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The area between 23rd and 34th streets east of Fifth Avenue doesn't usually show up as one of Manhattan's up-and-coming neighborhoods. Some people think of it as the carpet district; others remember it as Silicon Alley, although many of the dot-com companies are long gone. It's north of Union Square, south of midtown, east of Little Korea and overlaps with Murray Hill but doesn't have a name of its own.
It's a neighborhood of post-production film companies, modeling and advertising agencies, and yes, at least two dozen carpet stores. A decade ago the streets would clear out at night, except for prostitutes and those trying to pick them up, according to longtime residents and business owners. It had many hotels for the homeless.
Cheap rents, a convenient location, attractive architecture, pioneering restaurateurs and hoteliers, active community groups and the dot-com boom of the late 1990s have helped change the neighborhood's fortunes. Galleries are taking over clothing showrooms. Upscale retailers are discovering carpet stores' large loft-spaces.
Today the former hotels for the homeless are noteworthy establishments such as The Roger Williams and Hotel Thirty Thirty, and the after-6 crowd includes office workers getting together at some of the neighborhood's new restaurants.
"There's a movement afoot," said Diane Bartow, president of the Murray Hill Neighborhood Association. The group has helped clean up by doing such things as buying garbage cans that it then donated to the city and "begging and pleading" with the Parks Department to plant trees on sidewalks.
Danny Meyer, who owns five restaurants between 23rd and 27th streets including Tabla, Eleven Madison Park and Blue Smoke, said he believes Madison Square Park deserves to get the crowds that Union Square Park now gets because of the neighborhood's beautiful architecture and...