The West Village runs between the Hudson River and Sixth Avenue and 14th Street and Houston Street, but its presence in the popular imagination looms far larger. The West Village's placid, tree-lined blocks have played starring roles in a number of television and movies -- from "Friends" to Sex and the City." The West Village’s elegant pre-war buildings and low-key coffee shops, boutiques and restaurants are what a great many people -- Manhattan lifers and non-New Yorkers alike -- think of when they imagine luxury living in Manhattan. There’s a good reason for that: the West Village is a pretty unique place -- a community at once luxurious and unmistakably bohemian, and a wonderful place to live.

The West Village's entertainment options run from the quiet bistros, gastro-pubs and bars on its sedate side streets to the booming clubs and rooftop-bar scene of the Meatpacking District, and West Village condominiums fall along a similarly wide spectrum. The pre-war brownstones that define the West Village may offer the most classically West Village living experiences, but a host of new construction condominiums -- some of them decidedly modern in their aesthetics -- and pre-war condominium conversions have ensured that the West Village is a lively mix of old and new.

The blockbuster luxury condominium Superior Ink, which sits at the West Village’s far west side, may be the neighborhood’s defining condominium -- an ultra-green, ultra-luxe new construction condominium whose futuristic look somehow manages to nod in the direction of West Village classicism. One Jackson Square, another LEED-certified condominium, offers an even more contemporary glassy look and similar sustainability. The Gansevoort, a boutique condominium on West 13th Street at the border of the Meatpacking District, offers similar luxury on a more intimate scale. The West Village's timeless grace makes it one of Manhattan's most desirable residential neighborhoods, while all those new West Village condominiums have guaranteed that this most distinctive of Manhattan neighborhoods will remain vital for years to come.