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Walking Off the Big Apple
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New York walking journal, neighborhood guides, maps, lists of affordable hotels, and art reviews with entertaining commentary on the cultural life of the city.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'greenwich village'
My Augmented New York Unreality: Google Street View's Eerie Portrait of a New York Past
I'm experiencing a surreal and eerie flashback, because the images of Google Maps' Street View of my Greenwich Village neighborhood have become fascinatingly out of date. While opening Google maps the other day to update one of the self-guided walks ...
The Tenth Street Studio Building and a Walk to the Hudson River
The Tenth Street Studio Building at 51 W. 10th Street was demolished in 1956 to make way for an apartment building. Though not as high profile as the destruction of McKim, Mead, and White's Penn Station, the Greenwich Village building nevertheless he...
The Early Bird Gets the Picture of the Duck in the Fountain
From Summer 2009Morning larks in the city enjoy a rare peace and quiet that night owls frequently miss. Early Saturday morning, while out with the dogs in Washington Square Park, the big dog became obsessed with something in the fountain. So, 'twas a...
Opening Day at Washington Square Park: Thoughts and Images While Strolling
Around 8 a.m. on May 19, 2009, park workers started pulling down the chain fences surrounding the newly renovated sections of Washington Square Park, including its signature fountain, and early risers in the Village streamed in. Several were out on m...
Friday Night Lights, New York-Style, From the Village to the Hudson
In the opening chapter of Moby Dick, Herman Melville describes a common wanderlust among Manhattoes for the sea. Sometimes, however, for those of us raised among flatland and spread-out landscapes beyond New York, a walk to the river's edge comes not...
Starring New York: New York Films at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival
For those who enjoy depictions of New York on film, several movies in this year's Tribeca Film Festival (April 22-May 3, 2009) give New York a featured role. Though not surprising for a festival that was created to reinvigorate lower Manhattan in the...
A Day in the Village and on Fifth Avenue
Early this morning I walked around the Village with my dogs, returned them to the apartment, went back out, bought some hot cross buns at Bruno Bakery, and then checked out why a large contingent of firetrucks were arriving near Bleecker and Thompson...
The Lomo/Leica Walk
LOMO: Several years ago, around the spring of 2005, I got caught up in the Lomography craze. I bought one of the Colorsplash cameras, took a bunch of fun images with the interchangeable filters, and took the film (yes- FILM!) to the developers. I enj...
Straightening Out the Minettas
In Greenwich Village, on the east side of Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) between 3rd Street and Bleecker Street, several little nooks and corners of this area bear the name of Minetta, a reference to the trout-filled stream that once meandered...
Snow Day: Washington Square Park
From Winter 2009Some days are quiet in Greenwich Village, bespeaking the village origins of this community in lower Manhattan. The early mornings are almost always peaceful here, given over to runners and people walking their dogs, but gradually, the...
The Light in Edward Hopper: The Sunny Side of the Great Depression, and A Walk
Edward Hopper achieved fame relatively late in life, with his art career gaining momentum during the early years of the Great Depression. After years as a working artist, the Met, MoMA, and the Whitney started acquiring his paintings. Hopper turned 5...
The Light in Hopper: The Diner on Greenwich Avenue. Yes, That Diner
In the immediate weeks following Pearl Harbor, the attack that propelled the nation into World War II, Edward Hopper was busy painting a new canvas. He made several preparatory sketches for a scene at a diner. These sketches and studies included a se...
The Light in Hopper: The Years on Washington Square North
Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) lived at 3 Washington Square North, in what is commonly called "The Row," in Greenwich Village from 1913 until the day he died in 1967. He was almost 85, and presumably, he saw many changes during the co...
"Froze Right to the Bone:" A Musical Interlude with Bob Dylan
A little interlude while I prepare the next walk in the pre-Inauguration series. The references to the freezing cold in Greenwich Village seem particularly relevant right now. The song is "Talkin' New York," the second on Dylan's first album. A nice ...
The Strolling Year in Review 2008: Favorite Downtown Streets
In addition to my more adventurous walks in far-flung parts of New York, I routinely walk the streets in my own neighborhood of Greenwich Village in order to shop, dine, attend a meeting, run an errand, or walk the dogs. Many New Yorkers are accustom...
Beating the True Path to Greenwich Village (from Fifth Avenue)
Where there's a will there's a way. When extensive renovations to the fountain area and the northwest quadrant of Washington Square Park commenced last year, people who regularly walked between lower Fifth Avenue and the Village south of the park fou...
Casting a Vote at the Break of Dawn
I'm usually only one of a handful of people up and about in the early hours of a typical Greenwich Village morning. It's mostly just the few people who have no homes and who are waking up from their places in the park, the early morning types with do...
Contemporary African Art in Two NYU Galleries
I recommend seeing two exhibitions at NYU galleries, both located on Washington Square East, before they close in early December:The Poetics of ClothAfrican Textiles/Recent ArtGrey Art GalleryThrough December 6, 2008The Poetics of Cloth: African Text...
Chasing the Demons Away in a Village Full of Ghosts - The Village Halloween Parade 2008
This past week seemed busier than usual, with a myriad of social events, job tasks (I have four wonderful part-time writing and editing gigs, counting this one), and household duties - hosting a houseguest, dinner out at Gemma, a night of drinks at ...
Edgard Varèse Lived Here
Edgard Varèse (1883-1965), a French-born composer, moved into a house on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village with his wife Louise in 1925. He became an American citizen the following year. While he was alive, people strolling by the townhouse must ...
Weekend Frivolities: Making a Mask for Halloween, Part One
Recently, I noticed a sizable bump in hits on the perennial favorite Walking Off the Big Apple post, Weekend Frivolities DIY Edition: Venetian Masks. Of course, now with Halloween approaching, some people are looking for time-honored ways to make a f...
How to Prepare for Halloween 2008 in New York, and Why
Just look around you. Everyone is spooked in New York these days, especially in the Financial District (scared of falling stocks), in the hotel lobbies (scared of falling tourism), and in retail establishments (scared of falling sales). Also, spooks ...
The Changing Village, and the New Economy of Vintage Clothing and Donuts
When I'm not out pacing New York streets for the themed walks on this website, I routinely walk closer to home in and around the area south of Washington Square Park. It's remarkable how things are changing now along LaGuardia Place, Thompson, Sulliv...
Homage to Pâte à Choux: French Pastry South of 14th Street
I need a little break from New York of 1900, the subject of many recent posts, as I've been deep into research and buried under antiquarian books. So my thoughts naturally turn to pastry. The walking excursions into the École des Beaux-Arts and the ...
Harvey Wiley Corbett and the E. 8th Street Apartments
When the scaffolding in front of the apartment buildings along E. 8th and University Place (4-26 East 8th Street) was removed recently, the restoration revealed a structure very different from the styles of other buildings around it. Standing out fro...
Village Gothic: The Allure of Downtown at Night (A Slideshow)
For reasons unclear to me, I was compelled to take a stroll through the West Village at dusk yesterday evening. Inspired by the atmospheric colors of the setting of the sun, I wandered west on W. 4th, turned south on the Avenue of the Americas, and t...
Twenty Pairings of a Fine Bookstore or Library with a Nearby Café
While I've grown dependent on a laptop and iPhone, I'm sick of looking at laptops and phones on tables in cafés, even mine. I'd rather look at a cup of coffee, a spoon, a plate with pastry, and a book. I'm nostalgic for the company of people reading...
