OUTLOOK

What's new: Old Villagers hate it, but the sexiest new building (and one of the few to go up recently) is Richard Meier's tower at 173-176 Perry Street. Calvin Klein, Martha Stewart, and Nicole Kidman have all bought there. Horatio House, a brick low-rise at 637 Hudson Street, and the Greenwich, a 79-unit loft building on 13th Street, were also completed in the last couple of years.

Bargain hunting: "Not on the west side," laughs Audrey Nevitsky of Charles H. Greenthal. You might find something way over to the west, though, around Washington Street. Smaller, cheaper rentals also pop up around NYU's buildings on Broadway (keep an eye out in June and September).

Prediction: Don't get your hopes up for a bargain, even in a down economy. "The Village is the most desirable part of downtown," declares Corcoran's Mark Schoenfeld, and supply remains drum-tight. Even when much of downtown tanked, the Village held firm.

— Profile from the March 10, 2003 cover story of New York Magazine