I can’t believe its been ten years since I started this project!
I read online all the time of how people say, “I walked every street in Manhattan in one Summer and I got so much out of it!” Sorry folks, I have been doing this for ten years and I have walked every street, park, road, bridge and byway including other parts of the City and outside the City when the City closed for COVID for a decade and I still have to revisit neighborhoods because they keep changing. The City just keeps changing faster since COVID.
Manhattan like the rest of New York City or any City for that matter is like an onion, you have to keep peeling back the layers and you find more than you thought. You always miss something. I had to revisit the entire Upper Upper and Upper West Side from West 125th Street to West 59th Street over the Fall and there was so much I had to revamp on over a dozen blogs. There is so much you miss the first time around that you have to go back again. Then you go “Wow, how did I miss that?”
The starting point of The Great Saunter at Fraunces Tavern in May 2025
Architecture I missed, restaurants have opened and closed and then opened again under new ownership. Museums that needed to be revisited and so much more that was discovered sometimes in just a one block area. How many residents just pass a building or a statue and give it not a second thought. There is so much to see, do and experience in this City and just on the Island of Manhattan. I think it is all fascinating the complexity of it all.
The only way to really get to know a place is by walking around it and experiencing it. I have done this over the last three years with visits abroad to Paris, Prague, Abu Dhabi and Dubai with NYU, especially when I finally had some time on my own to just walk those cities. What I missed on the tour I visited on my own, especially in Prague and Abu Dhabi, when I had the day to myself and I could relax and do. Just having a morning in Paris to myself and having breakfast near my dorm on my own was an eye-opener, especially to the French who could not believe an American could eat that much for breakfast.
Me doing the tourist thing in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris the Summer of 2023 with NYU. Talk about walking a City!
This experience I have also shared in the Tri State area with visits to Philadelphia and Washington DC, walking around Newark, NJ (yes it does have it attributes) and exploring the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut in cities like New Haven, Narrowsburg, Cooperstown, Rhinebeck, Greenwich and exploring the shore towns of Cape May, Seaside Heights and Park, Point Pleasant and Point Pleasant Beach and a complete tour of Long Beach Island towns. There is so much to experience so close to you and each little town has attributes you only experience once you leave the Boardwalk.
I have completed the Broadway Walk from 242nd Street to the Bowling Green over a dozen times and just completed the Great Saunter, the 33 mile perimeter walk of Manhattan for my forth time officially and plan the fifth time unofficially as soon as it stops raining.
On the day of the Tenth Anniversary, it rained all day (it never stopped raining for a week) in the City making walking around the City impossible so I went to the Museum of Modern Art to see some movies that were part of the retrospect that was part of “Pride Week” entitled “Queer and Uncensored”, which was a retrospect of what passed for racy in the 1970’s and 80’s. It is interesting that the MoMA showed what was considered provocative films of that era. I watched some interesting perspectives of art in film.
The Museum of Modern Art at 11 West 53rd Street
My review on TripAdvisor:
The film festival “Queer and Uncensored”:
https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/5807
The bio of the film series:
(From the MoMA website)
Honoring a courageous history of liberation and transgression, this major survey of queer film and video includes more than 70 shorts and features by 65 filmmakers. This cinematic celebration of lesbian, gay, and transgender sexuality, love, and activism presents seven decades of pioneering, landmark films and lesser-known or marginalized works.
Guest curators MM Serra, longtime head of Film-Maker’s Cooperative, and Erica Schreiner—both filmmakers themselves—write, “Since the inception of queer cinema, artists have faced censorship and invisibility, a challenge that persists today. Queer and Uncensored showcases a powerful selection of rarely seen, suppressed films that are crucial milestones in the evolution of queer filmmaking. Each program focuses on a topic that is relevant to the development and expansion of queer identity and its diversity. These films explore gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and the emergence of the epidemic.”
After the movies were over, I treated myself to dinner. Then the rain subsided finally in the evening and I decided to revisit a restaurant I had eaten at in post-pandemic in Kips Bay, Anjappar Chettinad South Indian Cuisine at 116 Lexington Avenue. I had eaten here a few years ago right after the City opened after the Pandemic and had wanted to come back to try it again. With some of the restaurants that I have visited lately, it is all about ‘the picture’ (meaning going back to restaurants of the past blogs to take pictures of the meals I had before).
My ten year anniversary dinner at Anjappar Chettinad South Indian Cuisine
This was the exact meal I had in the restaurant five years prior when the City had opened up. Because of COVID, only a handful of us were allowed in the restaurant at one time. As I recall, there were only three of us in the restaurant that night. It was nice to return. The food and service are wonderful here (See my review on TripAdvisor).
My review on TripAdvisor:
The Chicken Marsala is very spicy and wonderful with the bread to soak up the sauce
The Parotta bread is a spiral bread perfect for this saucy meal
The Mango Lassi to cool me down
The dinner was fantastic
The dessert, the Gulobjamun, a sweet rice cake in syrup. Unusual and delicious!
If wasn’t the day I had planned with me wanting to do the Broadway walk but that would be for another day. For tonight I dealt with the rain storm as I did the first day of the walk in Marble Hill on June 15th, 2015 (Father’s Day). It has been a long time since that day and I celebrated walking 2/3rds of the Island of Manhattan.
I will keep walking until I have visited every street, park, and garden until I get to the tip of Battery Park and that includes Liberty and Ellis Islands as well. Along the way, I will be sharing with all of you interesting restaurants and stores while seeing how the City keeps changing. I don’t bemoan things of the past but look forward to things of the future. There is more to come so keep walking with me.
There are more adventures ahead and I want all of you to enjoy them with me.
Happy Walking!
mywalkinmanhattan 
Its been a decade everyone and I am still going strong on this walk.
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