The NoMad District is New York City’s quintessential neighborhood. Here you’ll find all that makes New York an exciting place for visitors and those who live and work here. The streets are steeped in history and lined with handsome buildings, world-class hotels, wonderful restaurants, exciting nightlife, and unique retail shops. Centrally located in Manhattan with easy access to the entire city, NoMad is the current hub of New York’s creative and tech industries and buzzes with a unique energy day and night.
Where is Nomad
The New York Times coined the District’s name in 1999, shortly after New York City formally established the Madison Square Park North Historic District, which lies in the center of No (North) Mad (Madison Square).
Nomad Then
NoMad first became a crossroad of the city at the end of the 18th Century when the main route to New England split from Broadway at what is now 23rd Street. In the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th Century, the District became the center of New York’s social and cultural life. It was the hub of theatre, entertainment, dining, shopping and nightlife and attracted the famous people of the day from the likes of Oscar Wilde, Teddy Roosevelt, Mark Twain, George M. Cohan, Diamond Jim Brady, Stanford White, Herman Melville, Charles Dickens, J.P. Morgan and Thomas Edison to presidents and foreign dignitaries. West of Broadway, the underside of New York was more in evidence. Satan’s Circus, as it was called, boasted nearly fifty brothels, famous bars that offered shooting galleries and prostitutes, and betting parlors catering to the rich and poor. It is this extraordinary mix of so many types of people living different but parallel lives that is the essence of NoMad — a diverse world where life is rich and exciting.
Nomad Now
Since the outset of the 21st Century, NoMad has rapidly recaptured its central place in the city. Much of the credit for the areas resurgence is due to the legacy of its fine architecture and the beautifully restored Madison Square Park. The park offers a respite from the bustle of the city with beautiful landscaping, historic sculptures, and a full schedule of art, music, family and food events that provide tremendous vitality to the entire NoMad area. Today, NoMad is home to an increasing number of celebrities and affluent professionals, and Tiffany & Co., Sony, and Grey Advertising have relocated to NoMad since 2010, joining New York Life, Credit Suisse and the city’s fastest growing community of creative and tech firms.
Whether one is coming to stay, eat, or be entertained, there is a wealth of options to choose from. NoMad’s hotels are setting a standard for the city and the world, and some of the country’s greatest chefs, such as Daniel Humm from Eleven Madison Park and April Bloomfield of The Breslin, are serving up meals in NoMad’s beautiful spaces. The range of dishes available challenges the imagination and spans many nationalities.
For those interested in doing some specialty shopping not available elsewhere in New York, NoMad’s exciting boutique retailers, such as Marimekko, Todd Snyder, Maison 10, and Opening Ceremony, offer a wide range of one-of-a-kind items from fabrics and designer clothing to saddlery —yes, riding gear in the mid-Manhattan. There is even a unique European experience waiting at Dover Street Market. Appositely named after the London street, this multi-floor showcase offers shoppers couture shopping along with a delicious cafe.
NoMad isn’t quite as wild as it was in the Satan’s Circus days, but there is still a lot of hard-driving fun to be had. Rooftop nightspots, ubiquitous in Gilded Age NoMad, have made a tremendous resurgence. Visitors will find bars to try out 500 kinds of whiskey, hear hot jazz, look for celebrities, enjoy stand-up comics or try out drinks from celebrated mixologists. Finally, perhaps nothing is so characteristic of the District’s diversity as the fact that both the Museum of Sex and the Museum of Mathematics have located here. NoMad today is a very special place in the city and the world, just as it has always been.
