Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) Avenues A, B, C and D (and the relevant cross-streets) on New York City’s Lower East Side.

1980		L. Birnbach Official Preppie Hbk 165: Alphabet city (avenues A, B, C, and D) on the Lower East Side of New York.
1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 15: Detective Eddie Kennedy got out of a gypsy cab at the intersection of Avenue C and East 4th in Alphabet City.
1999		K. Crowley Burned Out 133: Shawn spent a lot of his time in Alphabet City, on the Lower East Side.
2000		P. Beatty Tuff 135: Where are you going? What are you planning to see / Have you thought about Alphabet City, or the Botanical Gardens?
2007		A. Burke Dead Connection 26: Amy Davis had lived [...] on Avenue C. This was the Lower East Side [...] In Alphabet City, gentrification had hit only building-by-building, block-by-block.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 73: Avenue D is the last letter in Alphabet City.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 210: This guy was shot in Alphabet City [...] He’s on life support.

2. in attrib. use of sense 1.

2008

R. Price Lush Life 209: Sputnik and Skeezix, two Alphabet City detectives who had burned him in a drug deal.