Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: Round The World 2015
More Manhattan
Today held out the promise of being another sightseeing marathon, again conducted largely on foot, but making use of public transport when this made sense. The plan was to begin in Union Square, explore a few Downtown Manhattan neighbourhoods, then gradually return to Midtown by traversing Greenwich Village and Chelsea. The day would end with evening drinks overlooking Central Park, followed by a celebration dinner. Tomorrow, after all, it would already be time to move on from this perpetually amazing destination.
After eating breakfast at a convenient but extremely busy branch of Starbucks, we got into position by riding the subway to 14th St-Union Square.
Union Square - Little Italy - Chinatown
Union Square is situated just north of 14th Street, and its name simply derives from the fact that it marks the meeting point of two significant thoroughfares, Broadway and Park Avenue South / 4th Avenue. A vibrant and interesting farmers' market was being held in part of the square, while other areas looked as though they were being set up for Christmas markets. The strong morning sunshine and cloudless blue sky highlighted the produce on display, making for a wonderfully colourful start to the day's proceedings.
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On leaving Union Square, we crossed 14th Street and in doing so entered the large area known as both Lower Manhattan and Downtown, which stretches all the way to the Financial District and Battery Park. As we weaved our way through the western edge of the East Village using streets on both sides of the Bowery, and continued across Houston Street into the Nolita neighbourhood (the name being an acronym of 'North of Little Italy'), I was impressed by all the classic New York architecture, which I thought looked superb in the morning sunshine. I loved the profusion of external fire escapes, but at the same time was glad that I didn't actually have to use one!
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| ABOVE: Walking through the East Village and Nolita | ABOVE: Some typical New York humour | ||||
In due course we crossed Broome Street and entered Little Italy itself. One of the first things we saw here was a conspicuously grand building, complete with dome and columns, which turned out to be the former New York City Police Headquarters at 240 Centre Street - and yes, they spell it the European way! It is now mainly an apartment block, and presumably a highly desirable one at that. Returning to the area's 'main drag', Mulberry Street, we continued through this most interesting neighbourhood. With even the fire hydrants painted in a scheme inspired by the Italian flag, there was certainly no shortage of local colour and atmosphere.
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FINAL COLUMN (right): The Police Building on Centre Street |
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When our leisurely stroll down Mulberry Street
eventually took us across Canal Street, we were plunged from the
Mediterranean into East Asia, as we entered Chinatown. At the
Mulberry / Bayard corner, we both recognised Columbus Park from our
2013 Explore Chinatown Food & Culture Walking Tour, so this
represented the point at which we were at risk of revisiting
recently covered territory. Retracing our route by just a few steps
northwards on Mulberry, we spotted a Vietnamese restaurant specialising in Phö and decided to abandon an earlier plan for dim
sum and eat here instead. Bruce was choked up with a cold and
thought he'd have a better chance of actually being able to taste a
soup-based meal.
Chinatown - Greenwich Village - Meatpacking District
After lunch, we walked northwards and westwards through a further succession of neighbourhoods, many of which had previously suffered from a poor reputation, but all of which had now undergone massive regeneration. In particular, I marvelled at the huge array of seriously upmarket fashion shops in SoHo, which we mostly traversed on Mercer Street. (In New York, incidentally, the name SoHo derives from 'South of Houston'.)
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| LEFT to RIGHT: 1. Heading out of Chinatown 2. Jefferson Market Library, on Avenue of the Americas (6th Ave) 3. Christopher Street in the West Village, site of the Stonewall Inn 4. The new Whitney Museum of American Art building, beside the southern entrance to The High Line | |||
After that, our route took us west on Houston and north on Sixth Avenue, almost as far as the prominent branch of the New York Public Library in the heart of Greenwich Village. We turned left on Christopher Street, famous for the Stonewall Riots of June 1969, which took place following a police raid on the eponymous bar. The Stonewall Inn and surrounding area were added to the US National Register of Historic Places in June 1999. Finally in this section of the day, we continued on a generally northwesterly heading through the West Village until we found ourselves close to the Hudson River at the start of the Meatpacking District, looking at the brand new Whitney Museum of American Art building and beside it, our next specific objective.
The High Line revisited
The High Line is an elevated linear park constructed along a section of disused railway spur running from W 30th St (close to Penn Station) to Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District. It opened in 2009 and I had walked it in a southbound direction at the end of my 2013 visit to New York. Bruce, however, had missed out on that occasion. Now it was time to put right the omission, this time heading north. The walkway was very busy indeed on this fine weekend day. As we proceeded through Chelsea, it was clear that massive amounts of development were taking place adjacent to this unusual park, and proximity to the High Line was being specifically cited as a selling point in the advertising. (Megabucks Towers by the High Line - rentals from only half-a-gazillion dollars per month! OK, I made that up, but you get the idea.) I found it astonishing that the High Line should be acting as a catalyst for regeneration; it is after all a footpath - not a high-speed rail link or similar.
Eventually we arrived at W30th, adjacent to the West Side Yards facility for train storage and routine maintenance, itself due to disappear from sight under the new Hudson Yards commercial development. We saw that the High Line had already been extended up to West 34th Street via a sweeping, curved route that passed close to the Hudson River. Rapidly running out of both energy and time, however, we decided to return to street level at 30th and ride the subway from Penn Station to within three blocks of the Marriott East Side.
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Big Night Out
Following
a well deserved short rest, it was soon time to press on with the
remainder of the day's programme. The first part of the evening was
scheduled to be drinks with Bruce's colleague Eric and his partner
Tim, at the Ritz-Carlton on Central Park South. It took a brisk
ten-block walk north and a few more blocks west to get there
reasonably on-time, but it
was well worth the effort. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting these two very
likeable guys in the plush surroundings of the Ritz-Carlton's
Executive Lounge. A beautiful spread had been put out, featuring
giant shrimp, smoked salmon and cucumber canapés, and crackers and
cheese. I had a dry martini to begin with and followed this up with a
glass of wine. Both absolutely hit the mark; it was an excellent
start to the evening.
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Next up was an 8pm dinner for two at Vitae on
East 46th Street. Once again this proved to be an inspired choice of
venue, albeit with a couple of overly loud people present on this
occasion. I had an excellent meal of steak tartare, pork schnitzel
and panna cotta, all washed down with a glass of Sancerre.
This was a fabulous evening out in the Big Apple,
bringing to a close an extraordinarily varied, interesting, busy and
enjoyable day.
