Uptown, Downtown, Around Town.

New York City

Location: New York

Type: Urban/New York City

Distance: 30 miles

Duration: 2-4 Days

Difficulty: Traveler's Choice

Highlights: Spring, great food, music… ummm – IT’S NEW YORK.

“It occurred to me as well that for all the walking around I have done in the quarter century I have either lived, or wished I was still living in New York City, I had never really walked AROUND Manhattan. Never gone to the river and turned left or right and not stopped until I got back to where I started.”

Back in the 1980s I fell in love with my then-future wife while walking in New York: lolling home from moony dinners at the Odeon or Barocco, gamboling away lunch hours in Central Park, huffing and puffing to keep up with her legendary pace down Park Avenue every day from her office in midtown to her apartment in Tribeca.

My own morning commute in those days was also occasionally on foot, across the 59^th street “Feelin’ Groovy” bridge from a ridiculously cheap apartment near PS1 in Long Island City. Later, just before the economics of real estate nudged us out of our New York life, we’d push a baby stroller from our apartment in Soho down to Battery Park City, where a new little green gem called the Hudson River Park seemed more like a freak of nature than the beginning of a great riverside renaissance.

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Harlem Bridge We stood at the northwest corner, our hands on the railing, and looked up the river past the world’s funkiest looking houseboat toward the George Washington Bridge and said things like “wouldn’t it just be so cool if this sidewalk continued on up there all the way to Riverside Park…”

Of course by then it was already in the works, even if there was no evidence yet on the ground. Every time I’ve come back to the city for work or pleasure I’ve paid attention to the growing paradise over on the west side with a mixture of envy because I no longer live in New York, and vicarious civic pride in the fact that for all the bullshit and misplaced concrete in our system of governance at all levels, here and there the power of long-term investment in public works and open space prevails to make life better for everyday citizens.

Under the bridge On one such recent visit it occurred to me as well that for all the walking around I have done in the quarter century I have either lived, or wished I was still living in New York City, I had never really walked AROUND Manhattan. Never gone to the river and turned left or right and not stopped until I got back to where I started.

But now I have. Or almost, I should say, because in the end, there was too much fun to be had along the way for the amount of time I had allotted myself. I underestimated, for instance, how long I would want to sit on a bench somewhere south of the Frying Pan wharf and listen to an elderly man playing the balalaika while his wife (I assumed) sat next to him and sketched the barges on the river and talked to him softly in a language I could not identify. And how could I know that the sixth and seventh innings of the softball game going on by the East River somewhere just above Houston Street would be such a nail-biter. Or that the view from Carl Schurz Park that the good people of Yorkville have been enjoying all these years was so dramatic.

NYC Church Who knew there were free-climbers on the rocks of Edgecombe Avenue at 162 street, or bingo games on blue tarps in the park around High Bridge. You could watch the fishermen near the foot of the George Washington Bridge all day waiting to hear the line peeling off a reel as a wild striper makes a run for it.

By the time I got to High Bridge I was getting low on batteries in the iPhone (which does everything well, but if you use it for everything – pictures, voice notes, gps, phone calls – doesn’t last as long as it should.) So I didn’t get a picture of the man taking a nap in the late afternoon sun using his trombone for a pillow. More importantly, as I was also running low on batteries in my legs I didn’t succeed in making it all the way around the northern tip of Manhattan. Exactly how one gets onto the promenade along the Harlem River above 125^th street appears to be secret knowledge. Several people I asked, including a bus driver, a couple of pedestrians, and even a police officer, looked mystified, though one man allowed that he had, in fact, seen people walking along there. It was the police who sent me to the higher ground of Edgecombe Avenue, which I did not regret because the view from High Bridge just makes you long for the day that the city makes that abandoned bridge a pedestrian path. (And because I met a gentleman there who told me that a cousin of his walked the path along the Hudson all the way up to White Plains, which certainly sounds like something to do someday soon.)

New York Low on batteries and short on time, when I reached a place where I could see the Harlem River to my right and the eastern tower of the George Washington Bridge to my left I made the snap decision to cut across on 175^th street to the Hudson. The stairs down from Jay Hood Wright Park, under the highway, made me understand why everyone I had asked had suggested going down to 155^th street if I wanted to get to the Hudson.

As it turned out, though, the glassy-eyed men sitting amidst their possessions up under the bridge merely looked at me indifferently as I passed and, once down in the weird maze of freeway on-ramps I followed the steady trickle of Asian youths carrying tennis equipment up a path that looked as if it led directly onto the Henry Hudson Parkway but that in fact led to the big river.

The magnificent Hudson. I looked north, thinking about the path to White Plains and regretting not having “summited” the island, so to speak. But only momentarily. All around me people were laughing, grilling chicken, fishing, playing a form of volleyball where it’s apparently legal to do all but catch the ball and throw it back up in the air, and walking. In the warm light that isn’t afternoon and isn’t evening I made my way south, back toward where I had started a day and a half before with no regrets at all. I wasn’t out to prove anything. The top of Manhattan will be there next time. I was just another happy (albeit former) New Yorker, out for a spring walk.

For a Longer Walk

NYC If you wanted to really get over the top at Spuyten Duyvil – the spinning devil where the Harlem River hits the Hudson – the route would be closer to forty miles and you would want about four days. That way you could arrive at Penn Station by Amtrak around midday and walk down around the bottom of Manhattan –taking time to sniff the odor that still lingers at the old Fulton Fish Market even years after it closed – and if money’s no object, keep walking to the ultra hip and happening Cooper Square hotel on the Bowery (thecoopersquarehotel.com.)

Have pizza across the street at Keith McNally's new hotspot, Pulino's (pulinosny.com) at or the best Greek food in the hemisphere at Pylos on east 7th (pylosrestaurant.com). On day two you could just ease on up the East River in the cool of the morning and check into base-camp 2, the Extraaaauudinary Mark Hotel, (themarkhotel.com) which has just been completely renovated and is right by all the museums, where you will spend the afternoon. If you have friends who can get you into the Monkey Bar for dinner, by all means prevail upon them...and take a cab for God's sake. (monkeybarnewyork.com). Day three is when you summit: the top of Harlem and back down to the west side, where having blown through your budget the night before you might stay at the Sky Hotel and Hostel (106 W 83rd) but you would prefer to stay at Park 79 (www.park79.com). From either, it's just a walk in the park (almost) back down to Penn Station.

Got local tips to add to this walk? Your favorite bar, or park, or snack? Add a comment below or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

EAT/SLEEP/DO

Plan

Here’s the coolest thing going on in walking in New York State. One day you’ll be able to walk from Wall Street up the length of the Hudson to the headwaters at Lake Tear of the clouds. It's called the Hudson Trail

And here's the coolest batch of architectural guides from gelatobaby.

Eat

Pulino’s is Keith McNally’s new hotspot (that’s a good thing). www.pulinosny.com

Pylos has the best Greek food west of Athens. www.pylosrestaurant.com

The Monkey Bar is worth calling in favors to get into. www.monkeybarnewyork.com

Sleep

Cooper Square Hotel, on the Bowery. www.coopersquarehotel.com

Mark Hotel, near all the museums, upper East side. www.themarkhotel.com

Park 79. www.Park79.com

Got a little more time? Right in midtown, at W 53rd and Avenue of the Americas, you can rent a timeshare apartment at the Hilton Club and spend your days mapping out New York with your feet, and your nights in comfort, pretending you've got your own pied de terre.

Category: Inn to Inn Routes and Reports

Written by Paul Schneider

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