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Walking Off the Big Apple
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Walking journal and art reviews by a Texas-born New York resident with entertaining commentary on the cultural life of the city.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'neighborhoods'
Walking Off the Lower East Side: Orchard Street Highlights
After reeling from the shock of construction sites along Orchard St. just south of E. Houston, as noted in the previous post, I calmed down long enough to enjoy the less disrupted blocks farther south...
A Walk in NoLita, Sometimes Speaking French
To get to the New Museum of Contemporary Art on the Bowery from where I live in the Village I walk through the precious neighborhood of NoLita. I say "precious," because this neighborhood North of Lit...
A Walk in Turtle Bay: Beekman Place, the U.N., Tudor City, and E. 42nd St.
I recommend that visitors to New York, if they have time, should escape the more manic tourist attractions to discover quieter parts of the city. It's not only nice to get away from the crowds, for a ...
Checklist for a Busy Week: Hair Stylist, Canal Street, a Film Symposium
The events of the upcoming week can conspire to do me in, but I'm assembling forces of angels to help me out. Beginning this Wednesday, my spouse (a.k.a. the colonel) will host 300 people at a nearby ...
Establishing Shots: The Tribeca Film Festival & 2008 Festival Highlights
"Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man."- Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver (1976)After the attacks of...
The Tribeca of Duane: Duane Street and Duane Park
On my walks through Tribeca last week, I found that my head and feet propelled me toward Duane Park, whether I liked it or not. This particular triangular streetscape, with its little well-groomed isl...
Tribeca's Most Tripped-Out Vista
Whoa...This afternoon, after spending most of my time wandering Tribeca's pretty cobbled streets and looking at nineteenth century manufacturing buildings, I walked west on Duane Street, through Wash...
Tribeca Living: A Building for Chocolate and One for the Wool Trade
The Powell Building (1892) at 105 Hudson Street (at Franklin St.), shown on the left, was designed by Carrere & Hastings, the architects of the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Str...
In Search of the Lower West Side: Before Tribeca
I've started to collect older guidebooks to New York so I can understand shifting perspectives on the city. Guides published in earlier decades provide an excellent window on how visitors understood N...
Walking Off Tribeca and Remembering Mostly Lunch
When I returned from my long walk and lunch in Tribeca today, I felt over-stimulated but more tired than usual. Traveling can be both stimulating and exhausting at the same time. Beyond the physical d...
Walking Off Tribeca: The Lay of the Land
One of the oldest sections of Manhattan and part of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, the area now know as Tribeca was originally a fruit and produce market, a shipping center, and a hub of the city'...
Walking Off Tribeca: Starting at Square One
The Square Diner at the corner of Leonard and Varick in Tribeca smells of strong coffee and a hot griddle full of pancakes. Housed in one of the last authentic rail cars, with a ceiling of handsome wo...
Coming Next Week: Walking Off Tribeca
For the next two weeks on Walking Off the Big Apple, beginning Monday, March 10 and continuing through Saturday, March 22, I am going to walk around and write about Tribeca. In the first of several fo...
University Place: Pedestrian, Yes, But in a Good Way (A Photo Essay)
University Place, a relatively short street in lower Manhattan, links Washington Square Park to the south with Union Square to the north. A thoroughfare frequented by NYU students, neighborhood reside...
Lost in the West Village? So Eat
View Larger MapLast week I walked down E. 4th Street and noticed that the color red dominated the visual landscape. Walking on W. 4th the palette veers to the blues, greens, and teals. The cool colors...
A New York Giants Mardi Gras: Awash in a Sea of True Blue
After voting in the late morning I spent an hour walking west around Bleeker Street and then up and east over to Astor Place. I expected to see plenty of people out and about carrying Obama and Hillar...
Monday Morning Quarterbacking, and The Flâneuse of Death
As I write this post on Monday morning, I see a mixture of large snowflakes and blowing rain coming down hard outside the window. What a contrast from yesterday's bounteous warm sunshine! At least ...
Not Letting a Beautiful Day Go to Waste
After a stretch of gloomy days, the bright sun and warmer temperatures drew thousands of New Yorkers out of doors today.The surprise gift of a beautiful day served as a way to open many conversations....
Seeing Red, the Color, on East 4th Street
The other day, as I was walking along E. 4th Street in the East Village, I kept seeing the color red everywhere. Today, just to prove to myself I wasn't hallucinating, or projecting Bolshevism upon th...
WOTBA's Famous Neighbors and Their Politics
I often pass famous people walking down the street. Just in the past year, I have seen Sam Shepard, Jessica Lange, Moby, Mario Batalli, Tim Robbins, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Ethan Hawke, Manny Patin...
Strolling Through the Home Improvement District
New Yorkers are like people living in the hinterlands in the sense that we, too, need to make trips to the home improvement stores. I'm talking your Home Depots, your Bed, Bath, and Beyonds. I am part...
Preparations for The British Invasion Walk
Many New Yorkers have spent much of the last 400 years trying to keep British subjects* uneasy about settling here. Even with the first encounter in 1609 the indigenous peoples of this area greeted En...
New York Walks Addenda
Chelsea and West Village Walking: Specific Observations
Walking to Chelsea Is Not Impossible
