5th Avenue

I was going to save the avenues until after I'd finished with the streets, but I thought it would be fun to do 5th Avenue with all the holiday decorations up, so I decided to give myself a pass.  Since 5th Avenue ends at Washington Square Park, I extended the walk to include Thompson St., Church St., and Trinity Pl., which continue the general trajectory of 5th Avenue south of Washington Square.  (almost exactly 9 miles).  I was joined on this walk by my friend Dave, whose legs hurt.

Today's walk

Today's walk

5th Avenue serves as the east/west dividing line for all streets in Manhattan.  It runs from 142nd St., south through Harlem, down the east side of Central Park on the Upper East Side (110th St. - 59th St.), and then south through Midtown / the Flatiron / Greenwich Village to Washington Square Park at 8th St.  South of Washington Square Park, Thomas St. picks up the trajectory in SoHo through, Canal St.; and south of Canal St. I shifted east slightly to Church St., which runs to Battery Park on the southern tip of the island (albeit with a couple of name changes).

5th Avenue passes by too many landmarks to list, so it might be best to discuss the two things it's best known for: 1.) Expensive housing; 2.) Expensive shopping.

Expensive Housing: While there are expensive apartments and mansions up and down 5th Avenue (and the rest of the city, for that matter), the largest and most notable concentration exists on the east side of Central Park from 110th St. to 59th St.  At one time mansions lined a much more substantial stretch of 5th Avenue, but many were demolished to make room for skyscrapers as the commercial center of the city moved north to Midtown.  Many of the mansions on the Upper East Side stretch of 5th Avenue suffered a similar fate, but were replaced by grand apartment buildings instead of commercial buildings.  The trend toward apartments and away from mansions on the Upper East Side began in earnest in 1916, when a mansion at 72nd St. was torn down and replaced by a 12 story, 24 unit apartment building.  The ensuing boom in apartment construction angered many of the 5th Avenue mansion owners, who felt that the new buildings were too tall and clashed with the style of the neighborhood. In 1922 they successfully lobbied the city into restricting the height of new apartments along 5th Avenue to 75 ft. (approx. 5 stories), but the law was struck down a year later, paving the way for further apartment construction.  Today, this stretch of 5th Avenue is lined with limestone apartment buildings and only a few mansions remain, all (or almost all) of which have been repurposed as museums, consulates, etc.

 Expensive Shopping: Fifth Avenue is home to many of America's most notable luxury stores, including Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman.  According to Wikipedia, the stretch of 5th Avenue running from 47th St. - 59th St. is consistently ranked among the most expensive shopping street in the world.  I don't know if that's based on how much the merchandise costs or how much the real estate costs, but it could easily be both.  More or less, if you can think of a luxury brand (domestic or foreign), it probably has a flagship store somewhere along this stretch of Fifth Ave.

Midtown: 59th St. - 55th St.

After a brief hiatus (football, travel, etc. got in the way), I did 5 streets in north Midtown for a total of a little under 10 miles.

Today's walk

Today's walk

The most distinctive buildings in these blocks are actually two brand new residential towers, One57 and 432 Park.  One57 was just completed in fall 2014 and at 75 stories / 1,005 ft. is the 7th tallest building in New York (just behind the New York Times Building and Chrysler Building.  It made national news during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, when a crane at the top of the building (still under construction) collapsed and dangled precariously over the neighborhood.  It forced the evacuation of all homes/businesses in a multi-block radius for several days while it was removed.

432 Park, still under construction, is now the 2nd tallest building in New York (3rd tallest in the U.S.) at 96 stories / 1,396 ft.  When measured by roof height though, it is actually the tallest in New York (the spire on WTC 1 adds a lot).  The super-tall, super-thin style of condo building seems to be the next big thing, with three more towers similar to 432 Park in size / shape currently under construction.

Units in these buildings routinely set records for "most expensive apartment in New York", partially due to the fact that they are extravagant modern residences with sweeping views of the city, but also due to demand from wealthy foreign investors.  Russian / Chinese / etc. oligarchs looking to move some of their money offshore are buying up new luxury apartments as fast as developers can build them, fueling the boom. Afterward, the unit generally sits empty for most of the year.  I've got a call into a lawyer to learn more about squatters' rights.

Chinatown & Civic Center

Today I went down and walked the Civic Center district and the remainder of Chinatown (and a few streets of cleanup on the Lower East Side too), about 11 miles in total.

Today's walk (Chinatown and Civic Center portion in red, LES cleanup in blue)

Today's walk (Chinatown and Civic Center portion in red, LES cleanup in blue)

I'd already done a number of streets of Chinatown in my Lower East Side walk, but today I went through the heart of Chinatown, which in my mind is the square bounded by Canal St, Worth St., Centre St. and Bowery, with Columbus Park in the middle.

Chinatown may have begun on Mott St. where a Chinese-owned bunkhouse rented bunks to Chinese immigrants in the 1850s / 1860s.  The Chinese population of what would become Chinatown was around 200 in 1870 and grew to 7,200 by 1900.  However, due to immigration restrictions imposed by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, fewer than 2% of the residents were women.  This dynamic would not change until well after the Act's repeal in 1943.  Today nearly 100,000 Chinese Americans (men and women) live in Manhattan's Chinatown and it is one of the oldest ethnic Chinese enclaves outside Asia.  Also interesting is the fact that for most of its history, the primary language of Chinatown was Cantonese, not Mandarin (the official language of modern China).

It's a bit of a tourist trap, but I really enjoy walking around Chinatown.  It has a very foreign feel to it - half of the fruit you see in the produce stands looks like it shouldn't be fed after midnight or allowed to to get wet.  Columbus Park is pretty cool too.  It used to be the center of the infamous Five Points slum, and today it's a popular public gathering place with interesting people watching.  On any given weekend you'll find multiple traditional music ensembles, with vocalists and full Chinese instrumentation (a little harsh on Western ears, but cool nonetheless).  There are also crowds of chainsmoking old men surrounding tables where games I don't always recognize are being played (I assume money has to be changing hands - these guys look intense).

Funny story: I was walking through Cortlandt Alley and randomly saw a small window in a door that led to a small room of display cases.  I'd heard of this before - it's the Mmuseumm, a closet-sized museum full of items that look like junk, but are in many cases kind of interesting.  Later that day I passed by a store called "Fook On Sing Funeral Supplies", which I thought was funny because the products in the window were a bunch of (I thought) 3D paper decorations/toys; paper cars, paper motorcycles, paper houses, etc.  I didn't think much of it, but when I was looking at the Mmuseumm website that night, I noticed a similar paper model in their collection.  It turns out the store's sign was right - these were funeral supplies.   These paper models, called Joss Paper, are burned in many Asian funeral practices as offerings to dead relatives, the intention being that the item will be transferred to the relative in the afterlife.  Well, I thought it was a funny story.

The Civic Center district is pretty self explanatory.  It's city, state and federal government buildings that run the gamut from remarkable to unremarkable.

TriBeCa

I took two days a few weekends apart to walk the TriBeCa neighborhood, adding 11 miles to the tally.

Two days' walk (everything inside the red line)

Two days' walk (everything inside the red line)

TriBeCa ("TRIangle BElow CAnal") is bounded by Canal St. to the north, West St. to the (you guessed it) west, Broadway to the east and Vesey St. to the south.  This obviously forms more of a trapezoid than a triangle, but who's counting?

The area evolved from farmland and residential neighborhoods to a commercial center in the mid-1800s.  Many of the warehouses and storefronts that were built during this period are still there today - some show their age but most have been beautifully restored.  

As the manufacturing economy exited New York (and in the US in general) after WWII, the neighborhood went through a period of decline.  It was famously described as a "demilitarized zone" by Harold Ramis in Ghostbusters in 1984, but by then the tide had already started to turn.  The vacant commercial space had attracted artists (long on talent but short on cash) and it wasn't long before the dilapidated warehouses were renovated and converted into trendy apartments and lofts.

The World Trade Center complex makes up the southern boundary of TriBeCa and the neighborhood (along with the rest of lower Manhattan) suffered financially after 9/11 due to a general loss of vitality.  Partially in response to this, Robert De Niro founded the Tribeca Film Festival in 2002 to contribute to the neighborhood's recovery and showcase lower Manhattan.  It must have done the trick, because today TriBeCa is neck and neck with SoHo for the title of "Most Expensive Neighborhood in New York".

Hudson Square

I did a quick walk downtown today in the Hudson Square neighborhood.  This was a short walk, only about 4 miles.

Today's walk (everything inside the red line)

Today's walk (everything inside the red line)

Hudson Square is the neighborhood south of the West Village, west of SoHo and north of TriBeCa.  It's composed of equal parts early 19th century Federalist style row homes, late 19th century commercial buildings/warehouses, modern residential infill, and large vehicle garages.

One of the City's lesser known landmarks in the neighborhood is the Ear Inn, a bar on Spring St. between Washington and Greenwich.  The Ear Inn is one of the contenders for "oldest bar in New York"; the building was built in 1817 as a home for James Brown, an African-American veteran of the Revolutionary War.  It was originally located right on Hudson waterfront, but 200 years of infill have added about 200 yards to the island, and now the house sits 2 blocks inland.  It was noted as a longshoremen's tavern as early 1835 and remained a speakeasy / brothel through prohibition.  It got its current name when the publisher of "Ear Magazine" moved into the building and, to avoid violating restrictions on changing "historic signage", painted over the "B" in the attached "BAR" sign.