This past Sunday, just for kicks, my cousin Ben and I walked the entire length of the island of Manhattan. The whole trip was about 15 or 16 miles, and it took us exactly 5 hours and 5 minutes to walk from Marble Hill to Battery Park. We only stopped once, at my sister-in-law's place on 83rd, and that was only for about 10 minutes.
Some of the things we walked past:
1) The Dyckman House-- the oldest Dutch farmhouse in Manhattan still standing (and presumably about the only one). Very anachronistic to see a house like that set between modern apartment buildings and across the street from a Rite Aid.
2) Trinity Cemetery at 155th st.-- Where a lot of people are buried, including Clement Moore, the author of "Twas the Night Before Christmas", who incidentally, used to teach at Columbia.
3) Columbia University
4) Tom's Restaurant-- the side of which was made famous as a bumper in "Seinfeld" (The neon sign that just says "Restaurant" that we've all seen a million times on TV).
5) The Ed Sullivan Theater-- where Letterman does his show.
6) Times Square, of course.
7) Madison Square Park, which borders the Metropolitan Life Insurance Building and the Flatiron Building-- both early skyscrapers.
8) Union Square
9) City Hall
10) St. Paul's Chapel-- with Ground Zero right behind it-- still nothing has been built yet.
11) Trinity Church-- where Alexander Hamilton is buried, right across from Federal Hall and the NY Stock Exchange.
12) The Bowling Green-- Where Peter Stuyvesant used to practice his lawn bowling.
13) Battery Park-- offering views of The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the harbor.
And about a million other things.
Biggest Surprises:
1) The sense of continuity it gives you is really worth it. To see how neighborhoods change and fade into one another.
2) There is an awful lot way up north-- I tend to think of 125th street as way uptown, but we actually started on 225th street and walked for over an hour before we even got into Harlem.
3) All the pedestrian traffic in Midtown really slowed us down.
4) It wasn't really that hard. Sure it took a while, and my legs were sore the next day, but all in all, we weren't exactly exhausted by the time we got to Battery Park.
5 comments:
Here's what I took away from that:
"Hi, I'm John and I live in a MUCH better place than you do, loser. Go fuck yourself."
Not that I'm jealous or anything.
I hope you had on comfortable shoes.
That would be a really fun thing to do. I don't think a 5 hour walk here would be as exciting though.
Did you stick to 5th Ave the whole way or did you criss cross?
What a cool adventure!
Jen- We actually took Broadway the whole way.
Brendan- You should come out to NY, just to visit. You'd really dig it.
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