for the spring. I learned this on the Lower East Side website.

Note: The malls are divided into eight sections and numbered. Hence Allen Mall Six.

See map.