Friday » October 12 » 2007
I'll take Manhattan - on foot
One road, 21 kilometres takes you from the bottom of the Bronx to Battery Park
Kate Goodloe
Citizen Special
CREDIT: Dennis Leung, the Ottawa Citizen
The end: They reach their goal, the tip of Manhattan at Battery Park, by sunset.
CREDIT: Seth Wenig, Reuters
(Statue of Liberty)
Broadway shows, shopping on Fifth Avenue, strolling through Central Park and stuffing yourself on pastrami sandwiches at a genuine deli: the quintessential items on any New York tourist's checklist.
But the good stuff -- like the rest of the city -- is usually left to the locals.
So earlier this summer I set out with two friends to see the rest of Manhattan. I moved to Brooklyn eight months ago, but I shopped and strolled the same neighbourhoods over and over.
We came up with a plan: walk the entire length of Manhattan in a day.
It turned into one of the best free activities in New York. And it's exceptionally easy: you can follow the same road, Broadway, for nearly all of the 21-kilometre route, winding past bodegas in the Dominican neighbourhood of Washington Heights, the largest store in the world in Midtown, the canyons of Wall Street and wrapping up at the southern tip of Battery Park -- all in time for a sunset.
10:09 a.m.: We head out the door. First stop: the local bagel shop, where we eat up in preparation for a 72-minute subway ride to our starting line.
11:50 a.m.: We emerge in Marble Hill, at the 225th Street subway station on the
No. 1 train. The tiny enclave used to be connected to the rest of Manhattan, before the construction of the Harlem Ship Canal cut it off from the borough 100 years ago. Now, it's attached to the bottom of the Bronx, but technically still Manhattan -- the perfect starting place.
We snap photos as we walk along the bridge above the canal. We're the only tourists around.
Noon: The top of Manhattan isn't as scenic as the bottom. Or as lively. We wander among countless car detailing shops in Inwood before noticing a sign for the Cloisters, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We avoid the museum, but detour through the tree-filled park surrounding it and scale a steep incline for a view of the Hudson River.
12:50 p.m.: We're one hour into our tour and ... 30 blocks down. The umbrellas are still functioning as walking sticks, and the rain is holding off, but we need to pick up the pace.
1:15 p.m: The streets begin to smell like lunch. Signs in English and Spanish adorn the eateries in Washington Heights, a largely Dominican neighbourhood where tamales and fried chicken crowd the windowfronts. Later, the area fades into Hamilton Heights, and our route takes us just three blocks from the former home of Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the U.S. Treasury.
1:45 p.m.: We take the day's second detour, this time for a soul food lunch in Harlem. We cut east on 145th Street and walk past a jumble of new condominiums, a typical sight amid the rapid gentrification here. Near one of the biggest condo developments there is a mosque, a storefront community church, a Baptist church and a Shell gasoline station, all next to each other.
4 p.m.: We rejoin Broadway at 110th street, the northern edge of Central Park. Had we stuck to our one-street plan, we'd have missed it. But even on a day devoted to local sights, the park is a must. Tourists do spend a lot of cash on horsedrawn carriage rides here, but the park is also the city's great equalizer -- a playground for the rich and poor alike.
4:17 p.m.: Rest stop. We eat cookies and drink coffee at a Starbucks on the Upper West Side, where double-wide baby strollers and organic drycleaners are plentiful in the residential neighbourhood. This is what most New Yorkers think of as the island's northern boundary, and we pass Coach and Godiva stores, then a movie theatre. An odd contrast to the quiet bodegas just 50 blocks north.
5 p.m.: Lincoln Center, at 65th street, is home to the Metropolitan Opera, the Juliard School, and the New York Ballet, among other things. "A lot of old people stuff," one friend declares. Our visit coincides with graduation day at Juliard, upping the number of young people. Men in torn jeans want us to buy flowers ($2 apiece) to give to the graduates. We move on.
5:06 p.m.: We cut through the Time Warner Center, whose twin towers are home to AOL's headquarters and a flashy new mall filled with shoestores. I think about buying a new pair -- my feet hurt for the first time today -- but don't want to carry the old ones for 100 blocks.
5:11 p.m.: Now we're getting to the heart of touristy New York: Times Square, a place I've tried to avoid since moving here. We rush through it as fast as crowds will allow, escaping the flashing neon signs and hoard of chain restaurants. When we get to 34th Street we pass Macy's, the world's largest store. Looking left, we can see the Empire State Building.
6:40 p.m.: We run out of numbered streets. Finally. With 225 blocks down, we're entering Soho, where the cast-iron warehouses are filled with an orgy of designer clothing, high-priced art and custom furniture.
7 p.m.: At Canal Street, we find the flip side of New York's shopping spectrum as Chinatown merchants invite us into the back stalls of their stores to view knockoff purses and bootleg DVDs.
7:31 p.m.: At Wall Street, we pass by the 150-year-old Trinity Church, now improbably out of place among skyscrapers. This is the second appearance on our tour for Alexander Hamilton -- his grave is in the church's cemetery.
7:35 p.m.: We pause at Bowling Green Park for pictures with the charging bull, a bronze statue that has come to symbolize the entire Financial District, despite its renegade beginnings. The bull's creator placed it on the street without authorization in 1989, and the police seized it before returning it a few days later after a public outcry.
7:35 p.m.: We lost Broadway, after nearly eight hours of walking. But we can see the end of the island now, and we just keep walking south to Battery Park. It was named for the first "battery" of cannons the Dutch erected on it almost 400 years ago, in their attempt to defend the young city of New Amsterdam.
7:55 p.m.: We get there. Exhausted, but in time for our goal: the sunset. The sky is turning to pink above the Statue of Liberty, and we look at her while resting our poor and tired feet.
Kate Goodloe is a writer who is originally from Kent, Washington but now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
1:45 p.m.: We take the day's second detour, this time for a soul food lunch in Harlem. We cut east on 145th Street and walk past a jumble of new condominiums, a typical sight amid the rapid gentrification here. Near one of the biggest condo developments there is a mosque, a storefront community church, a Baptist church and a Shell gasoline station, all next to each other.
4 p.m.: We rejoin Broadway at 110th street, the northern edge of Central Park. Had we stuck to our one-street plan, we'd have missed it. But even on a day devoted to local sights, the park is a must. Tourists do spend a lot of cash on horsedrawn carriage rides here, but the park is also the city's great equalizer -- a playground for the rich and poor alike.
4:17 p.m.: Rest stop. We eat cookies and drink coffee at a Starbucks on the Upper West Side, where double-wide baby strollers and organic drycleaners are plentiful in the residential neighbourhood. This is what most New Yorkers think of as the island's northern boundary, and we pass Coach and Godiva stores, then a movie theatre. An odd contrast to the quiet bodegas just 50 blocks north.
5 p.m.: Lincoln Center, at 65th street, is home to the Metropolitan Opera, the Juliard School, and the New York Ballet, among other things. "A lot of old people stuff," one friend declares. Our visit coincides with graduation day at Juliard, upping the number of young people. Men in torn jeans want us to buy flowers ($2 apiece) to give to the graduates. We move on.
5:06 p.m.: We cut through the Time Warner Center, whose twin towers are home to AOL's headquarters and a flashy new mall filled with shoestores. I think about buying a new pair -- my feet hurt for the first time today -- but don't want to carry the old ones for 100 blocks.
5:11 p.m.: Now we're getting to the heart of touristy New York: Times Square, a place I've tried to avoid since moving here. We rush through it as fast as crowds will allow, escaping the flashing neon signs and hoard of chain restaurants. When we get to 34th Street we pass Macy's, the world's largest store. Looking left, we can see the Empire State Building.
6:40 p.m.: We run out of numbered streets. Finally. With 225 blocks down, we're entering Soho, where the cast-iron warehouses are filled with an orgy of designer clothing, high-priced art and custom furniture.
7 p.m.: At Canal Street, we find the flip side of New York's shopping spectrum as Chinatown merchants invite us into the back stalls of their stores to view knockoff purses and bootleg DVDs.
7:31 p.m.: At Wall Street, we pass by the 150-year-old Trinity Church, now improbably out of place among skyscrapers. This is the second appearance on our tour for Alexander Hamilton -- his grave is in the church's cemetery.
7:35 p.m.: We pause at Bowling Green Park for pictures with the charging bull, a bronze statue that has come to symbolize the entire Financial District, despite its renegade beginnings. The bull's creator placed it on the street without authorization in 1989, and the police seized it before returning it a few days later after a public outcry.
7:45 p.m.: We lost Broadway, after nearly eight hours of walking. But we can see the end of the island now, and we just keep walking south to Battery Park. It was named for the first "battery" of cannons the Dutch erected on it almost 400 years ago, in their attempt to defend the young city of New Amsterdam.
7:55 p.m.: We get there. Exhausted, but in time for our goal: the sunset. The sky is turning to pink above the Statue of Liberty, and we look at her while resting our poor and tired feet.
Kate Goodloe is a writer from Kent, Washington who now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007
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