Commerce Street

Commerce Street is two short blocks that bend at a right angle and go nowhere in particular, which is exactly why it stayed lovely. The street dates to the early 1800s, and the bend — where it meets Barrow — collects a cluster of small Federal houses, a pair of famous matched townhouses at Nos. 39 and 41, and the Cherry Lane Theatre, which has been staging plays in a converted brewery building since 1924.

There's almost no reason for traffic to use it, so the loudest thing here is usually a window box being watered. Come in the late afternoon when the brick goes amber, walk the bend slowly, and notice how low the rooflines are — this is the Village at its original scale, before anything needed to be tall.