Pearl St, Chinatown

Pearl starts its run through Chinatown at St James with a very interesting looking high school and a tiny little patch of green. It sounds like nothing much but there are some ugly buildings in this neighborhood and not very much green so these are kind of a bonus around these parts. The high school is business oriented (it looks medieval to me and I don't understand the connection). I find it interesting that so many high schools in this city are catered toward a certain profession. Whatever happened to regular school with a broad range of subjects?
The next block houses the NYPD police headquarters which is a massive, extremely ugly building but I venture to say that this is one of the safest blocks in the city. That's an awfully big building so there's got to be a cop walking in or out of it nearly twenty four hours a day, I imagine. I always see one when I'm here, anyway, which is a good thing because there's a housing project on the other side of the street and those scare the bejeezus out of me. They're always made to look like prisons which I don't get.
The next block houses a correctional center and two gorgeous courthouses. They are both really spectacular looking so it kind of makes up for the ugly preceding it. I don't, technically, consider this block of Pearl to be in Chinatown and I talk about the buildings at length in another Pearl review so I'll just say they are both very different and very beautiful buildings.
This isn't really a street you live on . . it's more a street you have to go to for jury duty or something and then happen to admire the little tidbits of great, old architecture. There's no neighborhood to this street at all. No bars, restaurants, nothing. It's a very state oriented kind of street.