Manhattan

Monday night was the first meeting of the Ninth Avenue Renaissance project. About 130 neighborhood stakeholders filled the gym at the Holy Cross School in Midtown to begin a process to transform Ninth Avenue from a dysfunctional, traffic-choked, polluted highway into, what organizer Christine Berthet says should be "a neighborhood Main Street" for Hell's Kitchen and Clinton.

While we're seeking great streets, we've found an exemplary store in Manhattan's Build a Green Bakery. This tiny East Village shop sells organic pastries, coffee and tea in an all-sustainable setting. The owner, City Bakery's Maury Rubin, made the space an environmentalists' showroom. He chose walls of wheat and sunflower husks and colored them with a milk-based paint. His floor is cork and his tabletop is responsibly-harvested bamboo, with recycled denim under the display counter. And get this: If you transport yourself to the store by bicycle, you get a 50% discount.

Above: A message from Allstate, the company that recently stopped renewing New York City home insurance policies due to the increasing risk of global warming-induced hurricanes. Spotted on Broadway near 9th Street.