East 2nd North Street: Fill & Download for Free

There are three secret free spots on Ash street between 3rd and 2nd (north side of a one way street. Or you can walk from north of about Elm and West of 1st. Or you can park east of about 15th street. Or park in the Marston Point area of the Park at about 6th and Elm (but you can't drive directly in from that way). Or in the evenings and Sundays, as detailed by other commentators. Watch the signs: if you see a suspicious lack of cars in a block, it probably means that it is street sweeping day.

For numbered streets in Manhattan, the odd numbers are generally on the north, although there are exceptions (for example, East 1st St and East 2nd St). The streets are split into East and West numbering, spreading from 5th Ave., so 1 East 18th St and 1 West 18th St are on the NE and NW corners of 5th Ave & 18th, respectively. (I don't know if those specific addresses are actually in use.)For Avenues, there's no real pattern. The following avenues have odd numbers on the west side of the street: Broadway, Ave A, Ave C, Ave D, 1st Ave, 2nd Ave, 6th Ave, 8th Ave, 9th Ave, 10th Ave, 11th Ave, 12th Ave, West End Avenue. These have odd numbers on the east side of the street: 3rd, the Bowery, Lexington, Park Ave, Park Ave South, Madison, 5th, 7th, Columbus, and Amsterdam. The only pattern I can envision is that south of Central Park, you have odd numbers on the east for avenues between 3rd & 7th, except 6th, which isn't all that helpful.For Avenues facing Central Park or Riverside Park, you'll find both odd & even numbers on both sides of the street (primarily on the buildings facing the park, but also addresses in the park, such as the Met).Some other useful notes: E 18th and W 18th are two stretches of the same road, but Broadway, West Broadway, and East Broadway are entirely different roads. Park Avenue South turns into Park Avenue at 33rd St; they have overlapping number ranges, so 300 Park Ave South is near 23rd St, while 300 Park Avenue is near 50th St.I believe the moral of this story is that even the gridded part of Manhattan was only laid out just as people started to be interested in regularizing these things.

I agree with Shlomo. there are great hutongs between Gulou north street going east to Beixingqiao and to the north of Gulou East st, up to 2nd ring road. there are lots of local food places, I would suggest you find a place to get a whole roasted lamb leg (about 4 kgs). there are also great whole in the wall bars and coffee shops, and some new kitschy kinds of boutiques. In the middle this area, there is also Beiluoguxiang and Nanluoguxiang walking streets.