Nolita NYC Guide: Shopping, Streets and Short-Term Space

Nolita is the smallest-unit retail district in Manhattan, and the one where a young brand most often takes its first New York store. Three parallel streets of narrow shopfronts, a crowd of buyers, press and early adopters, and units so small they force a tightly edited range.

This guide covers where Nolita actually is, which streets are worth walking, what trades on them, and what taking space here involves.

Where Nolita is, and no, it is not part of SoHo

The name is short for North of Little Italy. It sits between Houston Street to the north and Kenmare and Broome to the south, with Lafayette Street on its western edge and the Bowery to the east.

Lafayette Street is the boundary with SoHo. That is the answer to the question most people arrive with. Cross Lafayette heading west and you are in SoHo, where the units get bigger, the brands get more established and the crowds get considerably thicker. Lafayette itself is wider and busier than the streets it separates, and holds larger units than Nolita proper.

Little Italy is immediately south, the Lower East Side is east across the Bowery, and NoHo is north across Houston. Nolita is genuinely small: you can walk the whole retail district in twenty minutes.

The three streets

Mulberry, Mott and Elizabeth run parallel north to south, and between them they hold the densest run of small independent shopfronts in the area. Almost all of Nolita’s shopping is on these three.

Mulberry Street

The best known of the three, and the one that continues south into Little Italy where the character changes completely from independent fashion to restaurants. The Nolita stretch is small-unit retail throughout. Live listings: retail space on Mulberry Street.

Mott Street

The middle street, and the one with the interruption. The old cathedral on Mott and Prince occupies a full block behind a brick wall, which breaks the retail frontage in the middle of the district. That is why the shopping run has a gap where it does, and why the blocks either side of it trade differently. Live listings: retail space on Mott Street.

Elizabeth Street

The quietest and, for a lot of people, the best of the three. Narrow, low-rise, and the most consistently independent. If you are walking the district once, walk Elizabeth. Live listings: retail space on Elizabeth Street.

Prince and Spring, coming east from SoHo

Both streets continue east out of SoHo and across Lafayette into Nolita, and the change is immediate. The units shrink, the brands get smaller and the crowd thins noticeably. Walking Prince from Broadway to the Bowery takes you through both districts and is the clearest way to feel the difference between them.

Kenmare Street

Marks the southern edge and links Nolita through to the Bowery. Small units, and a steady flow of people moving between SoHo and the Lower East Side.

Who shops here, and when

Nolita’s crowd is young, international and style-led, and the district has a rhythm worth knowing before you plan around it.

Trade builds through the afternoon and peaks at weekends. Mornings are quiet enough that opening early rarely earns its cost, and the district empties in the evening as the crowd moves east towards the Lower East Side.

Footfall here is local rather than through-traffic. The busiest station serving the area is Prince Street, which sits well outside the fifty busiest in Manhattan. That matters: Nolita suits a destination store that people come to find, not an impulse one that catches people passing. If your model needs volume walking past the window, this is the wrong district and SoHo is the right one.

Taking space in Nolita

Nolita is where a young brand takes its first New York store, and the district’s whole retail economy is built around that: very small units, short leases, high turnover, and an audience of buyers, press and early adopters walking three parallel streets.

The units are the smallest of any Manhattan district. Often a single narrow room with minimal storage in a tenement ground floor. That forces a tightly edited range and rules out anything needing depth or stockholding. It is a constraint rather than a drawback, and it is why the district reads the way it does.

This is not an accident of the building stock. The Special Little Italy District exists in part to protect the scale of storefronts and the character of the retail along Mulberry Street, which the zoning treats as a regional shopping spine. Small frontages are preserved by rule, so a brand looking for a large unit will not find one here however long it searches.

See what is available across short-term retail space in Nolita, or widen the search to small stores and boutique spaces across New York if the dates matter more than the district.

Beyond retail: galleries, showrooms and events

Nolita’s small rooms suit more than shops, and the same qualities that make them work for a first store make them work for other short formats.

• Galleries. A narrow room with a good window and no depth is a perfectly good exhibition space, and the district’s audience is already looking at things rather than rushing past. See gallery and art space in Nolita.
• Showrooms. Appointment-led selling does not need footfall, which removes Nolita’s main weakness. Buyers already walk these streets, which is the reason to be here rather than somewhere cheaper. See showroom space in Nolita, or narrow it to showrooms on Elizabeth Street.
• Events and launches. Small capacity, but the intimacy is the point for a press day or a private view. See event space in Nolita.

These are largely the same rooms rather than four separate pools of space. A Nolita unit is an empty ground floor with a window, and what it becomes depends on what you put in it, so start from what you need the space to do rather than from the label on it.

Getting there

Nolita is served by the Bowery, Prince Street and Spring Street subway stations. Prince Street puts you at the top of the three streets, which is the right end to start from if you are walking south towards Little Italy.

Common questions

Is Nolita part of SoHo?

No. Lafayette Street is the boundary between them. SoHo is west of Lafayette, Nolita is east. They are adjacent and people walk between them without noticing, but they are separate districts with different unit sizes, different brands and a different crowd.

Where exactly is Nolita?

Between Houston Street to the north and Kenmare and Broome to the south, bounded by Lafayette Street to the west and the Bowery to the east. Little Italy is directly south, which is what the name refers to: North of Little Italy.

Is Nolita good for shopping?

If you want independent and emerging labels rather than flagships, it is one of the best areas in the city, and it is far calmer than SoHo a block away. If you want the big names, walk west across Lafayette instead.

Which street in Nolita is best?

Elizabeth Street is the quietest and most consistently independent. Mulberry is the best known and carries on into Little Italy. Mott sits between them and has a gap in the middle where the old cathedral takes up a full block.

Is Nolita a good neighborhood for a first New York store?

It is arguably the best in Manhattan for it. Small units mean lower commitment, the audience is used to discovering unfamiliar names, and buyers and press walk the three streets. The constraint is size: if you need depth or storage, SoHo a block west holds the larger units. Our ranking of New York neighborhoods compares the options.

Where to look next

For the wider area, our guide to pop-up stores across Nolita, NoHo and the Bowery covers the districts either side, and the Lower East Side guide picks up east of the Bowery.

If you are working out the whole project rather than the district, start with the guide to opening your first pop-up shop in New York, or see what is free right now across short-term retail space in NYC.