Walking around Manhattan on a regular day can be challenging but when it is 93 degrees outside it can be daunting. Thank God most of Hell’s Kitchen was shaded or else I would never have made it. For such a warm day, it was not as humid as I thought it would be or else I just did not notice. I knew by the end of the day I was exhausted. I did walk over a hundred city blocks.
I started my morning at the Museum of Modern Art at 11 West 53rd Street for a private members morning reviewing the new “Cezanne Drawings ” exhibition. It was interesting to see how progressed his works from sketchbook to the final painting. What I liked about the exhibition is how the curators mounted it. Each of the set of drawings lead up to the finished work so you got to see the different perspectives that the artist was trying to achieve with each of his paintings.
Ceza
The Cezanne Drawing Exhibition at the MoMA at 11 West 53rd Street
What I like best about being a member of the Museum of Modern Art is that it gives you time to see all these interesting exhibitions with a limited crowd. When you are with other members, you can tell that they really want to be there and have the same open-minded approach to the works whether they like them or not.
Some of the sketches I could see where the artist, Paul Cezanne, was trying to go with the work and the changes he made along the way to the finished painting. You could see the movements and detail in each page and how he adjusted it. It was nice to be in the mind of an artist who died over a hundred years ago.
One of the unfinished sketches from the pages of the Cezanne’s sketch book
Mr. Cezanne was a French Artist who influenced in Post-Impressionism who studied at the Free Municipal School of Drawing and the University of Aix studying Law and Drawing.
After I toured the exhibition, I visited a few others that were going to close soon. I walked through the “Embodied Sensations” exhibition and admired the modern graphics along the walls and floor. Then I just wondered around the museum cooling off.
I started my walk of the border of Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton at the corner of West 59th and Ninth Avenue at Amore Pizza Cafe at 370 West 58th Street. Even though I had a large breakfast, I was starved by the time I got here (see review on TripAdvisor and DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com). Because it was the weekend and most of the calzones and pizza rolls are made ahead of time, the choices were limited. I was surprised they would not make one fresh.
Amore Pizza Cafe at night at 370 West 58th Street at Ninth Avenue
I settled on a Pepperoni Roll ($5.95), which was an excellent choice. This version of a rolled personal pizza was studded with layers of spicy pepperoni and baked with a garlic butter topping and then served with a spicy tomato sauce. I have not had one of these in years and it was delicious (see my review on TripAdvisor and DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com). Each bite into those layers of pepperoni had a salty/savory flavor and was the perfect lunch for a long day of walking.
The Pepperoni rolls here are amazing!
After lunch was over, I traveled down West 59th Street to the Hudson River. It had been months since I had walked in this part of the neighborhood. I visited here in September of 2018 to finish the Borders and Streets of the lower part of the Upper West Side. In that time, several buildings had been completed and new playgrounds had opened up.
The Border of the Lower Part of the Upper West Side Day One Hundred and Twenty-One:
Since I was walking within the shade, the heat was not as bad as I thought it would be. Plus the breezes off the Hudson River were a pleasure. As I walked down West 59th Street, it was like visiting old friends.
As I walked back down to West 59th Street, I crossed the street to a popular park. Near the local school is Gertrude Ederle Playground which sits next to the Gertrude Ederle Recreation Center. This park stretches from West 59th to West 60th Street and is a very popular park with the areas families offering many whimsical playground jungle gyms and swings and a very nice field for soccer and baseball. It also offers a very nice public bathroom that is nice to have when walking around the area.
Gertrude Ederle was a champion Olympic and distance swimmer, who was a member of the 1924 Paris Olympic Games. She set over twenty world records in swimming in the early 1920’s and won a gold medal for the 400 meter freestyle relay. She swam the 22 mile harbor swim from Battery Park to Sandy Hook, NJ in a record that stood for 81 years. She also set the record for crossing the English Channel as the first American woman and received a ticker tape parade when she returned. She also appeared as herself in the 1927 romantic comedy ‘Swim, Girl Swim’. She continued to swim by teaching deaf children to swim (she had lost her hearing at this point) and lived to ripe age of 98 passing in 2003 (NYCParks.org).
Across the street from the park is the former IRT (Interborough Rapid Transit) Powerhouse at 840 12th Avenue. This ornate building was built in 1904 and takes up the entire area from West 59th to West 58th Street between 11th and 12th Avenues. Designed by architect Stamford White, the building is used by Con Ed of New York to supply the New York Steam system. It is designed in the ‘Renaissance Revival’ and really walk around the building you can see the beautiful details of the building especially around the building . It was recently declared a Landmark Building in New York (Wiki).
There is such beauty in the details of this building
The beauty of the details of the building
The embellishments
Walking across the street, I was greeted by the beauty and elegance of the new complex, One Waterline Square, which was behind fencing the last time I visited the neighborhood. The finished complex was simmering in the sunlight and in the middle of the complex is the energetic Waterline Square Park.
The tiers of the park were very interesting as stairways lead to different levels of the park with fountains and trees and water features that shot up every few minutes with loads of kids and their parents screaming at each plug of water. This is when it is fun to be a kid.
The activity of the park
The park was designed by the New York architect group, Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects. This creative women-owned firm who uses a cumulative and holistic image for each project using designs that are insightful and artful as well as performative (MNLA Mission Statement)
Waterline Square Park is one of the most unusual parks that I have seen in the City since walking Battery Park City. The park has almost a Dr. Seuss effect to it with its interesting plantings, bridges and water features in all directions. It also has plenty of seating to relax and enjoy the cool breezes. All this packed in between three elegant buildings. It was fun just watching everyone have a good time.
I sat in the park for a while just trying to cool off myself as the weather got warmer that day. It was nice to sit under a tree and relax. I could believe how this whole area of the City had transformed itself from just a couple of months ago. From behind the fencing came this magical city of glass and green space.
I walked down to the extension of Riverside Park and walked the paths along the Hudson River. I had not been here since I did the Great Saunter Walk. I love the cool breezes and views of the river from the park. The City did a good job on this extension of the park giving the West Side of the island the green space it needed.
Both from the street and from the paths, you get beautiful views of the cliffs on the New Jersey side of the river but still engage it via the various piers that you can walk on that jut out into the river. When you reach West 59th Street, Pier 96 and the Hudson River Pier and the boat basin giver great views of the Hudson River.
‘Private Passages’
I walked around the park and saw an unusual sculpture in the shape of a bottle. The public art piece ‘Private Passage’ by artist Malcolm Cochran is a unique sculpture in that what appears to be a ship in a bottle is actually a replica of a stateroom in the Queen Mary all done in metals. At night and in bad weather I read that the piece is illuminated.
‘Private Passage’ by Malcolm Cochran
The inside of “Private Passage”
Malcolm Cochran is an American artist and former Art Professor at Ohio State University. A graduate of Wesleyan College, Mr. Cochran has had many solo and group shows since the 70’s and has created numerous works all over the world. ‘Private Passage’ was created for Hudson River Park in 2005 and is an engaging piece of art where the visitors have to look inside the port holes to see the art inside the bottle. It is very clever.
Turning back to Twelve Avenue, I stopped to stare at another new favorite building of mine, Via 57th on the corner of West 57th and Twelfth Avenue. This glimmering pyramid of glass stands out amongst the box structures in the neighborhood with it triangular shape and reflections of the sun and the river. It brings an elegance to the newly planted park and changes the makeup of the buildings by the river giving it futuristic look to the Hudson River.
Via 57th along the new Hudson River Park at 625 West 57th Street (Via 57)
This residential building is in the shape of a pyramid or “tetrahedron” looking ‘almost like a sailing vessel going across the river’. The tiered gardens and slopped space integrates with the surrounding park and river. The building was designed by Danish architectural firm Bjarke Ingels Group and by its founding architect Bjarke Ingels (Wiki).
I walked past the back of Dewitt Clinton Park at West 54th Street to West 52nd Streets where the whole back of the park was under reconstruction.
I made my way down the greenway past all the piers where there were people sunning themselves on the grassy lawns. There was not a lot of people gathered around Pier 86 where the Intrepid Museum was located. I was not sure if it was open yet or not. Pier 83 where the Circle Line rode off from also looked quiet. In a normal year, these Piers were really busy.
Because tourism was just coming back to the City since the reopening of most activities, there were no lines or crowds of people around and the few people walking around we walking up to gates to ask what the status was of the activity. It was very different when I took the Circle Line for my birthday present to myself and saw the island of Manhattan from the water. It is just as beautiful and interesting from the water as it is from the land.
Day One Hundred and Forty Seven-Touring the Circle Line on my Birthday 2019:
I exited out of the park to West 42nd Street and Twelfth Avenue and the foot traffic was light. There were those few people milling around the neighborhood that lived there but with the lack of tourism this part of Manhattan is quiet during the day.
I had not walked down this part of West 42nd Street in a long time and had not noticed the changes that have had happened over the years. I had missed River Place at 650 West 42nd Street and Silver Towers at 620 West 42nd Street when I last walked around this part of the neighborhood. These large apartment complexes do break up the once warehouses and office buildings that dominated the area.
The public playground and gardens of 620 West 42nd Street
What stood out to me was right smack in the middle of these two complexes and that was Tom Otterness Playground at 630 West 42nd Street. This space of green reminded me of the creativity in playground design that I had seen earlier in Waterline Square Park. Combining small space with creative design to produce a whimsical park for families. It was such a nicely landscaped park and a relief from the heat. I loved the beautiful and artsy playground which is a testament to Tom Otterness’s approach to playground design.
Tom Otterness Playground jungle gym structure is whimsical
Tom Otterness is an American artist who studied at the Art Student League in New York. His work is known as ‘whimsical and fun’ but also sends a message and tells a story.
Please watch the video on artist Tom Otterness
The Silver Towers is a twin residential set of towers that stand tall in the neighborhood and set the tone for the new residential section of this side of the West Side. Their brilliance in design and reception of sun light is interesting. The buildings were designed by architect Costas Kondylis and were finished in 2009.
Just a little further and across the street is the sculpture of an unusual polka dot pumpkin in the front of the Sky Building at 605 West 42nd Street by artist Yayoi Kusama. The sculpture sits in front of this elegant glass residential tower in the ever changing neighborhood by the Hudson River. The Sky is a mixed use luxury residential building that was designed by architectural firm Goldstein, Hill & West and was completed in 2016 (Wiki/Moinian Group).
Artist Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese born artist who studied at the Kyoto School of Arts & Crafts and is known for her installments and sculptures but also works in film, performance art and fashion among other mediums and is known for influence in ‘Pop Art’ (Wiki/Artist Bio).
Please watch the video on Yayoi Kusama
As I walked back up Tenth Avenue (the border of this side of Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton), I could see that in the time since my last visit to the neighborhood that more restaurants have reopened and there was more life outside. As the weather has gotten warmer, more outdoor cafes have opened up bringing life to the quiet streets. I reached the border of the neighborhood by the late afternoon.
On the way back up, I stopped at Seguidilla Empanadas at 465 West 51st Street for a snack twice first for a Chicken Empanada ($2.99) and the second time for Country Club soda, a specialty Dominican soda ($1.95). The empanadas here are really good and served with a nice spicy sauce that brings out the flavor of the chicken. The owners kept looking up at me with stares and I kept wondering what they were thinking especially when I came back for the soda.
Seguidilla Empanadas at 465 West 51st Street is a nice cafe
Turning the corner on West 59th Street at Tenth Avenue, you will face the beauty of the John Jay College of Criminology Haaren Building at 899 Tenth Avenue. The building is home to many classrooms and the library for the college. The building was designed by Charles B.J. Snyder and was completed in 1903 (Wiki and John Jay College). The building was originally the Dewitt Clinton High School.
John Jay College Haaren Building at 899 Tenth Avenue
Since it was still early in the afternoon when I finished the borders of the neighborhood, I decided to explore the length of Eleventh Avenue from West 59th to West 42nd Street. I was floored by how many auto showrooms are located on this stretch of the avenue from all different manufacturers.
Still here and there are traces of the old neighborhood before all the rebuilding and a few new standouts that add to the Eleventh Avenue fabric. As I headed south down the avenue, I came across the Juan Alonso Community Gardens on the corner of Eleventh Avenue and West 51st Street.
Juan Alonso Community Gardens on the corner of West 51st Street and Eleventh Avenue
The Community Garden was named after a local resident and community activist , Juan Alonso, who tired of seeing an empty lot and drug dealers in the area. The vacant lot is now a network of small gardens throughout the neighborhood run by the Clinton Housing Development Company (CHDC).
The gardens in bloom in 2024
The garden is attached to an old tenement housing 565 West 51st Street with the interesting carving “St. Mary’s 1887” on the top. This is now affordable housing.
565 West 51st Street
The top of the 1887 building
Another hold out of the neighborhood is the Landmark Tavern at 626 Eleventh Avenue. It was opened by Patrick Henry Carly in 1868 and has been a staple since. It is one of the oldest continuing restaurants in New York City (Landmark Tavern History). What is so fascinating about the bar is that at one time it stood on the water’s edge of the Hudson River. It shows how Manhattan has reclaimed land around the island. The restaurant has an interesting bar menu.
When walking back up Eleventh Avenue passing more auto dealerships and showrooms, I came across the Gotham West Market at 600 Eleventh Avenue, a series a small independent restaurants catering to the crowd of residents living in the building and the surrounding neighborhood. The first time I ventured in only three restaurants were open now about half are open but still you can see by the empty or closed spaces that the City still has a ways to go.
I finished my touring of the neighborhood at Dewitt Clinton Park, which runs along Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues between West 52nd to West 54th Streets and is the biggest patch of green on this part of the neighborhood.
Dewitt Clinton Park at the Eleventh Avenue and West 52nd Street entrance
The park is a haven for joggers and sports enthusiasts and the Erie Canal Playground is really big with the kids. When I was walking around that afternoon I could not believe the language these kids were spewing at each other. These kids must have been between eight and ten years old and they sounded like truck drivers.
The entrance of the park on a sunny afternoon
As I walked around the park, I saw from when I was walking around Twelfth Avenue that the back part of the park is being reconstructed and renovated with what looks like new lighting , sidewalks and stairs to be followed by new landscaping. One great attribute is that there are open clean bathrooms later in the evening.
The back of the park
The front part of the park is very welcoming with flower beds, nice signage, comfortable benches to relax under the trees and nice paths. When you enter the park, you are greeted by the statue of a Doughboy from WWI.
The Doughboy State greets you at Dewitt Clinton Park (Clinton War Memorial)
The statue was designed by artist Burt W. Johnson. Mr. Johnson is an American born artist who studied under noted sculptors James Earle Fraser and Augustus Saint Gaudens. The artist died shortly after the statue had been modeled (NYCParks.org). He studied at Pomona College and the Art Students League of New York (Wiki).
The park was name after politician and philanthropist Dewitt Clinton from the prominent Dewitt and Clinton families. Mr. Clinton was the former Mayor of New York, Governor and Senator of New York State. He ran for President in 1812 losing to James Madison and was influential in the building the Erie Canal (Wiki).
I just relaxed in the park for about 45 minutes watching the parents play with their kids and people walking their dogs. It was nice to see people up and about without masks on. The park had some cool breezes from the Hudson River and it was nice to sit under a tree and review my notes. All the large shade trees made it bearable.
The front gardens in the park
I walked back up Eleventh Avenue to West 59th Street early in the evening and tried to figure out where to go for dinner. I had not seen much in the neighborhood and the restaurants close by I was not in the mood for so I decided to go back to Amore Pizza Cafe. So I walked back to Ninth Avenue and ordered dinner and relaxed.
I relaxed over dinner of Linguine with Meat Sauce and a half a loaf ($9.95) and a Coke. If there was ever a dinner I enjoyed more it was that. The meat sauce was incredible and had such a rich flavor (see my review on TripAdvisor and DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com). It was so nice to just sit back and relax. I sat by the window and watched the City go by. It is amazing to watch people walk by and see the world going back to normal. The overload on carbs was helpful after a long walk.
The Meat Sauce at Amore Pizza Cafe is excellent
It is nice to walk around Manhattan and see the City I love so much returning to form to a ‘new normal’. It seems to me that “Hell’s Kitchen” is now just another name of a neighborhood and put its past behind it.
Check out the other blogs on Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton/Midtown West:
Walking the Streets of Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton from 10th Avenue to 12th Avenue Day Two Hundred and One:
Walking the Streets of Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton/Midtown West from 8th Avenue to 10th Avenue from West 58th to West 43rd Streets Day One Hundred and Ninety Seven:
With classes finally behind me for the term and the Summer break here, it is time to start exploring the West side of Manhattan. I had started the borders of Midtown West/ Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen before Final exams and just finished before we ended the semester (See Day One Hundred and Ninety-Four) and it took time.
The neighborhood which is located next to the Theater District on the other said of Eighth Avenue is a mess. That part of the neighborhood is loaded with closed theaters, hotels and restaurants and loaded with graffiti. You would think the City would have had these business owners clean their buildings on a regular basis.
Day One Hundred and Ninety-Four: Walking the Borders of Midtown West/Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen:
I swear sometimes I never realize the ground I have to cover for this project. I have been walking the streets of Hell’s Kitchen for three days and I am only doing half of the area. That stretch of walking back and forth through the neighborhood from Eighth to Tenth Avenues can be exhausting. This neighborhood is much different from the others I have walked in the past as most of the housing is low level former tenement buildings with a few small apartment buildings on the edges of the neighborhood. It looked like Mayor Bloomberg did not zone this area for much development.
Still block by block each is unique in its own way. Here and there tucked in a corner or on a wall is an interesting piece of street art, a pocket park, a small restaurant or an interesting quirky store and occasionally face stares at you from a building. This part of Midtown West/Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen has what we call ‘character’. Even though it still has that rough look about it, the area has pretty much been fully gentrified.
Those small tenement buildings have been sandblasting back into pristine form and many have small gardens, plantings and artwork incorporated to their entrances. A newer much younger resident has replaced the people who used to call this place “Hell’s Kitchen” and use the more historical name of “Clinton” after the family estate that used to dominate this area of the island before the Civil War. Governor George Clinton called this place home just until after the Civil War when the real changes in the neighborhood happened.
I started my walk on West 43rd Street around the corner from Eighth Avenue. This area has been going through a transition since the Bloomberg Administration rezoned the area and parts of Eighth Avenue have been rebuilt with larger hotels and office buildings. Even though COVID has emptied these areas out for the time being, the whole district around the Port Authority building has become home to more company offices and has started already to return the workers that crowded the streets here.
As I walked each street, they are pretty much lined with older tenement buildings that have been renovated and sandblasted back into more luxurious homes. I can see this in the details such as the fancier gates, the ornate door knobs, the flowering pots and small gardens that are surrounding each home. Here and there are small treasures such as interesting street art and small pocket parks and community gardens. Each block has it own attributes.
As you walk down West 43rd Street from Eighth Avenue you will pass the Martin Luther King Jr. Labor Center building for the Health Care Worker Association the 1199SEIU at 314 West 43rd Street. On the side of the building is the tile art by artist Anton Refregier that was created in 1970.
The Anton Refregier mosaic at 314 West 43rd Street. This will be demolished soon.
It captures the ideals of the labor movement with the wording saying “If there is no struggle, there is not progress”. Unfortunately this well-known mosaic can’t be moved and the building is scheduled for demolition this year. A copy is being created in the new headquarters to replace it (W42nd Street.nyc , O’Brien 2021).
Artist Anton Refregier was born in Moscow and moved to Paris as a teenager. He immigrated to the United States in 1920. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and worked for the WPA/FPA as an artist through the Depression and was known for many of his works.
The beauty of the gardens and landscaping in front of 423 West 43rd Street
Venturing further down West 43rd Street, I stopped in front of 421 West 43rd Street and admired the embellishments and decorative carvings on the building. The front of the entrance has interesting details around the entrance. The elegant building was built in 1910 (Realty.net).
421 West 43rd Street stands out amongst the smaller tenements
The interesting landscaping at 413 West 43rd Street
Reaching Tenth Avenue, I travelled back down West 43rd Street and stopped in McCaffrey Playground at 341 West 43rd Street, where groups of families were chasing their small children around the park. I needed to take a break and relax so I sat towards the back of the playground. I must have stood out at 6: 4 with tinted glasses because many of the parents gave me a funny look.
The little oasis of green was named after Monsignor Joseph A. McCaffrey, known as the ‘Bishop of Times Square’, who fought against crime in Times Square. It was at his urging of the City that the land was bought for a park to be developed for neighborhood children. It was one of the many parks built during the Robert Moses era (NYCParks.org). The playground has been renovated many times with modern play equipment and many shade trees for the weary traveler like myself.
Monsignor Joseph A. McCaffrey who the park is named after
I had read online that the Little Pie Company was on this block and I made a B-line to the bakery. The bakery is known for their small five inch individual pies and I wanted to try one.
Little Pie Company is located at 424 West 43rd Street and was founded in 1985 by actor Arnold Wilkerson who was inspired by his grandmother’s baking. I have to tell you that the Three Berry pie was delicious (see my review on TripAdvisor) and was reasonable at $10.95.
THe Three Berry Pie at Little Pie Company is terrific
I stopped at the little park down the block and ate my little pie with gusto and ‘MMM ing’ the whole time at the tart sweet taste. Even the pigeons stared at me to get a taste.
After about fifteen minutes of relaxing and getting more stares, I moved on down West 43rd Street and turned the corner of West 44th Street. Much of the block around Eighth Avenue has been rebuilt with modern buildings but still there are many gems tucked here and there.
The Lattice Peach Pie is delicious too
Being so close to the theater district, I passed two famous studios for actors. First was the New Dramatists building at 424 West 44th Street. The organization is located in the former All People’s Church which was built in the 1880’s in the Gothic Revival style for St. Matthews German Lutheran Church. The New Dramatists are an organization of playwrights founded in 1949. Playwrights serve a seven year residence here as they hone their skills (Wiki).
Further down the street is The Actor’s Studio at 432 West 44th Street, which is world renown as a place for actors to ‘hone their craft’. Founded in 1947 by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford and Bobby Lewis and it known as the home for ‘method acting’ (The Actors Studio History Website).
I was not sure if either organization was open at the time I was in the neighborhood because they both looked so quiet. With the theaters scheduled to open at the end of September (some say closer to December), this will become a much busier block.
Walking back down from Tenth Avenue, I passed a tiny gift shop, Domus-unaffected living at 413 West 44th Street. This quirky little store was closed on my first tour of the neighborhood and I made this my first place to visit when I came the second day (see my review on LittleShoponMainStreet@Wordpress.com and on TripAdvisor).
Domus-unaffected living is an interesting little gift and home furnishing store that carries many unique items from handmade throw pillows and table runners to toys, books and games for some lucky child. They carry porcelain from a local artist in the neighborhood to handmade jewelry. The store also supports small female owned manufactures and artists both here in the States and abroad and I thought that was important direction the store was taking. The owner is really nice and spent time with me explaining her business.
There is a little something for everyone at Domus-unaffected living
The fun merchandise on their display tree
Walking down West 45th Street was interesting at the blocks between renovated tenements and small restaurants along the Avenue corridors. I was entering the core of the residential section of the neighborhood and was impressed by the pride people took in caring for their homes. Even in the pandemic, people took time to tend to their gardens and showcase their flowers which were blooming all over the neighborhood.
I stopped at Mathews-Palmer Playground at 445 West 45th Street for a quick rest. I am not sure what I am doing when I enter a park but I could see those little stares again as a single man walking into a playground to take a rest. This busy little park stretches from West 45th to West 46th and is extremely busy in the afternoons with families. Kids were running all over the place chasing one another while parents chatted.
The Mathews-Palmer Playground at 445 West 45th Street
The park has all sorts of interesting equipment to play on and the shade trees are really nice as the weather is getting warmer. It is just fun to watch the families interacting with one another even as COVID rolls on.
The inside of the park
The park is named after two neighborhood activists May Mathews, who worked and lived in the neighborhood eventually working at the Hartley House as the head social worker until 1954. Alexandra Palmer was a long time resident of West 46th Street who worked tirelessly to maintain the park and work with its upkeep (NYCParks.org).
The inside of the park
Behind scaffolding in the park is a well known mural “Against Domestic Colonialism” by artist Arnold Belkin. You could not see it from the park side so I had to look up. The work was finished in 1972 during the time the artist was living in New York City between the late 60’s and early 70’s. It has been deteriorated over the last few decades (Boston.com).
The Arnold Belkin mural “Against Domestic Colonialism” before the scaffolding (still being renovated in 2024)
Mr. Belkin was born in Canada and started his training at the Vancouver School of Art and continued his training later at the Banff School of Fine Arts. The artist is known for his murals large and small and his work with plastic.
Artist Denise Penizzotto, who is handling the restoration
Ms. Penizzotto is a professional artist with experience in project and arts management both here and abroad. She is currently attending and working at Hunter College in New York and has studied at St. Cloud University.
Another interesting mural in the park that you can see from the playground is the “Kids Project 1991” mural at the front of the park.
The “Kids Project 1991” in Mathew-Palmer Playground
(NYCParks.org/Artists Bios)
When I entered West 46th Street, most of the street was barricaded off for outdoor dining for “Restaurant Row”, a well-known group of eating establishments that cater to the theater crowd. Many of these were closed at the time I made my first visit to the neighborhood when it was colder but as the weather has gotten nicer the tables have been set up and people are enjoying outdoor dining again. The closed off block is only between Eight and Ninth Avenue.
As I passed through, I stopped to admire the plaque at the Hartley House located at 413 West 46th Street. This important establishment has been helping neighborhood residents since 1897 founded on providing education, volunteerism and charity (Hartley House History).
Tucked behind an alleyway and gate is the only remainder of the old Clinton estate, the old carriage house which is now a private home. You really have to look for this hidden entrance as it is in the middle of two buildings down a narrow alley. It is like a hidden kingdom.
The Clinton Court gate leading back to the old carriage house
The carriage house is said to date back to the 1820’s and may be the last reminder of the old estates that used to be part of this neighborhood before the Civil War. The Clinton family had owned most of the land in this neighborhood (Untapped Cities/Emphemeralnewyork@Wordpress.com). As several bloggers mentioned, you can’t see the carriage house from the street and it is private property.
The old Clinton Carriage House at 420-422 West 46th Street
I finished up the first day of walking the neighborhood exhausted. It had been a hot day and it was a lot walking from West 43rd to West 46th from Eighth to Tenth Avenues after a long day of running around. It was also still getting dark early so I finished the evening here.
I returned a few days later to finish the rest of the streets and this time left plenty of time to really look things over that I might have missed. I started my afternoon by revisiting a restaurant that had been closed for a while in Murray Hill, Hop Won at 149 East 45th Street. It was so nice that the restaurant reopened. I was scared that it had closed permanently.
The family that runs the restaurant looked like they happy to see me on that late afternoon. I had the Combination Roast Duck and Pork plate with white rice with an egg roll (see my review on TripAdvisor) and it was so good. I munched down on that for lunch and that got me through the rest of the afternoon of walking.
Don’t miss Hop Won Express at 149 East 45th Street in Midtown East
The roasted meat combination plates are Hop Won are wonderful
I walked from the east side to the west side after lunch and revisited some of the spots that I needed more time at like rewalking restaurant row (it was much busier on this warmer day) and Mathew-Palmer park to take a better look at the restoration after reading up on it.
I then turned the corner onto West 47th Street and came upon another painting outside the restaurant Anejo, a Mexican and Tequila Bar at 668 10th Avenue. It seems that a lot of the restaurants in the City are using artists to decorate the side walls of their restaurants.
As I walked down the street I came across the Actors Temple at 339 West 47th Street. This interesting building was built in 1917 as the West Side Hebrew Association. Because of a dwindling membership, the synagogue now rents out the space for dance, music performances and religious services (The Actors Temple NYCArts.org).
I took a moment to relax and finish my notes at Ramon Aponte Park at 343 West 47th Street, a small pocket park in the middle of the neighborhood. This busy little park had kids running all over the place like many of the parks in the neighborhood while the parents talked amongst themselves.
This wonderful little park was named after Ramon Aponte, who was the former President of the 47th/48th Street Association. When the Police Station that once stood in this spot was knocked down the spot became a vacant lot and stood empty during the high crime years of the City. He and many concerned residents of the Association thought it would make a nice green space for the neighborhood. The park opened in 1979 and it was transferred to the New York Parks system in 1987 (NYCParks.com).
Ramon Aponte Playground on a sunny afternoon
I picked up the pace a bit when I got to West 48th Street. I wanted to make it to West 58th Street before dark and I was spending too much time looking at every building carefully. I was amazed for small tenement buildings that people had done such a nice job fixing them up. I wonder what the residents from thirty and forty years ago who lived in the neighborhood would think of this.
On West 48th Street, I passed the Clinton Community Garden which was closed for visitors because of COVID but I could see the volunteers working inside. The garden was not in full bloom yet from what I could see but it looked very impressive and I will have to revisit it in the future.
The Clinton Community Garden at 434 West 48th Street
When the Clinton Community Garden was started over thirty years ago, it was vacant lot with a lot of illegal activity in a time when the City was falling apart. Volunteers cleaned the plot up and planted the area. When the lot was threatened to be sold, the volunteers from the neighborhood appealed to the City to buy it. It was transferred to the Parks system in 1984 and now is run along with the Clinton Garden non profit. Many special events happen in the Garden during the warmer months (NYCParks.org).
The outside of the garden in the summer of 2024
When I reached Tenth Avenue again, I relaxed in Hell’s Kitchen Park which lines Tenth Avenue between West 47th and 48th Streets. This restful park was always busy when I walked in the neighborhood and was a nice place to bring my lunch on several afternoons when I want to rest from a long day under the shade.
Hell’s Kitchen Park is on Tenth Avenue between West 47th and 48th Street
Hell’s Kitchen Park has an interesting history in that it had once been a parking lot. Since there was not a lot of green space in this area of the City since it was developed, the City bought this land which had been condemned at the time and developed into the current park that opened in 1979. Today it is one of the hubs for the neighborhood (NYCParks.org).
The relaxing benches of Hell’s Kitchen Park
When I visited, there was always a pickup game of basketball and the kids populated the park after school. I enjoyed eating my lunch here and watching the families enter the park and have a nice time. It is nice to relax on the benches below the shade trees and nod off.
Relaxing in Hell’s Kitchen Park on a hot day
After my break at the park, I turned the corner again and walked down West 49th Street from Tenth Avenue. As I passed the Mather Building Arts and Craftsmanship High School at 439 West 49th Street. On the side of the building, there was another interesting piece of outdoor art by artist Hans Hofmann called ‘Untitled’. The mosaic was created in 1957.
Artist Hans Hofmann was born in Germany and started his career in public service but always leaned towards the creative arts. On encouragement, his studied at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere and the Academie Colarossi in Paris and immersed himself in the Avante-Garde scene. He moved to the States in the thirties to teach and remained in the United States for the rest of his life becoming a citizen in 1941 (Wiki).
Next to the high school was the closed and probably much needed Gutenberg Playground at 420 West 49th Street named after Johann Gutenberg, the inventor of moveable type in printing and was noted for creating the ‘Mazarin Bible’ also known as the ‘Gutenberg Bible’. The playground was built next to the high school in 1958 and was transferred to the NYC Parks Department in 1959. The playground is currently getting an update (NYCParks.org).
Artist Ernst Plassmann’s bronze sculptures of celebrated printers Benjamin Franklin and Johann Gutenberg , which were created in 1872, are located outside lobby (NYCParks.org).
Artist Ernest Plassmann was a German born artist known for his realistic life sized sculptures. These are two of his most famous works.
Walking back to Eighth Avenue, I had to make another rest stop in the courtyard of the World Wide Plaza Residence at 350 West 50th Street which stretches from West 49th to 50th Streets. It is a nice place to take a break and just relax from the traffic of the City.
In the middle of the courtyard of the building that is open to the public, is the most unusual and beautiful fountain. The fountain called “The Four Seasons” was designed by artist Sidney Simon and each of the four female statutes holds up a globe and represents the four seasons. The statutes were modeled by Molly Ackerman (Wiki).
The World Wide Plaza Fountain “The Four Seasons” by artist Sidney Simon
Sidney Simon was an American born artist from Pennsylvania. He was educated at Carnegie-Mellon and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Fine Arts and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Known as a sculpturist, the fountain at World Wide Plaza was considered one of his most noted works (Wiki).
Walking along West 50th Street in front of 423 West 50th Street
When I turned the corner onto West 50th Street and walked down the street, I passed the Stella Tower at 425 West 50th Street which was an elegant building in the middle of a neighborhood of small structures. The apartment house was built in 1927 and designed by architect Ralph Walker and was named after his wife, Stella. It is considered a prime example of Pre-War architecture with art deco details (StreetEasy.com/CityRealty.com)
I walked down the rest of the street admiring the small buildings and the array of restaurants that lined the Avenues.
When I started my walk down West 51st Street, I came across the most intriguing and colorful paintings outside ‘ritas Restaurant at 756 Ninth Avenue. The colors are so vibrant and the skull in the middle of the mural is pretty powerful. The reviews on online say that the food is excellent.
The Mural at ‘ritas Restaurant at 756 Ninth Avenue should not be missed
As I walked towards Tenth Avenue, I noticed the beautiful Sacred Heart of Jesus Church at 457 West 51st Street. What an interesting little church. Even though the cornerstone was laid in 1884, there is some debate on when the church was finished and designed by who. The church says it was finished in 1885 and the AIA Guide to New York said it was finished in 1901 and designed by the architects at Napoleon DeBrun & Sons. The church is designed in red brick and terra cotta (Wiki).
Sacred Heart of Jesus Church at 457 West 51st Street
Walking back down the street, I noticed to beautifully detailed buildings that stood out amongst all the others. One was at 330 West 51st and the other was at 306 West 51st Street. They stood out amongst the smaller tenements buildings on the block.
The stone work and carvings of 330-332 West 51st Street was built in 1920 and has interesting archway entrances. The building is an SRO and was just renovated. There is an elegant beauty to it with its faded stone work.
This recently renovated apartment building was built in 1920.
The faces that stare at 314 West 51st Street
The faces that stare at 314 West 51st Street
The stone work of 306-310 West 51st Street also shows an elegant beauty in its stonework and impressive entrance. This apartment building was built in 1945 (StreetEasy.com).
306-310 West 51st Street
The details of 306 West 51st Street-The Lincoln Apartments
There were also two interesting restaurants that I popped my head into when I was walking around. The Hudson Market Place Deli at 755 Ninth Avenue and another small restaurant that just opened Seguidilla Empanadas at 455 West 51st Street.
Both look really nice and are pretty popular in the neighborhood.
Seguidilla Empanada just opened their doors and did this video on YouTube:
The owner welcomes you to his business.
When I walked the neighborhood another afternoon and was traveling the border of the neighborhood I stopped in for a snack. I tried the Chicken Empanada ($2.99) and they were really good. The empanadas were filled with chicken and served it with a pink sauce. They also carry a Dominican soda called ‘Country Club’ and the orange really hit the spot. They have a nice menu.
Turning the corner onto West 52nd, there was a lot to see. At 348 West 52nd Street is an empty carriage house that was in the process of being renovated. The carriage house was built somewhere in the 1870’s by owner, John Newcomb, who ran an auction business. He used this carriage house for his stables for delivery. Since his ownership, the building has had many incarnations up until recently when it was a trendy bar called ‘Therapy’ (Daytonian 2019).
348 West 52nd Street-The John Newcomb Stable now “Therapy”
The mural on the side of the building (could not find the artist for this)
Outside Crispin’s Restaurant at 764 Tenth Avenue off West 52nd Street is an unusual mural outside the restaurant that I thought was very amusing. This wonderful Italian restaurant I have read has excellent food.
Crispin’s Restaurant mural on West 52nd Street and Tenth Avenue (did not the artist for this too)
The restaurant is now called Semes and the mural has been tagged and painted over since my original walk
By this point, I needed a break for dinner myself and I was dying for a hamburger. Lucky for me that I found Lucky’s Famous Burger restaurant at 370 West 52nd Street. This little hole in the wall burger place is excellent. They are also very reasonable. For $12.95, I had one of their combination meals of a Cheeseburger with fries and a large coke. The amount of food I got was a lot.
The cheeseburger was incredibly juicy and the fresh toppings really made the burger and the fries were cooked to perfection and the portion size was more than generous (please read my review on TripAdvisor).
The Lucky’s Burger combination platter of a Cheeseburger with fries and a Coke.
The burgers are amazing!
After dinner was over, I was done for the day. It was getting dark out and I could not see much in the dark. I just could not believe how fast these days went.
Don’t miss their Chicken Fingers either. The meal is a real treat!
When I returned a few days later, the weather finally broke and it was nice outside. It was a breathtaking beautiful sunny afternoon when I arrived in Midtown West/ Hell’s Kitchen again. It was the perfect day to walk around.
I started by walk on the top of West 52rd Street, passing the many businesses I had just visited the other day and then rounded the corner to West 53th Street. Most of the block was non-descrip with the exception of an unusual mural someone spray painted behind a fence at 333 West 53rd Street.
As I rounded the corner onto West 54th Street off Eighth Avenue, I was struck by the beauty of the Saint George Greek Orthodox Church at 307 West 54th Street. This beautiful church was constructed in 1886 and has served many purposes over the years. In the 1950’s, the church took over this spot (Saint George Greek Orthodox Church history)
307 West 54th Street-Saint George Greek Orthodox Church
Further down the block, when I passed 341 West 54th Street, I saw a series of faces staring back at me. I love these buildings with faces all over them. I was in need of something sweet to keep me going with all the walking that I had to do this afternoon, so I stopped at Huascar & Company Bakery at 453 West 54th Street. This tiny bakery is tucked into a corner near a building that is being renovated so it is easy to miss.
Not wanting to have the usual cupcakes and cookies, I saw in a jar a small cookie that the woman behind the counter said was a traditional South American cookie, a Alfagar, a type of sugar cookie with a caramel filling and powdered sugar on top. It was a little expensive at $3.50 (now $4.50 in 2024) but it was delicious and worth the price.
The cookie is wonderful to look at
The taste is amazing! Thick and creamy Dolce Leche (or Caramel not sure) inside two thick sugar cookies. It is delicious.
After having some refreshments inside me, I walked down West 55th Street and noticed the elegance of the Sherwood Apartments at 340 West 55th Street. The Sherwood was built in 1925 and is a combination of stone and brick and has some stand out balconies. It stands out from the other residences on the blocks between Eighth and Tenth Avenues (StreetEasy.com). It even has a planted roof deck.
When walking down West 56th Street, I noticed that the block had some interesting artwork all along the block in places you would never think. In front of 424 West 56th Street, you are greeted by a purple figure smiling at you. I figured a local artist lives here.
They must have also decorated the fence across the street which has all this unusual stuff attached to the webbing of the fence. It will be hard to keep up when the construction finishes on the site.
This is a portion of the fencing at 310 West 56th Street (the fence is not there anymore)
The current fencing by the park
Tucked into the public plaza at 330 West 56th Street, there was an unusual bird sculpture located near the entrance, but I did not know who made it. It had the strangest shape to it.
The bird sculpture outside of 330 west 56th Street (artist unknown)
Walking through the courtyard of The Sheffield at 322 West 57th Street from the West 56th Street side, I came across the unusual sculpture ‘IKON’ by artist David Hostetler. This strange portrait of a woman made an impression on everyone relaxing in the garden. The sculpture has an unique form and stands out in the courtyard.
The sculpture “IKON” by artist David Hostetler at between West 56th and 57th courtyard of The Sheffield complex
Artist David Hostetler is an American born artist from Ohio. He graduated with a BA from Indiana University and a MFA from Ohio University. He specialty was wooden and bronze sculpture and known for his ‘feminine’ works (Artist Bio).
When I rounded West 57th Street from Eighth Avenue passing the The Sheffield again I passed another building at 309 West 57th Street. On the outside of the building was a plaque to the composer Bela Bartok.
The plaque dedicated to Hungarian composer Bela Bartok, one most influential composers of the 20th Century. Mr. Bartok was born in Hungary and studied at Royal Academy of Music in Budapest and studied under many well known composers. He migrated to the United States in 1940 with his wife when he refused to recognize the Nazi regime. He remained in New York for the rest of his life working for Columbia University
When I walked along West 58th Street again, I noticed that a lot of the restaurants and stores had closed during the era of COVID. This part of the City has really taken a hit with the lack of tourists and office workers. There is only so much the local residents can support. I walked towards the back of the Time Warner Building and walked past the back entrance to the Time Warner Building and I noticed a piece of street art that I had not noticed on my last few trips in the neighborhood. That statue is called “Asaf and Yo’oh” by artist Boaz Vaadia and is tucked into the entrance of the building at 25 Columbus Circle-1 Central Park West.
The artist was born in Israel and came from a farming background. He studied at the Avni Institute of Fine Arts in Tel Aviv and was sent to the United States on a grant from the American-Israel Cultural Foundation and then studied at Pratt. His works are made of varies mediums of stone (Artist Bio).
It was surprising how quiet the hotel looked as the Mandarin Hotel was one of the few uptown hotels that are still open during the pandemic. No one was around so it gave me a chance to peek inside the building which looked empty. With most people still working from home I did not expect to see a lot, but the area is getting busier.
I ended my walk on the last afternoon at 57 Taco Express for lunch. I was in the mood for a Cheese and Chicken Quesadilla ($5.99) and ordered one and took it down to Hell’s Kitchen Park for lunch. It was nice to just sit back and relax and watch the world go by. The quesadilla was pretty good. It was nice to eat it in a sunny park under the trees watching everyone have a great time around me. Some people have not let the pandemic totally control their life.
Midtown West/Hell’s Kitchen offers so much so take time to stroll each street and take it all in.
With the College in Summer recess, its full steam ahead!
Check out the other walks of Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton/Midtown West on the blog:
Walking the Border and Avenues of Hell’s Kitchen Day One Hundred and Ninety Four:
I had to split the neighborhood into two parts separated by 10th Avenue as there was so much to see and the complexity of the neighborhood changes on each side.
I finally got back to the West Side of the Island since before the Christmas holidays of 2019. I could not believe it had that long since I had visited that part Island. Like the rest of Manhattan, this area just keeps changing. COVID has changed the rest of the country but in New York City, it has shuttered and changed whole neighborhoods.
Unlike the Midtown South neighborhood that had been built as Midtown business district during the “City Beautiful Era” of cities between the Civil War and WWI with its classic Beaux Arts and French Renaissance style buildings, Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton was filled with tenements and smaller commercial buildings that catered to the working class living there who were employed in the factories and the docks in Chelsea and the Garment District. Up until the early 1990’s, this was still a pretty tough area. As the City has gentrified, this is one of the last frontiers for people to move into reasonably. Up until COVID hit the City, the area had been fully gentrified and the corridors of Ninth and Tenth Avenues had become ‘restaurant rows’ for the theater district . Now Tenth Avenue is retrenching with a lot of empty storefronts.
I started my walk at the Port Authority which is the southern part of the neighborhood. This is the main port of transportation for thousands of workers from New Jersey and in pre-COVID times, this area was filled with active restaurants and theaters. Things have opened back up slowly but most of the restaurants for now closed. The 42nd Street Corridor from Eight to Sixth Avenue has not fully recovered from the lost of the Theater traffic. As I walked up Eight Avenue from West 42nd to 59th Streets, some restaurants were fully opened and some were take out and delivery so the foot traffic was pretty quiet that day. Even some of the hotels have not opened back up for business. This area has been hit very badly since the closure of the Theater District.
Since Midtown West had been rezoned eight years ago, the area is in the process of being knocked down and rebuilt with new office buildings and apartment houses. The area around Eight Avenue from West 42nd to 50th Streets has changed a lot in the last ten years. COVID has closed most of the restaurants on the street as well. Looking on the side streets many of the theaters in the Theater District are either chained closed or boarded up with the hotels in the neighborhood. It can be a scary ghost town at night.
The area has had an interesting past. During Colonization by the Dutch, the neighborhood was known as “Great Kill” due to three streams that used to empty into the Hudson River and was home to many large farms and estates of the wealthy . The area was dominated by family names such as Hopper and Clinton, the latter being the former Vice-President and New York State Governor George Clinton, whose family owned a villa around where present West 46th Street is now. All that is left of that part of the neighborhood’s history is the carriage house from the estate in an alleyway at 422 West 46th Street (Wiki).
Former Vice-President and New York Governor George Clinton
In 1849, the railroad reached the neighborhood and it started to form its Industrial stage with tanneries and docks being built along the shore and shanty towns for workers forming along the waterfront. Later tenements were built to house the workers of the industries filling with recent Irish immigrants after the Civil War and the area had a notorious reputation for gang violence until gentrification started in the 1980’s. The neighborhood has been transforming since that time with new construction along the West 42nd to 59th corridor along Eighth Avenue (Wiki).
The area is still in a state of transformation even during the Global Pandemic. Many of the restaurants around the neighborhood have closed partially due to the closing of Broadway theaters that dominate the neighborhood and the empty office buildings that line Eighth Avenue. The ‘Theater District’ that lies just east of the neighborhood is still mostly boarded up as well as the hotels are still all closed. It makes it spooky at night to walk through almost similar to those years in the 1980’s and early 1990’s when you had to run down Eighth Avenue to get to the Port Authority.
The edges of this neighborhood have changed a lot in the past twenty years. Between the redevelopment of the area under the Koch and Giuliani Administrations and the rezoning under the Bloomberg Administration, the Eighth Avenue corridor and streets from West 40th to 45th have all been rebuilt. I have never seen so much change in an area in the last twenty years.
Pre-COVID the Port Authority between West 42nd to West 41st Streets from Eighth to Ninth Avenues was going through a face-life renovation and the facility started to move out all the older stores and restaurants for higher end takeout places and an art gallery. It looks now that it has been put on hold until people start to return.
The Port Authority Bus Terminal at 625 Eighth Avenue
Since I returned to Manhattan to resume this project last June, the traffic going through the Port Authority has not changed much even though there are more people on the bus. The afternoon I came into the City it was sunny and 66 degrees. More outdoor dining was in play and more people were outside enjoying the weather.
I started my walk exiting the Port Authority at the corner of Eighth Avenue and West 42nd Street, a corner that still needs a lot of work. Pre-COVID this was a bustling area of theaters, shops and restaurants and one of the biggest McDonald’s in the country. Most of it is closed down now and the homeless have taken back over this area. Surprisingly though, it still remains clean a result of the Partnerships established in the mid-1990’s. This area is swept all day long.
As I walked along the eastern border of Midtown West/Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton, there is a distinct change in the area. Even if many of the hotels and theaters are closed, slowly the restaurants in the Theater District have reopened to outdoor dining giving this area a much needed boost.
One of the most interesting buildings in the Times Square area is the Westin New York at Times Square at 270 West 43rd Street which stretches from West 42nd to West 43rd along Eighth Avenue. This hotel (which is currently closed during COVID) was considered one of the most innovative designed buildings in New York City when it was built.
Westin New York at Times Square at 270 West 43rd Street
The hotel was so innovative at the time when it was built and was considered a key in the redevelopment of the West 42nd Street district. The hotel was commissioned by the architectural firm of Arquitectonica to design the building. The 863 room hotel is actually two towers merged together with a ten story midsection for retail and hotel suites. The large scale abstract design has the look of a multi-dimensional gigantic origami (Arquitectonica website). The building was designed by HKS architects and was finished in 2002.
Further up Eight Avenue is the well-known Row NYC Hotel at 700 Eighth Avenue. This hotel opened in 1928 as the Hotel Lincoln and was the largest hotel in Manhattan when it opened with 1331 rooms. In 1957, the hotel was sold and remodeled and open again as The Hotel Manhattan. It was closed in the 1960’s as the rest of the area declined. It reopened again as the Milford Plaza Hotel in 1978 and was a big theater going hotel. In 2013, the hotel was sold once again and went through another renovation and opened as the currently Row NYC Hotel (Wiki).
Passing now closed hotels and restaurants that line this part of Eighth Avenue that border the theater district, I passed the now closed Smith’s Bar, which has been a fixture in Times Square for over sixty years opening in 1954. The bar had been sold to new owners in 2009 and then closed in 2014 to reopen a year later. The bar is now closed again due to the COVID pandemic.
This bar has seen Times Square go through a major transition over the years and was once located in one of the worst areas during the 1990’s. It survived all of that and closed a few months ago due to the COVID pandemic.
Further up the avenue on the corner of Eighth Avenue and West 46th Street is the West 46th Street SRO. This interesting building that I thought was an elegant Victorian is actually a combination of three former tenement buildings and two residences to make one building. Architects Oaklander, Coogan & Vitto PC created this interesting building with an additional shared floor topped with a mansard roof and tower. It used to house many trendy restaurants and bars but since the pandemic has been empty (OCV Architects PC).
I reached West 48th Street and I passed Engine 54/Ladder 4/Battalion 9, which I used to pass all the time when I worked down the road at the Java Shop on the corner of Broadway and West 46th Street at 782 Eighth Avenue. These companies were hit hard a year after I left my job on 9/11 when the Brothers of this house lost 15 members that day, their entire shift. The memorial they have to their members is really touching and the guys that work there always seem so friendly to all the tourists that pass by.
Engine 54/Ladder 4/Battalion 9 at 782 Eighth Avenue
Pay respects to the Engine 54/Ladder 4 Memorial on the front of the building
The Memorials
Engine 54 Plaques and Awards including 9/11
I made a detour back to West 55th Street for lunch. I stopped at Stage Star Deli at 105 West 55th Street for a sandwich before I continued the walk around the neighborhood. The deli is so reasonable and has so many choices (See my reviews on TripAdvisor and DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com).
Stage Star Deli at 105 West 55th Street
I chose a Chicken Salad sandwich with Pesto combination lunch ($8.95) which was excellent. The chicken salad was so fresh and the pesto had such a nice flavor. The sandwich was served on a hero roll and could have fed two people. The food here is consistent and excellent.
The Chicken Salad with Pesto here is excellent
Their Chicken Salad here is excellent
After lunch I headed down the road to Myzel Chocolate at 140 West 55th for dessert. I had not been there in over a year since the shutdown of the City last March. I had to have one of their Chocolate Chip cookies and they still had Cadbury Creme Eggs from Easter (See reviews on TripAdvisor and LittleShoponMainStreet@Wordpress.com). I was shocked when the bill came to $4.10. For a cookie and a piece of candy that must have been a month old?
Myzel’s Chocolate at 140 West 55th Street
I talked with the owner, Mrs. Myzel and she was talking about the lack of business since the shut down and all the problems the City was facing with the homeless and the lack of office workers. I told her it would be about a year until things started to get to the new normal. Still the store had so much of its magic to it with all the decorations and displays. It is a store to visit to forget your troubles.
Mrs. Myzel greets all her customers with a smile
There are two wonderful Chinese restaurants that I like to visit when I am in the neighborhood. One is Peking Roast Duck at 858 Eighth Avenue, which has wonderful lunch specials until 4:00pm. The restaurant has some of the best egg rolls that I have tasted in a long time.
Peking Roast Duck Restaurant at 858 Eighth Avenue
The other is Real Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns at 811 Eighth Avenue which is known for their Pork & Crab and Pork Soup Dumplings. I love their fried dumplings, Scallion pancakes with sliced beef, the pan-fried Duck Buns and the Shanghai pan-fried pork buns. Everything on the menu here is excellent and you can eat your way through the menu of delicious Dim Sum.
Real Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns at 811 Eighth Avenue
The Soup Dumplings here are so good
I double backed to Eighth Avenue after lunch and walked up the avenue to West 59th Street. As I continued up Eighth Avenue and circled Columbus Circle, I saw the familiar sites of the statue of Christopher Columbus and the Time-Warner Complex in the background. It has been almost two years since I finished the Upper West Side of Manhattan and even as I walk those streets again I always feel like I missed something. In the era of COVID, it keeps changing so much.
Columbus Circle has changed over the last twenty years
The detail work is amazing
Columbus Circle was always busy day and night with street vendors, bicyclists, performers and just people sitting and reading or enjoying the weather and people watching on a warm day. Now because of the ‘Cancel Culture’ crowd dominating the headlines and the idiots knocking down statues, the area is fenced off with police cars around it. It used to be such a nice area to sit down and talk.
The 76 foot statue was designed by Italian sculptor Gaetano Russo as part of a plan to honor Columbus’s discovery of the Americas as part of the 1892 commemoration of the 400 year anniversary of the event. If you look closely at the pillar, you will see the reliefs of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria ships on the memorial (Columbus Memorial and Wiki).
Columbus Circle itself was part of the great plan of Central Park in 1857 by Fredrick Law Olmsted, the designer of many parks in New York City as having four rotary entrances to the park. The other rotary in the neighborhood is Grand Army Plaza by The Plaza Hotel.
The Time Warner Center on the other side of the circle represents the massive change in the Upper West Side from a liberal working class area to the new luxury of Manhattan. The Time Warner Center is a mixed use building containing office space, the Mandarin Hotel, many exclusive restaurants and shops and entertainment. The building was designed by David Childs and Mustafa Kemel Abadan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. This modern palace of luxury replaced the old New York Coliseum and opened in 2003 (Wiki). Don’t miss just wondering around the building.
On the other side of the Circle is the new Museum of Art & Design that opened in 2008. The building was the former home of the Gallery of Modern Art designed by Edward Durell Stone in 1969. The building was modernized by architect Brad Cloepfil (Wiki) and the museum shows interesting aspects of art from media, video, painting and photography.
Museum of Art and Design at 2 Columbus Circle
As I crossed the street, the neighborhood is full of Post War architecture but one building stands out with its modern twist. The Hearst Tower at 300 West 57th Street.
The first six floors of the original Hearst Tower were built in 1928 by architect Joseph Urban for the headquarters of the Hearst publishing empire. The building was originally supposed to have an office tower on top but the Great Depression put a stop to the construction. Take a look at the statuary, stone work and details of the original building before admiring the new addition (Wiki).
Admire the detail work of the original 1928 building
Architect Norman Foster designed the 46 story addition to the building which was completed in 2006. The addition of glass and steel is designed in the ‘Diagrid’ pattern and was the first ‘green building’ with environmental features in New York City (Wiki).
I then walked across that street to the Time Warner Building right off the subway station under Columbus Circle (it is amazing where they put this stuff) to the food court in the subway station. The Turnstyle Underground Market is located at the West 59th Street entrance at the Time-Warner Building. Just take the escalator down.
The Turnstyle Underground is in the subway station at the Time Warner Building at 59 Columbus Circle
The food court market had just reopened a few months ago and the place was more than half empty. All the great little restaurants that were independently owned were gone. VIctims to the COVID pandemic and the lack of tourists and office workers. I had read that my favorite, Daa Dumplings had closed about four or five months ago due to lack of traffic (See Day One Hundred and Fifty-Walking the Borders of Central Park South):
If I saw four people sitting down there, it was a lot. Most of the restaurants were empty and almost all the small stores were gone as well. Even the bar that was so popular at the end of the food court and the small independent pizzeria were shut down. It was really spooky because just a year and a half earlier your could not get a seat here.
I walked towards the back of the Time Warner Building and walked past the back entrance to the Time Warner Building and I noticed a piece of street art that I had not noticed on my last few trips in the neighborhood. That statue is called “Asaf and Yo’oh” by artist Boaz Vaadia and is tucked into the entrance of the building at 25 Columbus Circle-1 Central Park West.
The artist was born in Israel and came from a farming background. He studied at the Avni Institute of Fine Arts in Tel Aviv and was sent to the United States on a grant from the American-Israel Cultural Foundation and then studied at Pratt. His works are made of varies mediums of stone (Artist Bio).
It was surprising how quiet the hotel looked as the Mandarin Hotel was one of the few uptown hotels that are still open during the pandemic. No one was around so it gave me a chance to peak inside the building which looked empty. With most people still working from home I did not expect to see a lot.
West 59th and 58th Streets are disrupted in their flow by the Time Warner Building and I continued my walk across West 58th Street and then crossed back over to West 59th behind the complex. This area of the City was part of major urban renewal project back in the 1960’s when the Lincoln Center complex and the Colleges were built so most of the construction up here is new or been updated. I have seen a lot of changes since I walked this neighborhood in when walking the area in 2018 (See Day One Hundred and Twenty-Five-MywalkinManhattan).
Day One Hundred and Twenty-Five: Walking the Streets of the lower part of the Upper West Side:
Still here and there are gems of architecture from another era. Walking down West 59th Street there are still structures that survived urban renewal of the area. I passed the the Parish House of the Church of St. Paul at 415 West 59th Street. The building was built in the late Victorian Gothic Revival style by architects Jeremy O’Rourke and the Rev. George Deshon between 1876 to 1884. The structure was construction used stones from various historical buildings (Church of St. Paul and Wiki).
The Parish House of the Church of St. Paul at 415 West 59th Street
The doorway of the church in the front of the building.
The other building not to miss is the Williams J. Syms Operating Theater at 338 West 59th Street right behind the Time-Warner Complex. It was built in 1892 as a medical hospital and is the last remaining piece of the old Roosevelt Hospital by architects William Wheeler Smith and surgeon Charles McBurney. Made with marble and mosaic floors as not to harbor bacteria, it was considered state of the art when it opened. It is now being renovated for a school (Wiki and HDR Org).
Turning the corner on West 59th Street at Tenth Avenue, you will face the beauty of the John Jay College of Criminology Haaren Building at 899 Tenth Avenue. The building is home to many classrooms and the library for the college. The building was designed by Charles B.J. Snyder and was completed in 1903 (Wiki and John Jay College). The building was originally the Dewitt Clinton High School.
John Jay College Haaren Building at 899 Tenth Avenue
The walk down Tenth Avenue was very different from other neighborhoods I had been recently. NoMAD, Rose Hill and Kips Bay were filled with historical architecture and embellished office buildings while this part of Midtown West/Hell’s Kitchen is filled with tenement housing, small theaters and restaurants. Unlike Ninth Avenue with its vibrant restaurant scene, Tenth Avenue is full of empty storefronts and closed restaurants with ‘For Rent’ signs. This is a sign of the times during the era of COVID.
One of the few patches of green in the neighborhood is the Hell’s Kitchen Park at thew corner at Tenth Avenue and West 48th Street. This park was created from a parking lot in 1966 when the neighborhood demanded green space for residents who lived here (NYCParks.org). The park was packed with families and kids playing basketball and running around the playground.
Hell’s Kitchen Playground at Tenth Avenue and West 48th Street
It was strange to be in a neighborhood with such small buildings. Not just small buildings but so many ‘For Rent’ signs on the windows. I know this neighborhood will bounce back to the vibrant place it once was but it will take time. The traffic changed again when I got to West 42nd Street. There were most people walking around the streets.
Hell’s Kitchen Park during the Summer of 2024
A lot of the businesses on West 42nd Street heading back to the Port Authority have started opening up again. Sidewalk cafes were out with the warmer weather and customers were milling around.
One of my favorite Chinese restaurants from the 1990’s, Ollies at 411 West 42nd Street had not just opened their dining room but their outside cafe dining. Ollies had once been a popular restaurant in the Theater district at the corner of West 46th Street off Broadway and one of my favorite places to eat after work. It is still popular but the chef has since changed.
One building that stood out amongst the smaller tenement buildings of West 42nd Street was the Holy Cross Church at 329 West 42nd Street, which was decorated by plantings of many flowers that gave it a festive appearance.
The building has a interesting history. The parish was established in 1852 and the original building was built in 1852 but it was outgrown so a new building was built in 1854. This building was hit by lightning in 1867 and the current building was built in the same spot in 1870. It was built by architect Henry Englebert and is the oldest building on 42nd Street (Wiki and Holy Cross History).
Once I got back to Port Authority is was back for a bathroom break as there are not many public toilets in the neighborhood. Then I made the walk around the second time around the perimeter admiring the buildings and businesses for a second time. I could see by the traffic that the east side of Eighth Avenue was very quiet near the now closed theaters. This area was hit hard by COVID pandemic and it is rumored that Broadway theaters should open between September and December (we all hope) and the district will once again open.
When I reached West 58th again, I stopped at Amore Pizza Cafe at 370 West 58th Street for a quick slice. The pizza was pretty good and it was a nice sized slice of pizza. I had passed the place for years but never went into so it was another dining adventure (see review on TripAdvisor).
After my snack, I continued the walk back down Tenth Avenue and stopped in Hell’s Kitchen Park to take some more notes. I swear the park got busier since visiting a few hours before. I made the turn on West 42nd Street and decided to walk up the length of Ninth Avenue and explore the Avenues of the neighborhood as well.
The pizza here is excellent
Just like Tenth Avenue, Ninth Avenue is filled with smaller tenement buildings, restaurants and small theaters and shops but being the heart of the Gay community, Ninth Avenue is much more vibrant. Most of the restaurants and outdoor cafes were filled the afternoon I visited the neighborhood. Being later in the evening, many people filled the bars and tables of the establishments and I noticed how many people were on top of each other and were not wearing masks. I thought this is a recipe for disaster but still it has a very vibrant restaurant scene.
In the midst of all the restaurants and bars on Ninth Avenue, there were only two that I have tried, Mom’s Kitchen & Bar at 701 Ninth Avenue for breakfast a few years before and Saccio Pizza at 819 Ninth Avenue for pizza one afternoon and it was pretty good.
The one thing I remember about eating at Mom’s Kitchen & Bar that morning was the unusual menu they had for brunch. A friend and I shared an order of their Fruity Pebble Pancakes and their Mac & Cheese Pancakes and they were strange combinations but really tasted good especially the Mac & Cheese Pancakes with a honey syrup. It was an interesting breakfast.
The inside of Mom’s Kitchen & Bar at lunch time
The Mac & Cheese Pancakes at Mom’s Kitchen & Bar are amazing
These are a combination breakfast and lunch meal and can be really filling. They are the perfect cold day food
This is a neighborhood in a big transition now that the theaters are closed but I know brighter days are ahead as things open up soon. With the warmer weather and more vaccine coming, it will revert back to the neighborhood it was becoming. You can see this on a busy night at dinner time with restaurants filling up and people walking around with and without masks.
I am still wearing my mask around the City for now.
Check out the other walks of the Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton/Midtown West on this blog:
Walking the Border and Avenues of Hell’s Kitchen Day One Hundred and Ninety Four:
I had to split the neighborhood into two parts separated by 10th Avenue as there was so much to see and the complexity of the neighborhood changes on each side.
Each neighborhood in New York City has its share of bodegas and delis that supply everything from grocery items, cleaning supplies and in some cases hardware items for last minute touch ups in apartments.
Where these stores differ from one another is their prepared food sections. This is where you can get your all day Bacon, Egg and Cheese sandwich on a hero roll to a Chopped Cheese (Two hamburgers chopped with spices and topped with American Cheese, chopped lettuce and chopped tomato) to the classic Bacon Cheese Burgers, Grilled Cheese and a variety of wraps.
I came across Catherine’s Deli & Bagels when touring Chinatown and I just stopped in to look around. I saw the sandwiches that were being made and what was on the grill…
It’s funny to return to a restaurant that had been part of your career twenty years earlier. In my years in the Macy’s Buying offices, Al’s Deli is entrenched in the memories of many Macy executives with early morning breakfasts before we had to be at the desk at 9:00am or in those late nights preparing for the holiday season after 8:00pm. Plus all those lunches being delivered when we were chained to our desks as the phones were ringing off the hook. Even when I visited the restaurant recently I still see their delivery people racing across the street delivering salads and sandwiches thinking nothing has changed over the years.
Al’s Deli has been serving the Garment District crowds since 1976 and its popularity is its…
*I wanted to let readers know that this blog is a combination of all eight of my walks around the perimeter of the Island of Manhattan and I have kept it in order by section of the island. This way you can experience all the wonderful things to see, do and eat at along the way. Never do this walk in the rain! That was tough.
*I now do this officially as a member of Shorewalkers Inc. and own my own every year by tradition on the Summer Solstice. This is in honor of my dad, Warren Watrel and the adventures we used to have in New York City on Father’s Day every year. This is to keep that tradition going!
As New York City is just beginning to reopen during the COVID-19 Pandemic and trying to return to normal, I have been wondering Manhattan to see what changes have happened in those three months. It is still incredible how much of the City is beginning to remind me of the mid-1970’s.
My trip in 2020 into lower Manhattan revealed a City looking circa 1980 with boarded up stores and graffiti all over the place. Walking around the neighborhoods in Midtown and Downtown last week were a real eye-opener on how pent-up frustration can almost destroy the fabric of a City and the underpinnings of human nature. It really showed just how frustrated everyone is with being sick, unemployed and broke.
Fifth Avenue boarded up on June 15th, 2020
By July 2025, things got a lot better
Even when the stores windows get fixed and the stores restocked, I don’t think people will forget that quickly. When you finally let people ‘out of their cages’ (i.e. their apartments) though you can see that compassion come back. This is what I saw on my thirty-two mile walk around the Island of Manhattan.
On my walk in 2021, the weather was just as spectacular as it was in 2020 but the mood of the City was different as things in Manhattan had been opened now for a year and the mask mandates were giving way to better days ahead. I saw so much interesting ‘public art’ all along my walk and ate at restaurants new and revisited from other blogs in the past six years. I felt like I was seeing old friends. I also took more time to look over artworks, explore parks and admire the views more on this beautiful day. There are better days ahead for New York City as it continues to morph and change.
In May of 2022, I did the official walk with the Shorewalkers Inc., the people that run the walk every year. This was the first time since 2019 that the group held the walk and I wanted to be part of it with all the other walkers. Initially the walk was sold out three weeks before the day of the walk, but I got on the waitlist and when the weather report said rain all day, a lot of people dropped out. It ended up raining (and I mean raining) the whole time of the walk with just a few lulls and the sun did peak out for about five minutes up by the Carl Schulz Park. I wish it had been longer. I was drenched by the time it was over.
We started the morning of 2022 with an early report to the Frances Tavern at 54 Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan, the start and finish of the walk. I had not been there in years and missed the beauty of the building and its historical value. Since I signed up for the walk at the last minute, I did not want to be late. I had started at West 23rd and West 42nd Street in the past so I knew how to pace myself and once I was all signed in at 7:30am, I started the walk. Many others had started before me so I passed many people along the way, wondering how many of us would finish.
The Frances Tavern at 54 Pearl Street is the official start point for the Great Saunter in May every year
The “Great Saunter” was done exclusively in the rain this year. Usually, I pick a sunny day during the Summer Solstice which honors my dad on Father’s Day but since the official walk is the first Saturday in May, off I went. It poured and was gloomy the whole time of the walk. I endured it in good spirits meeting others along the way that kept me going.
Me at the start of The Great Saunter in 2023.
In July of 2022, I decided to do the perimeter walk one more time because the weather had been so horrible in May of 2022 that I wanted to see the whole island again when the weather was nice. The walk had started out nicely with it being overcast and in the 70’s but once the clouds broke and it cleared up, it was in the 80’s and got humid. Still it was a beautiful day for walking.
Walking around the Island of Manhattan is no easy task. In 2020, I had planned this since last year and made it my goal to do the walk on the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. The problem was I had a ton of yard work to do on the first day of the summer and I had to get it done knowing that I would be tired after a walk like this. So, after a day of trimming bushes and weeding the lawn, I put my game plan together for the next morning.
Since it was Father’s Day Sunday, I wanted to do something different and special to honor my father more than just sitting at a cemetery looking at an inscription. This is not something my father would want me to do. So my honoring him was to remind myself of all the wonderful Father’s Day’s we spent in Manhattan visiting museums, parks and going to see independent movies at the MoMA and the Angelica. After which we would dine at whatever restaurant I had seen in the Village Voice. Those were the days I wanted to remember.
My inspiration “The Great Saunter” by Cy V. Adler
‘The Great Saunter Walk’ had been cancelled this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic and would be held at a later date. The walk was started in 1984 by Mr. Cy A. Adler, who founded The Shorewalkers Inc., a non-profit environmental and walking group whose group was fighting for a public walkway since 1982. The first Saturday in May was designated as ‘Great Saunter Day’ (Wiki and Company founding) and has been recognized by most current Mayors of New York City.
Cy V. Adler
I got the map of the walk off the internet and tried to figure out where to start. The walk starts at Frances Tavern in Lower Manhattan, but I thought that was too far away. I thought of starting at 110th Street so I could get through Harlem faster but then I would be travelling back to 110 Street late at night, so I nixed that. Then I thought, I have to get off at 42nd Street for the Port Authority anyway and that is where I am at now with my walking project plus when I finish, I will only be a few blocks away from the bus station so why not start there?
So, in 2020 for my first walk, I started my walk around the Island of Manhattan at the Circle Line Boat Pier where I celebrated last year’s birthday. In 2022, this is where I started again. It made it easier for when I needed to get back to Port Authority.
The Circle Line is where I spent 2019’s birthday touring Manhattan by rivers
I took the 6:35am bus into New York to start early. During the week, the first bus comes at 5:30am and I would have liked to get more of head start but I wanted to do the walk on Father’s Day so into the City I went that morning. I got to the Pier by 7:07am and started the walk around the island. It was the same in 2022.
The Circle Line was closed also because of COVID-19 so the Pier was quiet that morning. I looked over my map of Manhattan and started the walk along the pathways along the Hudson River going up the Joe DiMaggio Highway to the Henry Hudson Highway. I had not been to this part of the Manhattan in about two years.
The Circle Line terminal at 83 North River Piers West 43rd Street
In 2022, the Circle Line had opened for business, but the first ride was not until around 10:00am so the area was quiet as well. When I finished the walk at 8:55pm, fourteen hours after I had started, the Circle Line had just returned from a ride around the island and people were flowing off the boat. Talk about a huge change in just two years.
When I decided to do the walk for a second time on June 25th, 2021, I put together a different game plan. With all the problems happening all over the City (shootings and harassments had been going up all over the City), I decided that I wanted to start earlier then I had the previous year and decided to spend the night before in Manhattan so I could get an earlier start.
I stayed at the Moxy Hotel in Chelsea at 105 West 28th Street in the heart of the Flower District and I have to say that the hotel has excellent views of the City. I received a room on the tenth floor facing Sixth Avenue and at night I have to say it was one hell of a view. When the lights came on in the evening, the whole neighborhood twinkled.
I got up at 5:00am that morning as the sun shined through the floor to ceiling windows (I wanted to get up early so I pulled the curtains back to see the sun) and got ready then checked the luggage, checked out and started my walk the second time at 6:15am.
The mood of the City was much different from the previous year with more businesses opening up and more people milling around the parks. Still the City was pretty quiet for most of the day especially as I reached uptown.
In 2022, I signed up for the official walk a few days before the walk started knowing that it was going to rain all day that year. That’s why I was able to join in because so many people dropped out (and kept dropping out along the route with all that rain).
I started the walk in 2021 with a good breakfast at Chelsea Papaya at 171 West 23rd Street #1. I have passed this small hole in the wall restaurant for years on my walks around the neighborhood but had never eaten there. I had passed it the night before on my way back to the hotel and thought it would be a good to have breakfast before I started the walk in Riverside Park.
It was an amazing and filling breakfast of three pancakes, two scrambled eggs and three slices of bacon with a medium papaya drink for $11.00. The food was excellent and the guys working they’re at 6:15am could not have been nicer. The seating was not so hot with two small tables outside the restaurant where the tables and street could have used a good cleaning. Still, it was a carb laden meal that prepared me for the long walk.
Don’t miss the wonderful and filling breakfasts at Chelsea Papaya
The breakfasts here are filling and delicious
Yum!
I started the walk in 2021 on West 23rd Street, so I got to visit this side of the park during the day with it sweeping views of Jersey City and the Hudson River. When I started walking in the park at 6:30am, it was a beautiful sunny day but as the morning grew and I got to around West 42nd Street, the clouds started to roll in and it got cooler.
That did not last long. In 2022, I was not so lucky as it was a misty rain when I started the walk at 7:30am in the morning but it was bearable. I started at Staten Island Ferry terminal and then off I went with the other walkers who were up for the challenge.
In June 2024, I stayed at the Renaissance Downtown on Ann Street again and after a wonderful breakfast I started the walk officially at 7:30am in the morning. Unfortunately we had a ‘heat dome’ over Manhattan that day and the weather would top 97 degrees. It made for a walk that took a bit longer but still I followed the same path from Battery Park and walked along the shoreline of Battery Park City.
There is so much construction going on in Lower Manhattan that I had to make all sorts of twists and turns along the way. Not just here but in Alphabet City, South Street Seaport and Chinatown. It made for an interesting trip.
In 2021:
The first thing you will see when entering the park is the Monarch Waystation Garden that is one of many that have been planted around the rim of Manhattan. I have seen this also in east side parks as well.
The Monarch Waystation Garden is as you enter Hudson River Park
Entering Hudson River Park
As I entered Hudson River Park, I noticed many works of art displayed on the fences and walls of the surrounding buildings. The 2021 NY Salt Exhibition was being displayed and I took some time to look over the works while walking through the park. I made may way from West 23rd Street and proceeded north walking near the river.
The NY Salt Exhibition at Hudson River Park in 2021 (opened only that summer)
When you walk up past the Piers along Riverside Park in the 40’s, the first thing you will see in the next Pier over is the Intrepid Sea-Air Space Museum which was closed for the COVID-19 pandemic. Pier 86 where the ship was docked was really quiet that morning with only two people eating their breakfast on one of the tables in the little park near the ship. There were sweeping views of New Jersey across the river of Weehawken and West New York.
The Intrepid Sea-Air Museum is just reopened after being closed for almost a year
Most of the West Side is pathways along the river with views of New Jersey until you hit about West 50th Street when you get to the lower part of the new Hudson River Park that has been built on fill to create a new riverfront.
In May of 2022, as I walked around the southern tip of the island, I could not believe how many works of art in the parks that I missed on the previous two walks. I guess I just wanted to finish the walk by that point. During the July 2022 walk, I started at the same point as 2020 and when I saw my first piece of artwork, it was like seeing an old friend.
When I reached the park by Pier 96, I came across Malcolm Cochran’s artwork “Private Passage” again. I came across this sculpture when visiting the park two years earlier. The piece is a giant bottle and when you look in the port hole you will see a state room of the former Queen Mary. It is an interesting piece of artwork that is not hard to miss and take time to look in the port holes.
The artist is originally from Pittsburgh, PA and is graduate of Wesleyan College who specializes in large sculptures.
Further up the park, I came across the old New York Transfer Station piece in Riverside Park. This is a relic of the old West Side Railroad tracks that were once part of the New York Central Railroad that the park and buildings behind it are built on. This transfer bridge once was used to attach railroad cars to the freight tracks that once ran up and down this part of the island (Forgotten New York).
The New York Central Transfer Station
It is interesting to see this now as a piece of art instead of a functioning part of the railroad but it is fascinating to see how we use the parts of the past as a piece of art in the present. This shows the current park visitor how we have made new uses of the riverfront for recreation and pleasure which was not true during the early parts of the last century.
The New York Central Train in the park.
In 2021(this exhibit was only for that summer):
As I was walking up through Riverside Park, I noticed a lot of artworks displayed in Riverside Park that were part of the ‘Summer 2021-Re: Growth’ art display that stretched from the West 40’s to 100’s at various points in the park. Some were interesting in design, and it was nice to see a lot were from local New York Artists (This closed after the summer of 2021)
These lined the length of Riverside Park and you had to really look for them. These were the works of art I viewed on the way up Riverside Park. I included the work and a short biography on each artist that I saw:
Ms. Wilson is a American artist who graduated from Syracuse with BFA and a MFA from Hunter College. She is a New York City based artist living in Brooklyn.
Ms. Amezkua is American born New York City based artist living in Bronx. A graduate of Cal State Fresno with a BA and also attended the Academia de belle Arte in Florence she is formally trained as a painter (Artist Bio).
Mr. Godfrey is large scale sculptor from Hamilton, NY who graduated from Yale University and his MFA from Edinburgh College of Art in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Ms. Letven is an American born artist raised in Philadelphia with a BFA from the Tyler School of Art and a MFA from Hunter College and currently teaches at Parsons School of Design and Art and Design at New York University. She is a multidisciplinary artist in sculpture, installation and painting (Artist Bio).
Ms. Mattingly is an American born artist currently living in New York City. She has a BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art from Portland, OR and attended Parsons School of Design. She is known for creating photos and sculptures representing futuristic and obscure landscapes (Wiki).
Mr. Shaw is an American born artist and a native New Yorker. He received his BA in Fine Arts from Colgate University. He is known for sculpture installation, photography and drawing.
Ms. Lederer is a Canadian born artist who lives in New York City and Newburgh, NY. She has a BFA from the University of Victoria and a MFA from Hunter College.
Mr. Goode is an American born artist from Texas. He has a MFA from Boston University and has worked as an archaeologist on several digs Artsy Bio).
These works are on display until August 2021 and try not to miss this interesting display of art in this ‘open air museum’.
In 2024, there were more art installations along the way in all the parks. This is why I always say that New York City is like an ‘open air museum’. Between all the public and street art you will see along the route you never have to visit a museum. There is so much to see and experience. The first was “Hope” by artist Helen Draves and the second was “Life Dance” by artist Susan Markowitz Meredith. This was part of the “Art in the Parks” exhibition that runs every year.
Artist Helen Draves is a South Korean-born artist who has resided and pursued my artistic career in New York for over 25 years. Her father, who was an artist and an art professor in South Korea, inspired her as a child to explore my creativity through crayons, pencils, and paper. She was enamored with the process of creating something on a blank canvas, and this passion led her to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Ewha Women’s University in Seoul in 1993. She continued to pursue my artistic education in the United States, obtaining a Master of Fine Arts degree from the prestigious Pratt Institute in New York in 1996. As an artist, her work often reflects the aging of life, particularly through the metaphor of wrinkled, aging hands. (Artist bio website).
Artist Susan Markowitz Meredith is an American born artist who has a BS in Art from Skidmore College and an MA from University of North Colorado. She has been developing my skills as a sculptor since 2011 when she began taking classes in wood and stone carving at The Art Students League of New York. She has supplemented her technical knowledge with outside coursework and training in woodworking. Her explorations have led her to pursue a range of other materials including metals, plastics, paper, and lighting. These educational experiences have cemented her commitment to sculpting and helped her clarify her own particular artistic approach (Artist bio website).
Hudson River Park and Riverside Park South blend into one another with the housing complexes behind them are a shining example of the uses of urban renewal and reclaiming our riverfront for pleasure and conservation. It is also one of the nicest new complexes built in Manhattan in recent years.
What I love about this park is the nice pathways and lawns just to sit back and relax and enjoy the views. There are a lot of places to stop and rest. Since I had been to this side of the island two years ago, I continued my walk up to West 72nd Street when I got to the southern border of Riverside Park which runs much of this side of Manhattan.
Someone finally cleaned up and replanted the Rose Garden by the West Harlem Piers Park and it was in bloom that day.
I made it up to West Harlem Piers Park by 8:46am (7:43am in 2021) and made my first stop of the morning. The park was a mess. People must have been having parties in the park the night before and did not clean up after themselves because I could see a NYC Parks worker in the picking up the garbage and she did not look happy about the mess. Usually, this park is pristine, and I was not used to seeing it such a mess. I guess these are the things you see in New York City parks early in the morning. The efforts to keep them clean.
The park is down the road from the new extension of the Columbia University campus extension, so this park gets a lot of use during the school year. This early in the morning there were just a few joggers and one homeless guy who was throwing more garbage around. I did not want to be near the Parks worker when she had to deal with that.
What I had not noticed on my trips to the park in the past were some unusual sculptures by artist Nari Ward, a New York based artist who likes to use objects found in his own neighborhood (artist website).
These unusual silver sculptures I almost interpreted as people trying to speak and it was interesting that the sculptures were called Voice I and Voice II. I was not sure of what the artist was trying to communicate with his artwork, but it does stand out in the park. The unfortunate part of it was that there was so much garbage in the park you could not get up close to see them.
Voice I
Voice II
Voice III
I really enjoy this park. It has wonderful breezes and excellent views and plenty of places to sit down and relax. It offers such nice views of the river and as the morning progressed, I started to see more sailboats and water boats out cruising up and down the Hudson River.
While walking down the walkway to Fort Washington Park in 2023, I noticed these flock of seagulls in the cement barrier that I had noticed many times before. I did not realize how detailed they were until I really looked at them. This is what happens when you take your time to observe everything on this walk and not just rush by.
The seagulls wall
The seagulls wall
Walking through Fort Washington Park during the walk in 2023
In 2024, the City was promoting their “Art in the Park” exhibition as they had done in the past. I saw some unusual art in the park that was on the lawn before you entered the pathways. It is so nice that Manhattan has these ‘Open Air Museums’ for us to enjoy all over the City.
Artist Sophie Kahn is an Australian born artist who lives in Brooklyn who has a BA in Fine Arts from the University of London and MFA from the School of Art Institute of Chicago. A sculptor and digital artist, Kahn utilizes technology—in its successes and failures—to analyze the complexity and poetics of capturing the human body in the digital age. Working from a 3D scan of musician and artist tiger west, Portrait of t. brings the digital, private realm into the public through a glitched body scan cast in bronze (Student Art League.com).
Artist Marco Palli is an Venezuelan born artist with MFA from the New York Studio School of Sculpture and MFA from the New York Academy of Arts both in sculpture. Expanding beyond the personal, Palli’s sculpture presents an opportunity for audiences to engage with the narratives of local versus foreign and the sense of belonging within the United States. Our Gates is a celebration of New York City and its diverse communities (Student Art League. com).
It was unusual but very interesting art. I was just surprised to see in a location that not too many people visit. It would have been nicer if placed further downtown on the Upper West Side, where people might appreciate it more.
I reached the bottom of the George Washington Bridge by 9:36am and watched an artist putting a display of layered rocks along the Hudson River shore. Uliks Gryka the artist behind the “Sisyphus Stones” that line this part of the park was carefully layering stones one on top of another and fixing and creating new formations. It was interesting to watch how he balanced each of the stones into a new work. The artist is originally from Albania and has no formal art training (Artist website).
The Sisyphus Stones on the Hudson River (gone in 2023)
The Sisyphus Stones sculpture in 2023 when I walked on my own.
The Sisyphus Stones sculpture was all but gone by walk on my own in 2024 but replaced by someone doing driftwood sculptures.
The Driftwood Sculptures started to appear in the park
The work reminded me of the Moai on Easter Island, the famous statues that faced the sea. It made me think how the artwork looks to the river and how maybe it is nature communicating with land and sea. I was not sure the message the artist was trying to portray, and he looked too busy working to ask him. The artwork was still there in 2021 and it looked like the artist was still updating it.
The Little Red Lighthouse at Fort Washington Park
I continued on into Fort Washington Park to see the Little Red Lighthouse, which I had not visited in almost three years since my last walk in the neighborhood. Many tourists were by the site just under the George Washington Bridge, taking pictures by the lighthouse and enjoying the sunny weather.
The Little Red Lighthouse had been constructed in 1889 and moved from Sandy Hook, New Jersey in 1917 and moved here in 1921. It was decommissioned in 1948 after the construction of the George Washington Bridge in 1931. What had saved the lighthouse from destruction was the book “The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge” by author Hildegarde Swift in 1942 (Wiki).
The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde Swift
The Little Red Lighthouse historic sign
I didn’t stay long by the lighthouse because it was loaded with tourists taking pictures, but I did stay by the tables and enjoy the view of the George Washington Bridge. It was making quite the racket as more cars are travelling over it again and on a sunny day offered some dazzling views. The breezes were amazing! In both 2021and July 2022, the lighthouse and the park were really quiet, so I got to enjoy the views on my own this time.
The view down the Hudson River from the The Little Red Lighthouse is amazing!
In 2022, the rain had turned to mist, and it was not so bad by the time I got to the lighthouse. I noticed that most people did not stop to look at the lighthouse. They just passed it to keep walking. I stopped because I love seeing this interesting landmark.
The park in June of 2024 was just beautiful. What a great day to be there
Walking up the stairs to get to the upper level of the park is not for the faint hearted and I saw many people much younger than me get out of breath on their way up. One guy had to be about twenty and he looked like he needed oxygen. To me it was just a walk up and I continued to walk through the lower part of Fort Washington Park. In 2021, I could not believe how in much better shape I was that I handled it better.
The Pollinator Place right near the Little Red Lighthouse is promoting wildlife in the area
This part of the park faces Englewood Cliffs, NJ and the Palisades Park Highway on the other side of the river. There is no construction on that park of the river, so it offers views on the cliffs and the woods that line it.
The view of Englewood Cliffs, NJ in 2023
As I walked further up into the park, it was mostly wooded highway and further up the hill was Fort Tyron Park and the home of The Cloister Museum which is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The museum has been closed since March, but I had taken one of the last of the guided tours on religious flora in art of the Middle Ages before it closed on March 13th. The museum reopened in July of 2020.
Fort Tryon Park and The Cloisters Museum in the park
When you reach Fort Tyron Park by foot along the Henry Hudson Parkway, you will see two large stone columns that look like the entrance to an estate and then across the street there is a pillared overlook to the Hudson River. These are remnants of the former C.K.G. Billings estate, “Tryon Hall”.
The old entrance to the estate is covered with brush
Mr. Billings, the Chairman of Union Carbide, owned most land of which the park is located and theses small relics are the remains of the great estate. I had never been in this part of the park before and thought it interesting that these pieces of the estate were left.
The archway and drive are still part of the park, and you can see them closer to The Cloisters Museum. The old driveway to the estate is still used inside the park.
The entrance to the old “Tryon Hall” estate in Inwood Park in 2023
I travelled up further and arrived at the Dyckman Beach Park located at the end of Dyckman Avenue in Inwood. This tiny little beach is hidden from the road and is located next to the pier. Every time I have visited the park, this little section is in high demand for picnickers, and you have to get there early. The pier is a nice place to relax and soak of the sun and admire the view.
Don’t miss this tiny beach and the pier. It is so relaxing!
In 2021, the beach area was busy with a local high school graduation going on in the restaurant right next to the beach. There was much cheering and celebrating going on and it was good to see that. All along the harbor deck, people were relaxing and fishing. In July of 2022, it was quiet with a few people fishing so I had the whole place to myself. This was when I took my first break. The heat was starting to get to me.
In 2020, I walked around one side of the park that contains the soccer field where a very heated match between two teams was taking place. I could tell there was a heated discussion in Spanish that these two teams were in major competition. While the men were playing soccer, the ladies were cooking up a storm, making skewers of meat, cutting fresh fruit and stirring lemonade for a makeshift concession stand. This was a very organized league.
I walked around the field and watched the game as the families settled in for a long afternoon. These guys really took the game seriously and were going back and forth side to side for the twenty minutes I watched the game. The pathway to the park ends in a semi-circle and on the side is a walkway bridge over the railroad tracks which will take you around Inwood Hill Park to the lower pathways that overlook the Hudson River and to the Henry Hudson Bridge that leads to the Bronx.
In 2021, the fields were very quiet which I was surprised by. Usually, this area is very crowded with people even when COVID was at its height. It was better to be outside than inside. It was earlier in the morning.
When you follow the path, it leads to the Spuyten Duyvil, a man-made canal that was created during the Dutch era for shipping and trade. It cuts off a small section of Manhattan that is now on the Bronx side of the City. Here you will see the giant blue “C” for Columbia University, whose stadium is on the other end of the park.
The Columbia “C” from Inwood Hill Park
The paths lead down wooded areas that are some of the last of the ‘virgin’ forest left on the island of Manhattan and one of the few true wooded areas.
When you exit the pathways into the lawn area of the park, you are greeted by a giant boulder which is one of the most historic objects on the Island of Manhattan, the Shorakkopoch Rock.
The spot where Manhattan was bought by the Dutch
The rock is the legendary location of where Peter Minuit bought Manhattan from the Reckgawawang Indians for what is today $24.00 of household goods and trinkets.
As I exited the park’s long hilly path, I arrived with this woman who tagged along with me to the halfway point. Right near the Shorakkopoch Rock, there was another usual sculpture right before it by artist Rose Simpson entitled “
Artist Rose Simpson is an American born artist who works out of New Mexico. She has a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and has a MFA from both the Rhode Island School of Arts and the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is a mixed-media artist whose artwork investigates the complex issues of past, present and future aspects of humanity’s tenuous survival in our current ecological condition (Wiki/Artist Bio).
On the other side of the small cove is the natural cove, Muscota Marsh where the Columbia Rowing Team has their sheds. The Muscota Marsh was created in a joint partnership between the NYC Parks system and Columbia University. This one-acre marsh is located in the Spuyten Duyvil creek and is part freshwater and part salt-water marsh. It is home to many native birds who use it as a nesting and watering site.
I sat and relaxed while birds flew in and out of the marsh that morning. It was the most beautiful sunny morning, and you could feel the cool breezes coming off the creek while small boats passed by. The Muscota Marsh is one of those hidden treasures in Manhattan that tourists rarely visit. It was nice to just sit and relax. I had reached the northern most part of Manhattan by 11:11am four hours after the start time.
In 2020, I had eaten a light breakfast at the house and had gone through my snacks while walking up to Inwood Hill Park. Most of the places I had gone to in the past while up walking the neighborhood or going to the Columbia/Cornell football games were closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic or went out of business. I ordered breakfast from Park Terrace Deli at 510 West 218 Street.
I had the most amazing Bacon, Egg and Cheese on a Hero that hit the spot. I was starved and this large sandwich fit the bill. It was loaded with freshly cooked bacon and the hero roll was toasted and then pressed when the bacon, cheese and eggs were loaded inside. I sat down with a much-needed Coke in the benches by Isham Park further down Broadway. I enjoyed every bite, and the ice-cold Coke gave me the burst of energy I needed to continue the walk down the western part of Manhattan.
This has become a tradition as I came back for the same sandwich in July of 2022 and enjoyed my breakfast on the benches of Muscato Marsh, enjoying the breezes and watching the row teams. It is a great place after you grab a snack to sit and enjoy the views.
The Bacon, Egg and Cheese sandwich at Park Terrace Deli is excellent!
In 2021, I was still full from my breakfast at Chelsea Papaya and stopped in Twin Donut at 5099 Broadway (now closed) for a donut. I have been to this shop many times when walking in the neighborhood and their donuts are delicious. I had one of their Blueberry jelly filled ($1.50) and that hit the spot. The owner said that they were selling the business after sixty years and it would soon be a twelve-story building. In July of 2022, the building still sits empty.
Twin Donut was at 5099 Broadway for almost 60 years
In 2022, I stopped in Inwood Park to meet up with other walkers for snacks and go to the bathroom. The rain stopped for a bit, and we were able to stand and talk to one another. People were playing soccer nearby and residents were shopping at the Farmer’s Market close by. Even though the snacks were nice you can’t make a meal out of Pringles and Goldfish. So, I packed up a few of the snacks to take with me and went on my way.
In 2021, I stopped at G’s Coffee Shop for the same breakfast sandwich and as usual, the food and service was excellent, feeding my weary body. Every meal that I have had at G’s has been good.
After breakfast, I travelled down 10th Avenue from 218th Street and followed the path of the original footprint of the island until I arrived at the cross streets of Dyckman Street and Harlem River Drive at the beginning of Highbridge Park and Sherman Cove.
The Breakfast Burrito with Chorizo and Eggs is delicious
Even in this busy area of car repair shops, small restaurants and the Dyckman Houses, everyone pretty much ignored me as if I was not there. Not one person looked at me. Many people looked down as I passed which I thought was strange.
The Dyckman Houses off Dyckman Avenue in the summer of 2024
In 2020, most of this part of Highbridge Park was still closed off to the public because of the COVID-19 pandemic and because it was Father’s Day, people were barbecuing along the thin path and patch of land between the park and the highway. It amazes me how creative these residents are with the use of space.
In 2021, the Sherman Creek part of the park was open for walking through, and I took the time to walk the path to the river through the winding woods and streams. It is a nice break from the busy City and it a very underrated part of Highbridge Park. The views of the East River were spectacular, and the breezes were so nice and cool. It was nice to have the park to myself that morning.
Sherman Creek Park/Swindlers Cove is at 351 West 205th Street
Before I took the long trip down Harlem River Drive along the rim of High Bridge Park, I walked along Dyckman Street, one of the three big retail corridors for the Dominican community in Washington Heights. The other two being 207th Street and the other 181st Street and Broadway.
Dyckman Street on the west side of Broadway is so alive on the weekends with street vendors selling food and wares, music playing and people socializing with their neighbors. I love coming here for the bakeries and to get fresh pastelitos and freshly squeezed juice from the street vendors who have to listen to my broken Spanish. It was a little tougher to visit the places as social distancing let less people into the stores that were open.
On warm weekends Dyckman Street is alive with shoppers
After I walked a few blocks of Dyckman Street to see what was available, I started the long trek down the path along Harlem River Drive with High Bridge Park across the street. The long curves of the park, the lush woods and rock formations show what was once the former shoreline of this part of the island. From this location it looks alike Inwood Hill Park with clean paths and virgin plantings.
The reality of the park is that if you walk through the park you are faced with the over-grown paths, the graffitied rocks and garbage that parts of the park suffer from. When you walk through the paths on the other side of the park, you see how far the park has gone down and the work that still needs to be done. Abandoned cars and garbage still plaque parts of the park from the park side paths. Still the City is doing a lot to improve the park.
The approach to the High Bridge Water Tower in High Bridge Park in 2023
I passed the old High Bridge Water Tower that was being renovated and was covered in scaffolding. The water tower and the bridge are the lasting remnants of the way water used to travel into New York City from upstate in the late 1800’s. The tower was built in 1872 and was part of the old Croton Aqueduct system of moving water into Manhattan. The tower and the surrounding area are currently going under renovation and the pool is closed because of COVID-19.
This part of the park had no activity and, on the path, leading down to the old Polo Grounds there was not much activity. What always makes me nervous is walking around the Polo Ground Houses that run from West 165th Street to about West 155th Street. The complex is a tired looking set up public housing with one building looking exactly like the other and a small patch of green in the middle. I could see from the hill over-looking the lawns that there were some small parties going on.
All I kept thinking about is the activities that go on there and I zig-zagged my way down the sidewalk until I hit the part of the fence that was covered with trees and vines. Out of site from the prying windows. Ever since I read about the complex on the internet, I have never felt comfortable in this part of the City. This was before I walked all around the complex four years ago when I walked Harlem and didn’t think much about it. I walk around quickly in this neighborhood.
I crossed the street and walked down Edgecombe Avenue on the upper side of Jackie Robinson Park. On the corner of the edge of the street is the John Hooper Fountain at 155th Street and Edgecombe Avenue. The fountain was designed by architect George Martin Huss and is a ornamental horse fountain and lantern. It was dedicated in 1894 and donated to the park by businessman John Hooper (NYCParks.com/MichaelMinn.net). It was used by the horses for drinking when carriages and horse riding at that time.
The John Hooper Fountain is at the corner of Edgecombe Avenue and 155th Street in 2022
As I walked past the fountain and entered the edge of Jackie Robinson Park, I could hear music and kids screaming from the sidewalk. The park was alive with people using the playground or setting up parties for Father’s Day. It was also a mixed crowd of people who were conversing amongst themselves about recent events, and I heard many lively debates. In July of 2022, the pool had opened up again and there were kids screaming and yelling as they played in the pool. This is also a good place for a bathroom break.
The one thing I discovered about this section of the park is that everything across the street or closer to the park is brand new housing, a lot catering to CUNY students. Much of Bradhurst and Fredrick Douglas Boulevard have been knocked down and rebuilt with new housing and much of West 145th Street is new stores and restaurants. It changes as you get closed to Lenox Avenue and Young Park.
I find Jackie Robinson Park very nice. The park has always been well maintained and the place was clean and well-landscaped. During the warmer months of the school year, a lot of CUNY students can be seen on the hill as you enter the park on West 145th Street sunning themselves and studying. Now families were setting up barbecues unfortunately many of them without masks.
The worst thing I found about travelling in these blocks of the City in 2020 is how the Parks system treats the patrons of the parks. There was not one open bathroom in the four parks that I visited. High Bridge Park had no bathrooms on the Harlem River Drive part of the park, both Jackie Robinson Park’s bathrooms were shut tight and Young Park’s were also closed. Thomas Jefferson Park further down only had Porto toilets (and I will not mention in this blog the condition they were in. COVID-19 would not even survive in those). In 2021, there were more bathrooms open but not in great shape. In 2022, I would not have ventured into them.
After a rest in Jackie Robinson Park, I ventured down West 145th Street to Young Park and then crossed down Malcolm X Boulevard to West 143rd Street. There were no open bathrooms here, so I headed down Fifth Avenue before making the connection on to Harlem River Drive.
In 2021, I stopped for a quick lunch at Sweet Mama’s Soul Food Restaurant at 698 Malcolm X Boulevard on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 145th Street. It was a little too hot for such heavy food, but I thought why not? I had not had Southern food in a long time.
I tried the Fried Chicken wings, Mac & Cheese, Sweet Potatoes and a biscuit with a Coke. The food is served buffet style and bought by the pound. My ‘little’ meal with beverage was $9.00 and I thought that was a bargain for all that food. The fried chicken tasted delicious but had been sitting in the steamer too long, but the biscuit, sweet potatoes and mac & cheese were all excellent and full of flavor. Refreshed from my lunch, I carried on down Malcolm X Boulevard (Lexington Avenue). Don’t bother with the public bathrooms at Carl Young Park across the street. They are not clean.
Sweet Mama’s Soul Food at 698 Malcolm X Boulevard closed in 2024 (temporarily they said online)
During the walk in May of 2022, to get out of the rain, warm up and get away from these annoying people who started to walk with me from Alabama, I stopped in King Pizza of Harlem at 110 West 145th Street for a snack. I knew that I wanted a chopped cheese for lunch, but I was starved and needed to eat something. I also needed a break from the walking.
King Pizza of Harlem at 110 West 145th Street (Closed June 2025)
For a little hole in the wall pizzeria in not the greatest part of the neighborhood, the cheese pizza is excellent. The sauce is so well spiced and topped with loads of mozzarella cheese. The slice was rather large and made a great snack. It was just pleasant to sit down and relax.
The slices at King Pizza are excellent! Don’t miss their delicious Cheese Pizza
On my June 2024 walk my lunch/dinner of choice was their homemade Meatball Parmesan hero
As I made my way down Fifth Avenue from 143rd Street, I stopped for a moment to look at a obelisk that I had not noticed the last time I had visited the area. The obelisk is located on a tiny triangle near the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 142nd Street. The Monument is the 369 Infantry Regiment Memorial dedicated to the all-black unit that fought so valiantly in World War I with the Fourth French Army. It was in such an obscure place that I must have just passed it when I visited Harlem. The drunk homeless guy sitting next to it was a deterrent from really looking at it.
I crossed over the triangle and continued to follow the river to West 135th street (the river walk ends at West 135th Street and continued down Madison Avenue. I had to walk through the Lincoln Houses Public Housing and again pretty much everyone avoided me. I was surprised that there was so much garbage on the lawns and in the parks. I could not believe that none of the residents would have picked this up.
As I walked down Madison Avenue, I noticed another homeless guy trying to solicit money from people coming off the highway and almost getting hit a few times. I was going to yell at him, but I thought I better mind my business walking in this section of the City.
I made a turn into the courtyard of the Lincoln Houses to see the statute of Abraham Lincoln with Child statute at 2120-2122 Madison Avenue. With all the statutes being torn down in 2020, I was surprised that not only was this statute up but in good shape.
Lincoln and Child at 2120-2122 Madison Avenue in the Lincoln Houses in 2023
The statue was designed by artist Charles Keck. Mr. Keck was an American born New York artist who studied at the National Academy of Design and the Arts Students League of New York. He was best known for his work on statues and monuments.
In 2022, as I admired the statute for a second time in the rain, some crazy homeless guy got right into my face and started talking about Lincoln and slavery. I walked away as fast as I could. How come I attract all the crazies? Everyone I was walking with walked faster down the street away from me.
I walked south down Madison Avenue until I reached West 128th Street and walked towards the river towards Second Avenue. I stopped in Harlem River Park and Crack is Wack Playground and again no open bathrooms.
The Keith Haring “Crack is Wack” painting in Crack is Wack Park
I passed the Tri-Boro Plaza Park nothing there either, so I just continued down Second Avenue to East 120th Street and walked down Pleasant Avenue towards Thomas Jefferson Park. The park was pretty busy in both 2020 and 2021 with kids playing baseball or running around the park.
While walking around Harlem River Park, I came across the artwork “Dream Fulfilled”, which was unveiled in August of 2011 as a partnership between the Harlem CDC, their State and City Partners, East, Central, and West Harlem Committees and the Creative Arts Workshop for Kids (CAW) (Empire State Development).
The project “Dreams Fulfilled” in 2011
As I walked down Second Avenue from 125th Street, I noticed interesting artwork on the side of the Taino Towers at 221 East 122nd Street. The towers had been going through a major renovation the last time I had visited the neighborhood and parts of the complex were still under scaffolding.
The painting outside of PS 30 in Harlem
Artist Don Rimx painted a mural of Nuyorocan poet Jesus ‘Tato’ Laviera. The painting had been unveiled in 2017 (long after my visit to the neighborhood) and 123rd Street was renamed after the poet (Street Art NYC).
The mural of Jesus ‘Tato’ Laviera at Taito Towers at 122nd Street and Second Avenue
Mr. Rimx was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico and in 2009 moved to Brooklyn and then in 2014 to Florida. He graduated from Central High School of Visual Arts and Escuela Des Arts Plasticas. He is known for his use of styles in art and culture and known for his murals (Artist Bio).
As I passed the towers and its new artwork, I crossed Second Avenue to the Wagner Houses complex. People were having all sorts of picnics and barbecues inside and outside the Wagner Houses and people were celebrating Father’s Day in full force. It was all I could do from walking through the complex again. The last time I did that the residents looked at me like I was a Martian who just set down.
Georg John Lober was an American artist from Chicago who studied at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design and worked for the New York City Municipal Art Commission for seventeen years.
As I walked around the Wagner Complex, little had changed from my various trips in this part of the neighborhood except they finished a lot of the luxury housing across the street. The complexity and diversity of the neighborhood was changing fast right before COVID hit and in the 2021 trip, it is still changing.
Pleasant Avenue was once home to the East Harlem “Little Italy” and the ‘Dance of the Giglio’ takes place here every August outside the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (See Day Eighty-Four The Feast of Our Lady of Carmel and the Dancing of the Giglio). Now it is becoming a gentrified neighborhood and I saw many people eating in outdoor cafes or shopping at the local mall.
I stopped at Pleasant Finest Deli at 375 Pleasant Avenue in both 2020 and 2021 for a snack and a Coke. On an 84-degree day there is nothing like an ice-cold Coke. This is my ‘go-to’ place when I am in the neighborhood for snacks.
Pleasant Finest Deli (now called Al Bassam Deli Corp.) at 375 Pleasant Avenue (closed June 2022)
I stopped for lunch in both 2020, 2021 and 2022 at Blue Sky Deli (now Chopped Cheese Delicious) at 2135 First Avenue for a Chopped Cheese. I swear I make any excuse to come up here and have that sandwich.
The Chopped Cheese Delicious (Blue Sky Deli) has a cult following
The ‘Chopped Cheese’ is a cult sandwich made up of two chopped hamburgers topped with American cheese, chopped lettuce and tomato with salt, pepper and spices and then pressed. It is like heaven with every bite. I took my sandwich into Thomas Jefferson Park, which is currently under renovation and ate my sandwich. After I was finished, I had the energy to continue the walk downtown.
In 2021, I wanted to make up for time and ate it when I got to Carl Schulz Park near East 84th Street. I figured I had eaten enough by that point and could save it for later. I had to have a chopped cheese that day.
The Chopped Cheese Sandwich at Blue Sky Deli (Harlem Taste Deli)
The delicious Chopped Cheese Sandwich
My video on the Chopped Cheese sandwich
In May of 2022, I had to get out of the rain and stopped in the deli for about a half hour while my order was cooking. The rest of the customers at the deli did not know what to make of a six-foot drenched white guy who looked starved and angry. I was just wet and tired. The sandwich was terrific as usual, but I had to eat it quickly in the park again to continue the walk. When I digested it a few blocks later it gave me a lot more energy to walk.
After I finished my lunch, I felt refreshed and ready to go but still had to find a bathroom. Since the park was under renovation, there were only Porto bathrooms and trust me, STAY AWAY! They were so dirty that COVID-19 could not survive these things. After eating a big lunch, I ended up nauseous for the rest of the afternoon and lost my appetite for anything else. I left the park at 3:48pm and thought I was making good time.
When I did the walk in May of 2022, it was pouring rain when I got to the deli and sitting in Blue Sky Deli was the only time that I really warmed up. Because there is no place to sit down in the deli, I had to eat my sandwich in the park during the drizzling rain. Not the best conditions to eat but it really warmed me up and gave me energy to continue the walk down the esplanade from East 110th Street.
Before I left Thomas Jefferson Park, I came across another piece of art that I had not noticed on my many visits to the park. The sculpture located in the middle of the park is entitled “Tomorrow’s Wind” by artist Melvin Edwards. The sculpture is made of welded steel and is tilted so that it reflects the sun. The piece was placed in the park in 1995 (NYCParks.org).
Mr. Edwards is an American born artist from Texas. He is known for his known for his abstract steel sculptures. He graduated with a BFA from University of Southern California and studied at the Los Angeles Art Institute.
Another sculpture that I missed several times walking through the park was at the edge of the park by the walkway and looked like a birdcage.
Artist Brower Hatcher is an American born artist who studied engineering in Nashville, then received an undergraduate degree in industrial design from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. Following graduate studies at St. Martin’s School of Arts in London in the late 1960s, he became one of the faculty members at that prestigious institution. Hatcher later taught at Bennington College in Vermont until 1985, and in subsequent years has continued to serve as a visiting artist and lecturer at numerous college campuses. He received an honorary PhD from the State University of New York. During his career, now spanning more than thirty years, Hatcher has been commissioned to create many major works for public sites
I exited the park at West 111th Street and followed the overpass over FDR Drive and walked down the esplanade from West 111th Street to West 60th Street in Sutton Place. The views of the Harlem and East Rivers are ever changing with new construction in Queens and Brooklyn and the developments on Randall’s-Ward and Roosevelt Island. The whole riverfront changes every year.
The Tram to Roosevelt Island
Between the sunny skies and cool river breezes, it is an amazing walk if you take your time like I did and just soak up the sunshine. I never realized how easy this part of the walk would be. I just walked others walk by enjoying their afternoons and looked at all the buildings going up and the boats and jet skiers passing by. It was one busy river.
I relaxed when I arrived at Carl Schurz Park to enjoy the views of Lighthouse Park on Roosevelt Island and look at the flower beds in the park. Carl Schurz Park has its own Friends group, and they do a great job taking care of the park. The flower beds are so colorful and vibrant, and the playground is full of active screaming kids.
There were finally some decent OPEN bathrooms and the water fountains here work and the water is good. The fountains dispense cold water and New York City water tastes good especially at these water fountains. In all of my trips around the island and even when I was walking around the Upper East Side for this blog, Carl Schulz Park has the best facilities for its visitors.
In 2020, I stayed at the park for about fifteen minutes. Any longer and I would not have left. Carl Schurz Park is one of my favorite parks in Manhattan. I love the views, the sights and sounds of this park and love how lively and calm it is at the same time. It is a true neighborhood park.
Carl Schulz park as you approach it from the esplanade walkway around East 86th Street in June 2024
In 2021, I just relaxed in the park, ate my chopped cheese sandwich (which I could tell people around me envying) and watched the boats and jet skiers pass by. I also had a direct view of Lighthouse Park on Roosevelt Island, so I got to watch everyone visit the little lighthouse at the tip of the island. Outside of Bryant Park in Midtown, I find Carl Schulz Park one of the best parks in the City to relax and just people watch and let nature encompass you.
The river side gardens in bloom in June 2024
In May of 2022, when I arrived at Carl Schulz Park it was the only time of the day where the sun peaked out giving me hope that the weather would break. It did not happen and that was the joke Mother Nature played on us. It was not raining as badly but it continued to misty and light raining.
The southern path of Carl Schulz Park where the best water fountain in the public parks is located. The water is always icy cold and it has some of the cleanest bathrooms in the City.
In July of 2022, I stayed at the park for a half hour just relaxing and watching the water flow by and looking at the people at the tip of Roosevelt Island across the river. The benches by the water are the best place to relax on a nice day. In May of 2023 during the official walk, I stayed to check to see if the bathrooms were open. When they weren’t, I took off down the East Side to get to Sutton Place at a decent time. In June, 2024 they were open at 5:00pm and clean as a whistle.
The park was so inviting in June 2024 that I stopped to relax here
I continued down the river front walk until I had to stop at West 60th on the border of the Upper East Side and Sutton Place and proceeded up the ramp. This is where the sculpture by artist Alice Aycock is located and one of my favorite ‘street art’ sculptures ‘East River Roundabout’.
From here I travelled up the ramp which surrounds Twenty-Four Sycamores Park which borders both neighborhoods and is extremely popular with the neighborhood children and their babysitters and parents. The park was closed though because of the COVID-19 pandemic but will be reopened soon. This park was start and stop point when I was visiting this side of town for the blog. I like the shade trees and it has good bathrooms.
In May of 2022, they had finished renovating the bathrooms at the park and they were open. The best part was that they were really clean and were heated. I was able to relax for a minute, go to the bathroom and get warm. I understand the plight of the homeless on a cold night.
I walked down Sutton Place past the old mansions and stately apartment buildings. This area of the City was really quiet as the residents here were probably out of town with all that was going on. The streets were pretty much deserted, and I saw a few people in Sutton Place Park. Please check out my walk of the Sutton Place/Beekman Place neighborhood on my blog:
Day One Hundred and Thirty-Four: Walking Sutton Place
In July of 2022, it had gotten so hot, and the humidity was getting to me that I had to stop for some ice cream, and I remember A la Mode Shoppe at 360 East 55th Street. I had the most amazing ice cream there years ago when I was blogging about Sutton Place and even checked the Internet the day before to make sure that they were open.
My review on LittleShoponMainStreet@Wordpress.com:
The two flavors that I love are Pink Sprinkles (Strawberry Ice Cream with layers of colorful sprinkles and Cloudy Weather (Blueberry Ice Cream with tiny marshmallows).
My favorite flavors, Pink Sprinkles and Cloudy Weather.
I was looking forward to going there on this whole trip down this side of the island. I knew I was going to need something to cool myself down. It is such a great little store that also sells gourmet sodas, candy and toys.
A la Mode Shoppe is such a whimsical store
Watch taking the turn on East 53rd Street to First Avenue. The cars and cabs will not stop for you when you try to cross the street so be careful. I always take a mad dash across the road.
From here you have to walk on First Avenue from East 53rd Street until East 37th Street as the United Nations dominates this area. The United Nations looked like it was closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic with just a few guards on duty and not much traffic. It also looked to me like they removed a lot of their statuary because of all the vandals destroying artwork all over the country.
The United Nations Complex
The complex was completely quiet on this gloomy day, and I did not see a sole anywhere near the complex. Even the security booths seemed quiet when I passed. You can no longer walk around the on the grounds, so I peered from the gate and admired the statute ” Good defeats Evil” by artist Zurab Tseretelli. This interesting statue I found out later was made of old United States and Russian missiles to commemorate the signing of the ‘Treaty of the Elimination of Intermediate’. The statue was to represent peace (United Nations Gifts).
Good defeats Evil by artist Zurab Tseretelli (United Nations Gifts)
Artist Zurab Tseretelli is a Russian born artist who is noted for his sculptures all over the world. He graduated from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts and was a visiting professor at SUNY in New York State on top of other teaching and academic honors (Wiki).
I stopped in Ralph Bunche Park at First Avenue between East 42nd and 43rd Street. I just needed to sit for a bit, and I admired a sculpture that I had not noticed before when walking the park.
Ralph Bunche Park at First Avenue between East 42nd and 43rd Streets
The park was named after the first black American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The interesting sculpture in the park was created by artist Daniel Larue Johnson entitled “Piece Form One”.
Mr. Johnson was an American born artist from California. He studied at the Chouinard Art Institute and then studied in Paris. He was known for his abstract paintings and steel sculptures.
Another interesting piece of art was on the wall of 777 First Avenue, the Church Center for the United Nations. The work was created by artist Benoit Gilsoul and is entitled “Man’s Search for Peace” (Wiki).
The Church Center for the United Nations at 777 First Avenue
Mr. Gilsoul was a Belgium born artist who immigrated to the United States in 1967 and became an American citizen. He studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux Arts in Belgium. He was noted for his abstract works (IstDibs.com).
I then exited East 37th Street and continued to walk down the esplanade along the East River. I had never travelled to this section of the City before (I have currently not passed 42nd Street on my current walk of Manhattan in 2020) so it was an adventure to see new views of the island. I stayed on this pathway until I got to the Battery.
In May of 2022, the rain began to let up when I got to the esplanade, and it was just a light mist. I was just hoping that it would stop soon. While everyone else was racing down the walkway to finish the walk, I took the time and admired the buildings on the Brooklyn waterfront. It is getting more impressive every year.
Along the way between East 37th Street and East 11th Streets, you tend to see the backs of a lot of buildings on the Manhattan side life Bellevue and the Tisch Hospital. You then pass Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village and then the Con Ed Power Plant so there is not much to see on this side but from the other side you will see the skyline of Long Island City and Downtown Brooklyn.
Downtown Long Island City keeps changing
On the turn before you get to the larger East River Park is the smaller Stuyvesant Cove Park which was once the site of an old cement plant and has now been reclaimed for a riverfront park. The park runs from about East 22nd Street to East 18th Street. The park is planted with native plants of New York City and has become a haven for birds and butterflies (Stuyvesant Cove Park Association). I left Stuyvesant Cove by 5:45pm in 2020, 6:30pm in 2021 and 4:30pm in 2022. I took more time to explore the parks and artwork in 2021 and was walking slower because of the rain in 2022.
Around East 12th Street its best to the follow the path signs to John V. Lindsay East River Park. The park was created in 1939 by then Parks Director Robert Moses on reclaimed land from the waterfront and piers and is a 57.5 acre point of relief to the residents of the Lower East Side (Wiki).
The park has many recreational facilities and the afternoon I was walking through countless parties and barbecues were going on. With meats sizzling on the grills and water gun fights and the sound of music throughout the park, people were enjoying their Father’s Day celebrations in every corner of the park. I found open bathrooms that were clean and a water fountain that worked and I was happy. Don’t miss the giant anchor facing the river near the entrance to the park.
Don’t miss the “Anchors Away” sculpture in John Lindsey Park
Twilight by the Anchor sculpture
Once I left the park in 2020 and 2021, I was on my way to South Street Seaport. This part of the walk meant walking under overhangs, bridge over-passes and the housing was a combination of new and old construction. On the other side of the river, there is a difference on the riverfront on the Brooklyn side. The growth of DUMBO and Downtown Brooklyn has changed the whole look from this side of the river.
Downtown Brooklyn from the Brooklyn Bridge
In May of 2022, the rain was really getting to me, and I was not sure if I could keep going. My muscles in my legs were really getting to me because of the cold. It went from 54 to 45 degrees by the time I got to Lower Manhattan. I just happened to meet up with a businessman from Fort Lee, NJ who I had seen hours earlier on the other side of the island. He asked if he could walk the rest of the way with me and I said yes. It was nice to have someone to talk with for the rest of the trip.
This is now becoming some of the most expensive housing in New York City with warehouses and old factories becoming expensive lofts. Things just changing on that side of the river and the riverfront even this far down keeps changing. I passed the Peck Slip Park at 6:30pm on my way to the South Street Seaport.
South Street Seaport is some of the original structures of Lower Manhattan many dating back to the Civil War when this was a major shipping area. The home of the Dutch West Indies Company in the early 1600’s, this port area has seen many changes. The most modern ones when the Rouse Corporation turned this into a dining and shopping entertainment area setting up concept for many downtowns in city’s that needed revitalizing. Since its development, South Street Seaport was their most successful venture.
I had never seen it so quiet in the time of COVID-19. There was no one walking around this busy area but a few tourists and residents. In 2021, the mood had changed, and it was much busier. I passed through the Seaport by 6:48pm.
As I was leaving the South Street Seaport in 2021, I was watching fire trucks leave in a hurry from one of the local firehouses. It caught my attention so much that I lost my footing for some reason and fell flat on my face. It was almost as if someone had tripped me. In May of 2022, the only thing we did was race by the place because of the weather but in July of 2022, the Seaport was alive with people having dinner and drinks.
From here it was again more overhangs from the highway until I got to the Ferry stations for Staten Island and Governors Island and then rounding the corner to make it to Battery Park where the sites of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island loomed in the distance. All over the harbor were sailboats and motorboats enjoying the early evening. It was now 7:15pm and I had been travelling since noon.
In 2020 and 2021, I spent about a half hour relaxing and enjoying the views on a sunny early evening. Being the day after the Summer Solstice it was one of the longest days of the year and I got to enjoy the extra sunshine. I needed to cool down and this was the place to do it. It still is one of the most picturesque places in New York City.
In May of 2022, the rain and clouds got so bad that I could barely see things in the harbor. It looked like it was trying to clear and by 5:00pm it finally stopped raining. We had been walking under the highway underpass by South Street Seaport and the two of us started to dry out.
In July of 2022, this is where I took my longest break of forty-five minutes. I just needed to relax before I made the last leg of the journey back to West 34th Street. Similar to the walk I did in 2020, it took a lot of effort to complete this part of the journey and I wanted to build my strength.
I have to say that I never get tired of seeing Lady Liberty. I still can’t believe that I am seeing the same statute that both of my grandfathers’ saw when they arrived in this country. It puts it all into perspective to me how powerful of a symbol it is to this country as a way of welcoming people to the United States.
When finishing ‘The Great Saunter’ in 2022, this was our last stop before heading back to Frances Tavern. Myself and my walking partner for the last four miles of the trip had talked most of the time about our careers and families and about why we took the walk. The time just flew from there. I learned that his wife and her friend had made it all the way to Inwood Park before they took the subway back downtown and then home.
Justin Watrel completing “The Great Saunter” officially in May of 2022
We walked to the registration desk in front of the Frances Tavern and collected our certificates that we completed the walk. We then took our picture with our certificates and then said our goodbyes. He then told me that probably could not have finished the walk without me and I felt the same way. I need someone to keep pace with me and help me finish this difficult day. I warmed up in the restaurant for a bit and then took the subway back uptown and then the bus home. Everything had to go in the dryer when I got home and air out. I finished the walk by 5:45pm taking me almost eleven hours to finish, a personal best.
In 2020 and July of 2022, I had just walked the entire east side of Manhattan and I have to tell you I was stiff by this point. I was ready to throw in the towel here and rest, but I pressed on wanting to get home at a decent time. I really misjudged how long it would take to get from the Battery to West 42nd Street. It is a decent amount of time even though it doesn’t look it on the map. You just have to distract yourself by looking at the coves and the artwork along the way.
In 2022, I walked past Fort Clinton, also known as Castle Clinton, where you buy tickets for the Statue of Liberty. The fort has had an interesting history. Built between 1809 to 1811, it has served as a fort in the early wars of the country, then an entertainment spot, an immigration outpost before Ellis Island was built, then the home of the New York Aquarium and now home to the start off point and history discussion on the Statue of Liberty (Wiki).
In 2021, I was much better prepared and had more walking time under my belt. I was in much better shape, so it did not tire me so much at this point of the walk. I was rearing to go after a half hour break.
I left Battery Park at 7:30pm and followed a crowd of people out of the park. Before I left the park for Battery Park City and its beautiful parks, I came across the sculpture “American Merchant Marines Memorial” at the edge of the Battery. The statue commemorates the thousands of merchant ships and crews that fought since the Revolutionary War (NYCParks.org).
The “American Merchant Marines Memorial” by artist Marisol Escobar
Ms. Escobar was born in Paris and raised in Venezuela and moved to New York in the 1950’s. She is known for her highly stylized boxy sculptures (NYCParks.org). She studied art at the Jepson Art Institute, the Ecole des Beaux Arts and Art Students League of New York (Wiki).
Another sculpture I missed on my first two walks around the island was the New York Korean Memorial by artist Mac Adams.
The statue is one of the first monuments to the Korean conflict built in the United States and the void in the sculpture represents the absence and loss of the war and a metaphor for death (NYCParks.org).
Artist Mac Adams is a British born artist who now lives in the New York area. He holds an MFA from Rutgers University. He is known for his large public works and for the use of ‘space between images’ (Wiki/Artist Bio).
I have been on this walk around the island many times now and I do not know how I missed this statue of Gianni Verrazano that sits in Battery Park. This dynamic statue sits at the northern part of the park and was one of the few exits out of the park during its renovation.
The Giovanni Verrazzano statue by artist Ettore Ximenes
Artist Ettore Ximenes was an Italian born artist who had studied at the Palermo Academy of Fine Arts and then worked with several artists as an apprentice. He was known for his life sized sculptures. This statue was dedicated in 1909 (NYCParks.org/Wiki).
I left Battery Park and entered into the newer extension of Robert Wagner Jr. Park next to Battery Park City. In the front part of the park, I came across these unusual musical instrument sculptures that graced the entrance of the park.
The art entitled “Resonating Bodies” were created by British born artist Tony Cragg, whose work I had seen uptown many times. The sculptures resemble a lute and a tuba. The work is based on the concept that all physical bodies including we are constantly enveloped by various energy forms (NYCParks.org).
“Resonating Bodies” at Robert Wagner Jr. Park in Battery Park City
Mr. Cragg is a British born artist from Liverpool and studied at the Gloucestershire School of Art, received his BA from the Wimbledon School of Art and his MA from the Royal School of Art. He has been showing his works since 1977. He is best known for his contemporary sculptures (Artist Bio/Wiki).
I walked behind them as I travelled through the South Cove of Battery Park City. Not a lot of tourists know that this whole area is fill in of old piers on the fillers from the building of the original World Trade Center. Now the area sits apartment buildings with breathtaking views and well-landscaped parts. The South Cove was filled with small groups of people who were also not social distancing and very few masks. I think people were just throwing caution to the wind.
Don’t miss the twists and turns of the South Cove of Battery Park City
Another piece of art that I missed and saw in 2022 was ‘Ape and Cat at the Dance’ by artist Jim Dine. The sculpture of a cat and ape dancing cheek to cheek like humans had been inspired by the Henry James story of “The Madonna of the Future”. The Parks Department describes it as a ‘human like and asks us to reflect on ourselves”. (NYCParks.org/Downtown Alliance).
“The Ape and the Cat at the Dance” in Battery Park
Artist Jim Dine is an American born artist who studied at the University of Cincinnati, School of Fine Arts in Boston and graduated with a BFA from Ohio University. He is known for his many different mediums of sculpture, printmaking and drawing (Wiki).
Mother Cabrini was born in Italy as Maria Francesca Cabrini in 1850. She took her vows and founded the Missionary of the Sacred Heart. She immigrated to the United States in 1889 and continued her charity work, founding organizations and was the first naturalized citizen to be canonized (NYCbio/MotherCabrini.org/Wiki).
Jill Burkee is a sculpture and draftswoman who studied at the Arts Students League of New York and the University of Washington and has studied in Italy. Giancarlo Baigi is a sculptor and multi-media artist. He also studied at the Arts Students League of New York and has a MA from Stagio Stagi in Peitrasanta in Italy (Arts Students League bio). Both of these works have been closed off in both the May and June walks in 2024 due to construction and renovation in Battery Park.
A new piece of art appeared after the May 2024 walk. Either that or I had not noticed it when I walk around the area.
The sculpture of “The Eyes” by Louise Bourgeois appeared in Battery Park in June 2024 or I have just missed it
Artist Louise Bourgeois was a French born artist married to an American Art Professor who settled into New York City after her marriage. She was a graduate of the Sorbonne and continued to study art at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and Ecole du Louvre and the Arts Student League of New York when she moved to the States. Starting as a painter she moved to sculpture on the recommendation of a colleague and known for her large sculpture works (Wiki).
Another piece of art that I came across that I missed in the last two trips is “Apple” by artist Stephen Weiss. The piece was part of the ‘Larger than Life” series of the artist and symbolized the heart and core of life in New York City (Hudson River Park).
“The Apple” by artist Stephen Weiss in Hudson River Park
Artist Stephen Weiss was a New York born artist who had attended the Pratt Institute. He had worked for his family company and was the husband of designer, Donna Karan. He was known for his sculpture works (RoGallery).
When I walked the parks both North and South Coves in 2021, people were still having Graduation parties, small picnics and the restaurants had reopened both indoors and outdoors without masks. The parks, restaurants and lawns were really hopping that night.
From here it was following the path up to the North Cove of Battery Park City and the views of Jersey City. Each of the parks had unique landscaping and walkways that accented the buildings of the World Financial Center. It is hard to believe how damaged these were after the long days after 9/11. You would have never known with boats docked for dinner and people having picnics and wine in the shadows of these buildings.
I was pretty surprised as I walked through the park with more daylight time to spare that I came across what looked like an Egyptian Temple sitting in Battery Park. The sculpture building is entitled “The Upper Room” designed by artist Ned Smyth. This self-contained sculptural environment suggests a contemporary reimagining of an Egyptian temple offering a stylized sanctuary from the surrounding city (BPCA-NYC).
Mr. Smyth is an American born artist who born in NYC and works in NY. He has a BA from Kenyon College in Ohio. He is part of the Pattern and Design Movement of the 1970’s and known for his large-scale public works (Artist Bio/Artist Profile Bio).
As I started to pass some of the open air restaurants, I saw another piece of art that stood out which was a series of colored rings but could not get close enough to see the artist who created it. For another trip to the park.
The last piece of art that stood out to me on this trip through Battery Park was entitled “Days End” by artist David Hammons. It looked like the shell of an empty building and struck a nerve as the sun started to set on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. It is an ‘Open Air’ sculpture that explores the history of the neighborhood (Whitney Museum).
Mr. Hammons is an American born artist who studied at the Chouinard Art Institute (CalArts) and at Otis Art Institute. He is known for his Body Prints and sculpture work (Wiki/Artnet.com).
As the light started to fade in the evening as the sunset over Jersey City across the river, I started to fade too. I just singing to myself and kept encouraging myself to keep moving. I really wanted to finish even though my thighs were getting stiff, and my fingers looked like sausages. I was determined even though I wanted to stop. Every time I asked that question of myself I then said, ‘then why did I start the walk if I was not going to finish it?’
Passing the Jersey City waterfront in 2023
I stopped for a second to look at the sun setting in the backdrop of Jersey City and watched in wonder the beauty of it all. It is almost a reminder how much bigger the world is than us.
The Jersey City Waterfront on a sunny day.
While I was walking through the parks, a few pieces of park sculpture stood out to me as I reached Hudson River Park in Chelsea. The long trek up Joe DiMaggio Highway made me more aware of my surroundings as I had to stop again. I came across the ‘Serpentine Sculptures’, these large twisting metal concoctions that graced the riverfront walkway.
These interesting, twisted sculptures are by American artist Mark Gabian who holds a BA in Art History and BFA in Sculpture from Cornell University (my Alma Mater!). Mr. Gabian’s sculptures can be seen all over the world. The artist has been quoted as saying he created monumental site-specific commissions in two or three dimensions’ (the artist’s website).
The last leg of the journey loomed in the distance as I saw the lights of the Hudson Yards in the distance like a mythical ‘Oz’ waiting for me. I saw the heliport and observation deck glittering in the distance and knew I had to reach it.
The Observation Deck and the glittering buildings are just a few blocks from the Port Authority Bus Terminal where my journey started, and I knew I was there. In 2020, I reached the Circle Line Pier again at 9:11pm in the evening and I celebrated by sitting on a boulder outside the ticket booth for fifteen minutes watching the security guard play on his cellphone. I did the same thing on the walk in July of 2022, but this time I made it at 8:55pm exactly fourteen hours after I stated.
I was not tired Per Se, but I was stiff all over. I could feel my thighs tighten up and my fingers and hands I had to shake several times to get proper circulation back into them. Still, I was not out of breath and was able to walk back to the Port Authority and make the 9:50pm bus out of New York City for home. I got home by 10:10pm almost sixteen hours later.
In 2020 and July of 2022, I walked the entire rim of Manhattan from top to bottom in fourteen hours. Not the twelve hours the Great Saunter Walk guide says but there is a lot more to it than just walking. You will need many bathroom, water and rest breaks along the way. Drink lots of water too. Still, it was a great walk and one for the blog!
In 2021, I arrived back at Hudson River Park at West 23rd Street just as the sun started to set over New Jersey and got to see the multi colors that were created in the sky. Mother Nature’s work of art for everyone to see.
I was not as tired on this trip as I had the year before. All that walking and training in Midtown Manhattan neighborhoods plus an overnight stay in the City to get an earlier start helped out tremendously. I finished the perimeter walk of the island in exactly fourteen hours, one hour more than 2020 but I stopped more times to admire public artworks, snack at restaurants and snack shops and walk through more parks and neighborhoods to see what was there. It was a more interesting trip where I did not rush it. I finished at 8:20pm in 2021.
For dinner that night, I stopped at Lions & Tigers & Squares at 268 West 23rd Street, where I had eaten many times for lunch after working at the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen (which I had mentioned many times in this blog). The restaurant features Detroit style pizza where the cheese and sauce are baked into the sides of the pizza and there is no crust. It is a type of Sicilian pizza with a twist to it.
Lions & Tigers & Squares at 268 West 23rd Street (Closed May 2025)
I treated myself to a sausage pizza which was loaded with fried sweet sausage, caramelized onions and they put a dash of maple syrup on top to add to the complexity. God was that delicious! There is so much flavor in each bite. I was not even planning on eating there but the pizza cook waved me inside and then sold me on it. I was lucky that he did!
Do not miss the Sausage Slice at Lions & Tigers & Squares
It was another great trip around the Island of Manhattan trying new restaurants and visiting old ones, viewing wonderful public art in the open-air art museum that New York City is, touring interesting parks and feeling like part of the neighborhood.
In both 2020 and July of 2022 because I had to start at West 42nd Street and it was so late, I just dragged myself home. Even going from the Circle Line to the Port Authority took its efforts. I was so stiff both times that it took some effort just to walk those blocks. In May of 2021 since we started at the Frances Tavern, I took the subway back to Port Authority and dragged my wet body home. In 2021, I had a lot more spring to my step and walked to the Port Authority.
I think spending the night in the City and starting at West 23rd Street was the best way of doing the walk. You are in the City to start and do not have to start so far uptown. It seems that the walk goes quicker when you start further downtown. You have a lot more energy in the morning and get the West Side done when you have the energy to finish it. You are not exhausted by the time you reach Battery Park.
For people who say that New York City is going downhill during COVID, I say to you walk the whole island and you will see the heart of the City is in the people who live here and the contributions they make to keep the City as great as it is. Remember there is more to Manhattan than just Midtown and Times Square. There is so much more to see!
For all its troubles, in 2022 I can see that the City is slowly starting to come back and there are more tourists visiting than before. Will it ever get back to 2019? Yes, but it will take some time. We will just have to learn to accept that COVID will be part of our lives and we will have to adapt to it. I am not going to let it dictate my life.
I dedicate these walks to my father, Warren Watrel, as my Father’s Day Gift of Remembrance. To my dad for all the wonderful afternoons we spent in New York City on Father’s Day. I felt you by my side that afternoon.
In 2024, when I did the official walk with Shorewalkers on May 4th, the weather had been mixed. It stared off as a beautiful sunny day so that made the walk very pleasant for walking the whole West Side of the island and up to Inwood Park. By 1:30pm, the clouds rolled in and it started to get gloomy and cool down. Still, it was the best walk I had ever done and I finished it in ten hours and forty-five minutes plus enough time to rest and watch everyone else come in. It was fun to watch the people who had done it for the first time get so excited. I was happy for them and a pleasure to watch.
I finished The Great Saunter in 2024 in ten hours and forty-five minutes. A new record.
I was so happy to finish. It is always a great accomplishment.
In June of 2024, I followed the same path as the original walk in May for the official walk with Shorewalkers Inc. Planning better, I stayed two nights at the Residence Inn at 170 Broadway (which I highly recommend due to the location by the start line at Fraunces Tavern), had a good breakfast both mornings and started the walk at 7:30am following the same path. Some of the artwork I had seen along the way was closed off because of the renovation and reconstruction of Battery Park but new works popped up. Either I had not noticed them before or maybe they had been moved around because of the renovation.
My walk in June 2024 unofficially:
What I like about doing the walk on my own is that I have the time to stop, take pictures, relax when I want to and not have a group of people dictating how fast I should go (or maybe I put that pressure on myself). I also don’t have annoying other walkers breathing down my back like in the May 2024 walk. I was able to stop where I needed to when there was an interesting photo opportunity. Also, more was in bloom during the June walk.
I stayed at the Residence Inn again at 170 Broadway again and my best friend arranged for me to have the room when I returned that day for another evening so there was no pressure to lug bags and go home like last year. I could relax when I back to the room, take a shower and sleep.
I got up around 6:00am on the Thursday morning and had a good breakfast at the hotel, something I did not have time for the last time we stayed at the hotel. The Breakfast Room did not open until 6:30am so when I got there it was really quiet. There were only about seven of us there eating.
The Residence Inn at 170 Broadway is the perfect place to stay for The Great Saunter
Breakfast is the most important meal when you are doing this walk and you need your share of proteins and carbs to make this walk successful. You need that good breakfast also because you don’t want to stop for snacks all the time. You had better bring water and bagged snacks with you for the trip.
The Breakfast Room at the Residence Inn
The Breakfast at the Residence Inn Downtown
My suggestion to anyone taking this walk is a good breakfast and take at least two bottles of water with you that you freeze the night before so when they melt you have cold water through your walk.
The renovated parts of Battery Park were open and in bloom that morning
I started my walk at 7:30am when it was still about 77 degrees outside so it was really a pleasure to walk in this weather. I knew that I needed to get to Inwood Park by 12:30pm as it would be 97 degrees by that point and I would need the rest and shade.
The Battery Park Pollinator Garden was new and I noticed its elegant gate to the gardens
The walk up the west side of Manhattan is a straight run and the trip to Inwood Park is the easiest part of the walk of the island with the exception of going up the hill by the Little Red Lighthouse but that is doable if you pace yourself well. Unlike the New York Marathon, which many of the walkers have done too, here you pace yourself and do the walk as you feel comfortable. During the official race, the Shorewalkers Inc. officials are at Fraunces Tavern until 10:30pm the night of the walk. When I do it on my own, I take my time, take lots of pictures and stop in parks to observe the views and small delis and bodegas to get snacks and meals. This is a time to explore the neighborhoods as well.
The view up the West Side of the island with Jersey City in the background
Since I did the walk on a Thursday morning and afternoon on the Summer Solstice, the crowds were not there blocking the way. I always have to maneuver around the slower walkers. This day it was walking around the early morning joggers and dogwalkers. It often amazes me how many people today are not at work by 9:00am. Things have really changed in the last twenty years as people work freelance and remotely.
This beautiful prism fence lit up some of the pollinator gardens as you walk through the South Cove
I also came across more outdoor art that I had either never noticed before or had been moved due to the renovation of the Battery Park. With a big portion of the park under renovation a lot of the art was moved to more open spaces and in all the walks I have taken since 2020, they never came to light. I swear you do not have to go to a museum to see famous works of sculpture and graffiti art. It is all outside for you to observe.
As I walked from park to park, there was a lot to admire on the New Jersey coastline of the Hudson River. You travel from Jersey City and Hoboken to Fort Lee and the Palisades. Then it is all park up the coast line. Along the way you observe the famous cliffs that were used for filming the “Perils of Pauline” the famous silent film shot back in the early teens.
The Cliffs of the Palisades
The “Perils of Pauline” and climbing those same cliffs in 1914
I continued up the coastline of the West Side of Manhattan on a beautiful sunny day that got progressively hotter.
Inwood Park
Inwood Park
I got up to Inwood Park in record time at 12:45pm and relaxed in the park for forty-five minutes. The worst part about being in the park is that there are no longer any outlets to charge your phone. I relaxed outside forty-five minutes before I asked one of the parks guys where I could charge my phone and he said that the City has covered everything up because of the homeless and ebikes. He told me good luck trying to find one.
I walked down the road from the park and stopped in the church of the Good Sheppard and relaxed in the very stuffy church (no air-conditioning) and charged my phone for an hour. Very spiritual yes on such an important day in my life but hot and sticky in the church. Still it felt like I should have visited there and I said a prayer to my father.
I was able to charge my phone in the church and say a prayer for my father
After I left the church, I stopped for a Coke at Luna Grocery on Sherman Street and continued down Sherman Street to 10th Avenue and made my way down Dyckman Avenue to FDR Drive and continued the journey to West 155th Street on a quiet afternoon. The sun was really out by this point and it did get hot. By this point in the afternoon, it was 96 degrees.
Luna Grocery is my ‘go to’ place for soda and snacks in Inwood which is on the path for The Great Saunter at 264 Sherman Avenue as you head through to 10th Avenue
From here, I followed the path that I took the last seven times doing this walk, visiting the same parks and viewing some of the same street art as the above walks. Not just sculptures and statuary but graffiti art as well that has some profound messages. Here and there though I noticed a few new works that I thought were inspiring:
Street art by 10th Avenue and Dyckman Street near the Dyckman Houses. A message
When I finished eating at King Pizza and made my way down East 143rd Street, I came across the most interesting artwork. I was not sure if it was artwork or just part of the building complex as there were no signs of what the artists name was or what the name of the piece was but I thought it was interesting.
The artwork on West 143rd Street outside the Bethune Towers
The artwork on West 143rd Street just outside the entrance to Bethune Towers
I never noticed how much artwork was on the walls of Harlem River Park. I had taken a few pictures of it in the past but either it has grown or I had to keep walking. You have to stop and admire these artists when walking past the bridge it is painted on. They keep expanding the artwork along the walls and it gets more interesting as you pass by.
The artwork in Harlem River Park
The painting’s artists
The paintings
The paintings
You have to admire these artists creativity. The murals keep growing.
Getting out of the park was pretty waring in that the homeless have camped themselves on the 128th Street Bridge and let’s just say I saw some things that I am glad that many out of towners did not have to experience when dealing with homeless with mental problems.
I know the path from Harlem River Park to 110th Street to Jefferson Park very well and I try to get through this section of Manhattan pretty quickly. No one bothers me but the cops always give me funny looks when they come across me.
What really surprised me is the hyper gentrification of Harlem seems to have slowed down a bit. I could not believe that by the Wagner Houses that all the buildings stopped being renovated. This section of Harlem pre-COVID was all under scaffolding.
East 120th Street across from the Wagner Houses
This section of Harlem around Second Avenue was all under scaffolding before COVID and I thought the whole area around the Wagner Houses was going to be the next big neighborhood. It still looks a bit run down in 2024. I still think this stretch of Harlem will be big deal one day and be the latest hip neighborhood.
I got down to Jefferson Park and could not believe how crowded it was for a weekday. People were out and about on this hot afternoon having picnics and barbecues. They were even preparing the pool for its summer opening. I just snapped a few pictures of the statuary and of the people enjoying themselves and off I went down the East River Esplanade trying to get to Carl Schulz Park while the sun was still out and not beating down on me. Even with all the smells of barbecued food, I was still stuffed from the meatball sandwich from King Pizza.
Just as I was passing East 100th Street and making the turn for the Upper East Side, another piece of artwork caught my eye.
The artwork along the fence between East 100th-98th Streets by artist Carmen Paulino “We care for Harlem”
This creative work was all colors of the rainbow and showed the creative spirit of the neighborhood. Still it is an engaging piece of art and you need to look at each panel of the fence to appreciate it.
Carmen Paulino is a Manhattan-based mixed media, fiber artist, or yarn bomber, who uses her art to beautify and strengthen the community (Artist bio).
When I got to Carl Schulz Park by East 84th Street, the park was just as beautiful as was in the early Spring. Being later in the day, the pack was packed with families. This is where I freshen up a bit and refill the water bottles. The water fountains here have the coldest water and they always work! Their bathrooms are some of the best in the City.
Carl Schulz Park
Carl Schulz Park
I continued my trip down the East River Esplanade to the stop at John Jay Park near the entrance to Sutton Place. The views were amazing and the day was so crystal clear.
Looking over Carl Schulz Park during the walk
I headed down the East Side Esplanade with the most beautiful views of Brooklyn.
The Hell Gate overlooking Queens from Carl Schulz Park
John Jay Park was in full swing when I passed it that afternoon. The families were out in force. By that point, school was out for the day and the kids were running all over the park. The pool was filled as it was getting ready for the opening.
John Jay Park in the late afternoon
I had not traveled through the park in a long time, just walked fast around it. I had not seen these sculptures by artist Douglas Abdell in a long time. When I passed through the park, some small child was hitting them with a pole. These are museum quality sculptures and people do not know what they are or how valuable they are worth.
Artist Douglas Abdell is an American born artist who graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from Syracuse University. In the last 30 years his work has been devoted to political and social themes related to the Mediterranean Countries and their history more specifically Phoenician and Arabic with their specific symbols and languages.[3] The materials of these works are cast bronze, carved stone and etchings (Wiki).
I got down to Sutton Place in record time. Walking down York Avenue to the UN is a pretty straight run and I got down to the turn by the East River Promenade again. When I turned the corner at East 35th Street to go to the East River Promenade, I came across a series of paintings on the local school that I had not noticed in all the previous walks. They must have been put after the May walk. The works are entitled “Towards Wisdom” and are very interesting.
Artist Jesse Bransford is a New York-based artist whose work is exhibited internationally at venues including The Carnegie Museum of Art, the UCLA Hammer Museum, PS 1 Contemporary Art Center and the CCA Wattis Museum among others. He holds degrees from the New School for Social Research (BA), Parsons School of Design (BFA) and Columbia University (MFA). A professor of art at New York University, Bransford’s work has been involved with belief and the visual systems it creates since the 1990s (Artist bio).
This time around it was light our when I got to the lower East Side and East River Park. This time around it was not as scary. It was still light out and everyone from school groups to families to hipsters playing baseball were in the park. This time around I got over the 10th Avenue Bridge as fast and I could and walked down Avenue D while it was still light out. On a Tuesday night at twilight is very different from 9:30pm on a Saturday night.
I followed the path I had through the Twin Bridges neighborhood and through the twists and turns of the Seaport and Chinatown. All along South Street there was every obstacle you could imagine that was not there a month earlier. Construction signs, barrels, closed roads and everything under FDR Driver was cordoned off where it was not before. I swear that everything the Shorewalkers said to me the day of the official walk was true. You have to keep walking this route because every day it changes.
There was a small section of South Street that was open but not all the way. Here though, I got some of the most beautiful pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge, Downtown Brooklyn and South Street as well as Lower Manhattan.
The view of Brooklyn from Stuyvesant Cove around twilight
Downtown Brooklyn at dusk
The Brooklyn Bridge and Downtown Brooklyn at dusk
The Brooklyn Bridge
Passing the busy South Street Seaport
I finished the walk independently in 2024 at 9:45pm, three hours later than the official walk. The stops to charge my phone added on about two hours and it was 97 degrees that day. It made the walk much slower than a 80 degree still. Still, no problems with the walk. Thirty-three miles in one day. Wait until next year.
I finally finished for the day just as it was getting dark but stopped to take pictures as night fell.
Me at the end of the unofficial walk in June 2024 at 9:45pm. It took longer but the pictures I got were fantastic!
I lucked out because Maricel arranged for me to have another night at the Residence Inn and I got back to the room, showered and then fell fast asleep. I had a late check out at 4:00pm so I just at breakfast the next morning and went back to bed and then read until I left at 4:00pm that afternoon. That was a better way to do then leaving after the walk.
Another great three walks for The Great Saunter! I don’t think Griffin Dunne could have done better! (Still my hero in that great film and we both got out of Lower Manhattan!).
Dedicated to my father, Warren Watrel:
Happy Father’s Day to all Fathers!
Justin Watrel with his father, Warren Watrel
Happy Father’s Day Dad!
With much love from your son Justin!
My walk around the island on August 2nd, 2025:
The weather finally broke and the temperature and humidity went down. I had Saturday off and I figured it was the best day to do the Saunter on my own. My students had been over whelming me with questions right before their presentation and I needed to clear the cobwebs out of my head. This was the best way to do it.
It started off a little rough dealing with a bus driver on the early morning bus who gave me attitude when he closed the door on me as I tried to enter. He claimed he did not see me but he was looking at me the whole time. I was not too pleased and said so. After that, we got into the City in record time.
The start of my walk on West 42nd Street
When I do the Great Saunter on my own, I start on West 42nd Street because I feel the it’s just easier to get home when I am done. The City seemed so quiet that morning and I got to the river quickly and started my walk just outside the Circle Line Station on West 42nd Street.
Walking through the Hudson River Park
I made my way up the West Side in record time. The first eighty blocks I did in less than two hours.
Hudson River Park near the West 60’s in the summer
Pier i Cafe preparing to open for the day. I have been wanting to try this restaurant for a while.
I flew past the Seagull Wall on my way to the edge of Harlem. Unlike the Official Saunter in May, the Henry Hudson walkway was open again.
The Seagull Wall by Inwood Park
The Seagull Wall
Reaching Harlem Meer Park
Reaching Fort Washington Park in the early afternoon
Fort Washington Park right under the George Washington Bridge was just breathtaking that afternoon. The skies were clear and sun was not hot.
The view of the George Washington Bridge from the park in the early afternoon
Another view of the bridge
The ‘Great Gray Bridge and the Little Red Lighthouse’
The view of Lower Manhattan from the Little Red Lighthouse
I left Fort Washington Park past Washington Heights through Inwood Park and its virgin forests and twisting paths.
I love walking through the park on a beautiful summer day. The pathways are so removed from noise and people you would never know you were in Manhattan.
The beauty of Inwood Park
Once in Inwood Park by the ballfields, I did not realize they were under renovation. So I had to walk completely around the park to go to the bathroom. I swear these bathrooms are getting worse with time.
After a quick rest and bathroom break, I walked through the Inwood Farmers Market and noticed that they were selling a lot of nice things. Not cheap mind you but excellent quality.
After I left Inwood, it was time for the long walk down FDR Drive. The one nice thing about taking the walk today is how it cooled down.
Walking through the top of Washington Heights
The views along the East River today were just spectacular. It was clear, sunny and breezy.
The view on the East River
The view further down FDR Drive
The view as you get closer to 155th Street
I finally got to the crossroads and crossed 155th Street and started the walk down Edgecombe Avenue. This block is started to change again.
The apartment houses along Edgecombe Avenue are all being renovated
When I crossed over East 145th Street and Edgecombe Avenue, I had to stop. I needed a rest and I was starved. I had wanted to try the new Charles Pan-Fried Chicken at 340 West 145th Street for a long time, so I stopped and had lunch.
Charles Pan Fried Chicken at 340 West 145th Street
The chicken and Mac & Cheese was just as delicious as I remembered. I did remember getting a second side in the Charles Special though.
I ordered what I had before, the Charles Special, which was two pieces of fried chicken, a breast and a wing, a side of Mac & Cheese, a piece of cornbread and a limeade. The food was just wonderful and it hit the spot.
My lunch that afternoon
The portion sizes were very generous
Yum!
After a good lunch, I was ready to start my walk again. I just need to find the impossible public restroom. I went into Jackie Robinson Park across the street but they were both closed. So I had to wait and go to Charles Young Park and go there. The bathrooms are a horror here and try to find a restaurant you can go to when in this area.
I winded my way through the twists and turns of Harlem and could not believe how quiet the streets were that afternoon. I barely saw anyone.I finally got around the Wagner Houses and make it to Pleasant Avenue.
I saw the giglio in the middle of the street and checked my phone. The ceremony would be that Saturday and I made a note to try to make it.
I got to Jefferson Park in the late afternoon and took another break. I had had a heavy lunch and still needed to digest.
Jefferson Park in the summer of 2025
Jefferson Park on a busy summer day
Jefferson Park sculptures
After I left the park, I took the long walk down the Riverwalk along the East River until I got to Carl Schulz Park and took a bathroom and water break. The water fountains at the park offer the coldest and sweetest water and I am not sure why but I always fill my water bottles here.
The Riverwalk by the East River at East 85th Street
The view by Carl Schulz Park and Ward Randall Island
After my break, I continued the walk down the Upper East Side and then walked through Turtle Bay, Kips Bay and the Lower East Side. Along the way, I saw the most unusual street art.
Street art on the Upper East Side
Street art on the Lower East Side
Street art on the Lower East Side
I saw this by the South Street Seaport
I reached the Battery Park North Cove by 6:30pm
From Battery Park City, I took the long walk back up the Upper West Side. By this point, my lower legs started to stiffen up and it was starting the sunset. I made it back to the Circle Line Boat dock by 8:30pm. It took me thirteen hours to do the walk this time which was pretty good considering all the breaks. This will be the last time I do this until 2016. It was still a great walk!
Welcome to Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. from Professor Justin Watrel, CEO & Co-Founder:
“This is the second time I have opened the firm, Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc., for my Introduction to Business 101 class. As a College Professor, I have always felt that the only way that the students are going to learn is by doing the work in real life. So every semester we do a group project that encompasses everything we are learning in the text book. The entire class becomes members of the Paramus-branch Team and they have to do a real life project that has to be presented in front of a group. This project took it one step further as the Team was invited to present the project to His Honorable Andre Sayegh, Mayor of Paterson and his Executive Team.”
The website for Bergecco-Parc Consulting Incorporated’s latest project: “Take me back to Paterson, NJ”:
For this semester, I developed something different from the previous projects. I had been in Paterson, NJ visiting some sites for my blog, “VisitingaMuseum.com” that is available on WordPress.com as well, that is an off-shoot of my main blog, “MywalkinManhattan.com”.
I had visited the Paterson Museum one afternoon and then walked to the Paterson Falls, which is the second highest Falls east of the Mississippi. Along the way I had a hot dog and fries at Libby’s Lunch, a restaurant that has been in Paterson since 1936 (See my review on TripAdvisor-Now closed in 2021).
The Paterson Museum at 2 Market Street
Inside the Paterson Museum
While I was walking around the Falls after lunch and admiring them for all directions, I wondered why people don’t come down and visit them.
The Paterson Falls in the Summer
Paterson, NJ does not have the best reputation in the State of New Jersey. The schools, the gang problems and the poverty rate does not add to the reputation of a city that has been left behind. It was once the shopping and entertainment mecca from the end of the
Second World War until the riots of 1967. ‘
White flight’ and the closing of manufacturing plants sealed the fate of the city and the 1991 fire of Meyer Brothers Department Store in the downtown area just personified the problems of the City.
Downtown Paterson, NJ
The former Quackenbush Department Store
Yet I still saw something there. There is a lot of beauty to the City. Walking from the Falls back to the Paterson Museum I decided to find Lou Costello Park, a small square that is dedicated to the Comedian Lou Costello of the comedy team of Abbott & Costello. This small park just down the street from the Falls and was weed investing and full of homeless people. It was a little scary walking through the park, more for the homeless than for me as they thought I was an undercover policeman.
Lou Costello Memorial Park
The park in the summer
Walking down the street from the park leads to “Little Lima” the home of one of the largest population of Peruvian-Americans in the county. This vibrant neighborhood contains restaurants, retail stores, bakeries and salons and there is a lot to offer. This was once home to a large Irish population who used to work in the Mills and then it was Paterson’s Italian “Little Italy” until about the 70’s when most families moved to the suburbs.
Little Lima in Paterson, NJ
I stopped in Los Immortales at 21 Market Street, a deli/bakery (see review on TripAdvisor) for a snack. They had the most delicious dulce de leche doughnuts, filled with a kind of caramel tasting sweetened milk filling. They also had delicious pastilitos, similar to empanadas, a pastry filled with beef or chicken.
Los Inmortales at 21 Market Street
On another trip I made to the City later that week to finalize the field trip, I ate at Central City Pizza at 301 Main Street (see my review on TripAdvisor). Their pizza was amazing for a small pizzeria. The slices were huge, the pizza sauce amazing and at $2.00 a slice was well within budget.
All of these sites were only within a few blocks of one another. As I was walking back to the car at the museum, it dawned on me why people were not coming here with these free cultural sites and reasonable meals. This is where the idea for marketing Paterson, NJ for tourism came about.
The front of the Paterson Museum
The front of the museum
This semester I wanted to introduce my business students to the concept of marketing and using their business tools from class to see the same vision of the City that I was seeing. So I presented the project, “Take me back to Paterson, NJ”, to the class. How could we take the second largest City in New Jersey, one that was surround by some of the wealthiest suburbs and make it a destination to travel to for entertainment?
Our logo promoting the City of Paterson, NJ
Another proposal on the logo for the City
What I like about working with students in the entry level classes is their eagerness to look at things in a new light and their ambition to push themselves on their own. When I set the Executive Team up, it was interesting to see how they all come together. It takes time but I always see new relationships and friendships come out of it.
Walking through ‘Little Lima’, the Peruvian section of the City of Paterson
It was a slow start on the project as the students had to get to know their groups and the trust factors start. I saw the project start to jell when I arranged a trip ‘into the field’ to Paterson, NJ after our Midterm exam. I was surprised how happy some of the students were to go on a field trip. We lucked out and the weather was terrific, warm and sunny, a perfect fall day.
Our trip to the falls really amazed them
The interesting part of this trip I found out later on in their research papers on the project was that many of them were worried about visiting Paterson, NJ. The reputation was already established in their minds and it was my job as their CEO of the company to change it.
As a group, it was an information trip and I could tell really opened the eyes of the students. Not only were they really surprised by what they saw but I liked how they bonded together both over lunch at Libby’s for a hot dog and fries and touring the Falls for a second time.
We started the trip by visiting the Paterson Museum first and meeting the curator and staff. I don’t think the students realized what a rich history Paterson had and the role it played in the history of this country. The Paterson Museum covers from the time of the Lenape Indians when they used this area as a fishing site and for worship to when Alexander Hamilton created the first planned City using the water source as energy and this lead to the creation of the Silk Industry henceforth the nickname “Silk City “.
The Museum covers the history of the City of Paterson including famous individuals such as Lou Costello the Comedian, the growth the aerospace business of Curtis-Wright, the gun manufacturing industry, the silk industry and locomotive industry. There is also displays of minerals from the area as well as art work. Some of the students from our Talent Division had to plan a press party here so they asked lots of questions.
The history of ‘Silk City’ at the Paterson Museum
Touring the museum
After our tour of the Paterson Museum, we started our first part of the tour of the Paterson Falls before lunch. Since the day got clearer and sunnier, the Falls were in their prime. It was just beautiful to enter the Paterson Falls National Park.
The Paterson Great Falls in the Great Falls District of the City of Paterson at 72 McBride Avenue
This is where the students were able to capture of the real beauty of the City. The Falls were just beautiful with all the leaves changing colors behind them. We saw the entrance to the park for a quick explanation of the Falls and how they developed and how the Indians used this area as their summer camp.
The Paterson Falls
Before we took a full tour of the Falls, I took the students to Libby’s Lunch at 98 McBride Avenue (See review on TripAdvisor-Closed in 2020), a small diner restaurant that has been by the Falls since 1936. We had a group lunch of hot dogs and French fries (some of the students had turkey burgers) and Cokes. This is where I really saw my students bond. There was a lot of laughing and talking around the table and I could see that everyone was having a good time. The service could not have been nicer and more friendly and our waitress handled this large crowd well.
Libby’s Lunch in Paterson, NJ at 98 McBride Avenue (Closed in 2020-now Silk City Cafe)
After lunch, some of the students had to leave for work and other classes (they would return later for future visits) and the rest of the class and I continued on with our tour of the falls. We walked from the restaurant to the top part of the river and walked over the bridge covering the Falls and then we walked over the Falls. That’s when I knew I had their attention. The Falls are just so majestic and natural that when you hear the roar of the Falls it is enjoyable.
The hot dogs and fries were terrific
I gave the students about twenty minutes to walk around the park and just admire the view. I could see that many of the them were captured by the beauty of the park and after walking all over the park, some of them met on the benches below and just talked. it was nice to see that they were getting along so well.
Our next stop was Lou Costello Park, a tiny triangle of land down the block from the Falls and into the Mill district. This small park was dedicated to the famous comedian is located just behind the ‘Little Lima’ neighborhood District just off Ellison Street.
Lou Costello Park on Van Houten Street
The information sign in the park
It is a sad reminder of the famous comedian. The park was falling apart and I had to warn the students of the homeless who took up residence here. For the most part, our group seemed to scare away everyone and we were able to walk the whole park with no problems. The statue could have used a good sandblasting and the lawn a good mowing and trimming but overall it was a good tour. There were not a lot of homeless that day in the bandstand.
Our next part of the tour was to “Little Lima’, the Peruvian-American district of shops, bakeries and restaurants that is tucked between Downtown Paterson and the Paterson Museum. Little Lima is between Main Street, Spruce Street, McBride Avenue, Cianci Street and Ward and Olive Streets. The border is with the Paterson Museum.
We walked all the streets in the neighborhood and on the edge of Downtown Paterson, where I showed the students all the Beaux-Arts buildings that once made up all the upscale department and specialty stores, office buildings and hotels. The one thing our little group did was shock all the merchants and patrons who looked at us like “Oh, no gentrifiers!” If I saw a mixed combination of students and a professor walking through my neighborhood, I would think the same thing.
Walking down Market Street in Paterson, NJ once the shopping hub of North Jersey
We walked all the side blocks so that I could show them the businesses that were open and the condition of the neighborhood. We walked all around the church area and parking lot for a view of where we could hold events. Then I took them to Los Immortales at 21 Market Street (see my review on TripAdvisor) for dessert. We had the most delicious doughnuts filled with dulce de leche that I had eaten a few weeks before and cookies filled with the same. Each of the students took time to walk in and check out the store. Some even bought pastiletos, a type of empanada even after the big lunch. We really wiped out their baked goods. The staff got a kick out of it.
Los Immortales at 71 Market Street in Paterson, NJ
We walked back to the Paterson Museum and ate our dessert outside on the benches. We discussed the day and then the next group of students had to leave for classes and work and the last group of us headed to Lambert Castle.
Lambert Castle is located away from the downtown and we had to go to Garret Mountain Reserve Park to visit the former mansion of silk baron, Catholina Lambert. The home was closed as it was getting ready for the annual bazaar and then after the holidays it would close for a five-year renovation.
We got to walk the grounds and admire the castle with its spectacular views of Paterson and New York City plus the glorious foliage that surrounded the house and the hillside. We got to walk the fountains and walkways around the house and discussed how this could be used for parties and get togethers. From there, we finished our visit and now it was up to the students to work their magic.
From that afternoon on until the presentation on November 22nd, we met at the end of class to have Board Meetings and group discussions on our progress. Some of groups gelled better than others and with each class that I have done this there are always the ones who think they don’t have to do anything. They always stand out in the crowd.
Then there was a weird twist to the project. I stopped in City Hall in Paterson to see the Mayor and drop off a copy of the project to see if he and the Council would come and hear the presentation. Because of a mix-up in appointments, he thought I was someone else and being in a blue suit I am not sure knew who I was or what I was doing there (the intern who told me to come in was off that day and did not leave the message).
Paterson City Hall at 155 Market Street
We had a good laugh and I proceeded to tell his Honorable Andre Sayegh about our project for my class. We had a long discussion about what I wanted to do and the things I wanted the students to achieve on the project. He liked the ideas and came up with a better idea then him coming to class (he worked as a college professor as well and his class was right after mine). Why didn’t bring my class to City Hall to meet him? I loved it and told the Mayor I had to check with the school and then with the students but it should not be a problem.
The next week after our quiz and then lecture, almost everyone in my class got into their cars and off we went to Paterson City Hall on Market Street for our visit with the Mayor. I will tell you, it was a great meeting. The Mayor Sayegh is so personal and so enthusiastic about building the City of Paterson back to being an entertainment and dining destination that he embraced the project and encouraged all of my students with ideas and questions that we might have on how to bring tourists and surrounding residents back to the City.
My class and I meeting with His Honorable Mayor Andre Sayegh
With that I invited the Mayor and the Council to come to campus to hear our ‘pitch’ on how to sell the City of Paterson as a destination. He upped it more and asked if we would like to make the presentation in Paterson City Hall the morning of the project.
The class got all excited and high-fived one another. I asked everyone to slow down as permission to do this project would have to come from the Dean’s Office. I just can’t take thirty students to City Hall on a Saturday morning to present a project without permission. So with the help of my Chairman, Dean and the Vice-President of the College, we got the approval to present the project in Paterson City Hall.
I am the first one to say that I was really nervous about the presentation. I had not seen a dry run of it before that day and I found out later in the student’s papers that I read that there was a lot of last minutes preparations for the presentation up to that morning. When we got to City Hall I could see that a lot of students were nervous and when they were giving their presentations there were some that ummed their way through. This was not a problem as when you are giving your first presentation especially in a real life situation, it can be nerve wracking.
Presenting the project at Paterson City Hall
Even before the presentation I was giving the students their Dress Code grade. Getting a group of Millennials and Generation Z students to dress like it was the Reagan Administration was a challenge. Some of the men did not own suits or a blue blazer, so I allowed sweaters. Some did not know how to tie a tie but I have to admit they all had shoes that were shined. Still they presented themselves as gentlemen. The ladies were completely professionally dressed in dresses, skirts, blouses and pantsuits.
Still I opened the presentation to the Mayor of who I was as CEO, who we were and the presentation that we were about to give. After that I had the President and the Senior VP of Operations take over and what a job they did. We were working without a screen, monitor or projector that worked (surprising for a City Hall) but our President took full control of the situation and she and the Senior VP can it like pros.
Each team gave their presentation group by group. We started with the Special Events team with a presentation by their VP and her teams. We had the Lambert Castle team, The Paterson Falls Team, The Paterson Museum Team and the Abbott & Costello Film Retrospect Team. Each gave their presentation on how they would promote their areas followed by commercials promoting their section.
The Paterson Falls Team Commercial:
The Paterson Museum Team Commercial:
The Lambert Castle Team Commercial:
Then our Restaurant Team made their presentation promoting “Little Lima” as a dining and entertainment district in the way of the new “Ironbound Section” as in Newark, NJ. Our VP of the Restaurant Division also came with samples of Peruvian cookies for everyone to sample which I thought was a nice touch.
The ‘Little Lima’ Restaurant Team Commercial:
Our VP of Talent & Security and her team gave their presentation on how we were going to pay for the Paramus Division. She and her team gave their report of salaries, benefits and perks of the company. As a progressive and innovative company, Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. wants to keep the employees happy.
The President and Senior VP lastly gave their report on where we would be running the Division from and picked out the location in an office space in Downtown Paterson, NJ right near City Hall where we could work with the Mayor and his team.
When the students finished their presentation, I was floored by the professionalism of the project, the details and just the way the students presented themselves. I swear I thought the whole thing was really real as did the Mayor and his team.
When we opened it up for questions of the Executive Team, I enjoyed hearing how the students could justify their work and research with the field trip and then their own visits to Paterson on their own. Some of the questions got so detailed that I thought they believed this was a presentation by an outside firm. It was a great relief when it was over. The students were happy and the Mayor and his team seemed impressed.
Our last order of business was taking a picture of the Bergecco-Parc Team with the Mayor and his team. That was a thrill for me. You will never know how proud of I was of this group of students (and of all my students who do this project.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. team Fall 2019 with his Honorable Mayor Andre Sayegh and his Executive Team at Paterson, NJ City Hall November 22, 2019.
Here is the attachment to the Bergecco-Parc Website:
The Presentation was feature in the recent “Inside Edition” of Bergen Community College Number 8:
As the team broke up and I talked with the Mayor, I saw the team leave one by one with new found respect for one another. Frustrations, concerns and last minute details over. Was the presentation 100%? There were some things we needed to work on including some dress-code issues, articulation in speeches and some of the details of the Power Point but this is what a real team faces everyday when they go to work. Who really does the work, who doesn’t, who thinks they can ‘coast by’ and who does the extra mile. I hope they all thought of this by the time we got back to class after the Thanksgiving break.
I said my goodbyes to everyone and had a quick conversation with my President and Senior VP of Operations to tell them how proud I was of the ladies for leading such a good presentation and taking control of the situation with the IT.
The only bad part is I never got to taste one of the muffins that the Mayor brought in for the team for breakfast. When I finally left, everything on the breakfast table was gone (more like stripped away).
When I came back from Florida after my break, I called the Mayor to hear his feedback and the best part was he said ‘he would hire us’. That was nice to hear!
If there was ever a Professor that felt prouder of his students it was me!
In honor of Small Business Saturday, I featuring wonderful reasonable restaurants in New York City.
The food here is very good.
Taco Bandito closed at almost 23 years in the same location due to the building being replaced. All the businesses in the complex including the McDonalds that I used to go to when I attended FIT in the 1990’s all closed and will be replaced.
Taco Bandito is right around the corner from the Soup Kitchen where I work and around the corner from the Fashion Institute of Technology campus where I went to school. The prices here are perfect for the normal college student as there is nothing on the menu over $10.00.
The menu is more of a Tex-Mexican food selection with many popular items. The menu contains…
In honor of Small Business Saturday, I am featuring wonderful reasonable restaurants in New York City. Don’t miss the delicious baked goods and empanadas at this bakery! It’s worth the trip uptown.
The selection of baked goods at 5 Star Estrella Bakery is extensive.
I have been to 5 Star Estrella Bakery Corporation about ten times since my project, “MywalkinManhattan” has taken me to this part of the city. Washington Heights has all sorts of bodega’s and deli’s on every corner of the neighborhood but this one stands out. Everything here is very reasonable and delicious (See my reviews on TripAdvisor).
I have to admit that the baked goods can be a little hard later in the afternoon but the taste is still wonderful. I have had their vanilla and chocolate doughnuts and they are big, puffy rings with a thick layer of icing ($1.25). In the early morning, they have a soft pillowy consistency and in the afternoon, they can be a little harder but still good.
They have wonderful Pastellitos (similar to empanadas) filled…
In honor of Small Business Saturday, I am featuring all the small individually owned restaurants on my blog, DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com. These reasonable places won’t ‘break the bank’ when visiting New York City.
Barcelona’s in Garfield, NJ.
G’s Coffee Shop in Inwood, NY
Since the site has been created, the prices of food have gone ‘through the roof’ since COVID. So, I changed the price to $20.00. I have continued to look for quality restaurants and take out places that meet those standards. There are a lot of them out there.
My name is Justin Watrel and I created ‘Dining on a Shoe String in New York City’ (DiningonShoeStringinNYC.wordpress.com) as an extension to the blogs: ‘MywalkinManhattan’ (MywalkinManhattan.com) along with ‘VisitingaMuseum’ (VisitingaMuseum.com) and “LittleShoponMainStreet” (“LittleShoponMainStreet@Wordpress.com), in search of a delicious meal for $10.00 and under. It is difficult in an area as expensive as Metropolitan New York but many restaurant owners are paving the way with small, innovative menus at a fair price.
Lung Moon Bakery in Chinatown, NY
I created this blog when I discovered all these wonderful small restaurants, bodegas and bakeries that were fantastic both in that the quality of their food and the prices that they cost. I also looked at atmosphere and cleanliness of the establishment. Most cost under $10.00 (USA) for their main food items and provide small places to sit down and eat.
With everyone on a budget, I thought this would cater nicely to…
mywalkinmanhattan 