Even with the Alamo, an iconic piece of public art more often referred to as 'The Cube,' restored after several years absence, this is not the Astor Place of old. No longer grungy, filled with gutter punks and squatters, this new iteration is also no longer a plaza. It's an orderly block between Broadway and Lafayette surrounded by sleek, glittery buildings and outfitted with well-designed benches and granite blocks good for people-watching.
The large, brownstone Cooper Union, the public college founded in 1859 by glue millionaire Peter Cooper, dominates the area – now more than ever, when in 2009 the school opened its first new academic building in over 50 years, a wildly futuristic nine-story sculpture of glazed glass wrapped in perforated stainless steel (and LEED-certified, too) by architect Thom Mayne of Morphosis.
Originally a square, it was named after the Astor family, who built an early New York fortune on beaver pelts (check out the tiles in the wall of the Astor Pl subway platform) and lived on Colonnade Row, just south of Astor Pl; four of the original nine marble-faced, Greek-revival residences on Lafayette St still exist.
