Farther into the inestimable city

I know I’m not the only one around here who enjoys nosing around the city’s hidden geography. In London this is a relatively easy task: every other street seems to harbour a recondite alley, a secret garden, a shadowy passageway or a disregarded yard. Sometimes even a subterranean river. In New York though? In Midtown Manhattan with its blocks and grids? For the determined and resourceful urban explorer there’s always a way:

The goal: to walk from the Empire State Building, on West Thirty-third Street, to Rockefeller Center, on West Forty-eighth, without ever setting foot on Fifth or Sixth Avenue—to knife through tall buildings in a single bound, or at least in stepwise forays

Find out how Tad Friend fared here.

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9 thoughts on “Farther into the inestimable city

  1. b.smedley@dsl.pipex.com'
    September 21, 2010 at 11:31

    Cities are transformed by the act of walking through them, especially at length – surely part of the pandemic love-affair with Venice stems from the fact that most visitors end up exploring it, getting lost in it, tangled up in it even, like it or not?

    As for NYC – I am pretty sure I’ve read accounts of Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and (ahem) H.P. Lovecraft all engaging in epic pedestrian journeys across the length and breadth of Manhattan, often at night, as much due to poverty as anything else, I suppose, but with interesting and varied if clearly unpredictable creative outcomes.

  2. buckley.stephen1789@gmail.com'
    September 21, 2010 at 12:24

    We used to have similar urban challenges in Oldham. I well remember the Saturday afternoon ‘Pie Shop Hop’ when you had to get from Union Street to Henshaw Street without venturing up Holebottom Lane and the notorious ‘Hark To Towler’.

  3. Gaw
    September 21, 2010 at 13:17

    Barendina: Geoff Dyer has some nice bits in his recent Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi about how easy it is to get lost in Venice and then come across what you were looking for just where you weren’t expecting it.

    One of my favourite things is walking around cities. I tried it in Phoenix once and nearly got arrested. Only someone up to no good would be on foot in that city, or so the locals believed.

    You’ve conjured a wonderful picture there Stephen. Love the Pie Shop Hop – I hope it’s still a fixture.

  4. dave_lull@yahoo.com'
    Dave Lull
    September 21, 2010 at 13:26

    Francis Morrone, “author of seven books, including architectural guidebooks to New York City, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn,”* conducts walking tours of New York City:

    http://francismorrone.typepad.com/blog/walking_tours/

    For those of us who haven’t been able to accompany him, there are his wonderful Abroad in New York columns that were published in the New York Sun:

    http://www.nysun.com/authors/Francis+Morrone

    =====
    * http://web.archive.org/web/20080611062516/http://www.francismorrone.com/index.html

  5. johngjobling@googlemail.com'
    malty
    September 21, 2010 at 16:35

    You touch upon a favourite subject Gaw, exploration. In today’s information soaked world the opportunity to investigate the unknown is becoming a problem, Before Maurice Hertzog’s French expedition to climb Annapurna could get under way they first had to find it. Today anyone and their poodle can reach the summit of Everest, all you need is money and two legs, sometimes just artificial ones. ‘Going and getting lost’ in a city or town used to be a real pleasure, don’t ask first, take a guide or follow signs and amazing results could follow. Today we would have to bin the TV and wear ear defenders. Funny how often we would stumble upon the red light districts, even in Geneva, well concealed obviously, the Swiss don’t indulge in that sort of thing, officially.
    A favourite topic of conversation is ‘the most lost’, that would be a god forsaken hole of a place in Poland near the Ukrainian border whose name I can’t even remember let alone pronounce, a colleague and I went for a walk at night, like a scene from Blade Runner, next day our potential customer was horrified, ‘you did what?’
    Edinburgh until recently was a city worth getting lost in, not any more, lots of tourist signs and fewer original pubs, ditto Barcelona, Paris, Oslo etc, etc, etc.

    Interesting description of New York, probably safer underground.

    This actually happened…when GPS first hit the public domain we scrounged an original Magellan set, helps increase street cred, and tried it out on a blizzard drenched large alp, cross referencing it against an accurate map, ‘it’s supposed to be accurate to two meters’ said my climbing partner, heading off to the right and disappearing rapidly into the abyss. Twenty minutes later after I had hauled him back from oblivion or a fifty foot fall, he spluttered indignantly ‘I’ve lost the f…ing useless thing’

    Best thing, really.

  6. Gaw
    September 21, 2010 at 21:40

    Thanks for that, Dave. Some lovely pieces there.

    Like you, Malty, I’m not a fan of GPS, especially for driving navigation. I like to know where I am. I can’t imagine thinking of my location as being where I started plus left, left, right, left, drive one hour, left, right, third exit. And as you say, it’s not particularly reliable anyway (though your illustration beats mine, which involved a colleague adding about 30 mins on to his commute rather than falling down a crevasse).

  7. Worm
    September 21, 2010 at 22:15

    I feel honoured to read malty’s comments, they are seriously priceless!!!!

  8. fchantree@yahoo.co.uk'
    Gadjo Dilo
    September 23, 2010 at 06:54

    I was very happy to read about the ‘lost’ undreground rivers of London, and am always glad to hear praises to the I. K. Brunel of sewerage, Joseph Bazalgette. I reckon that the greatest travel is like the greatest jazz: as Chet Baker once said, “Let’s get lost”.

  9. Gaw
    September 23, 2010 at 08:45

    Jazz walking – like it.

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