this year's edition of the manhattan challenge (in which joe and i take the subway up to 220th street and the henry hudson bridge and walk the island, north to south) was more leisurely than our previous walks; we got started hours later than we usually do, and our pit stops (at earl's beer & cheese, sakagura, and a sunglasses stand on st. mark's) were splashier. we passed three sidewalk domino games instead of our customary two. we discovered the greatest fountain in all of manhattan. we learned that the guys who fish down at battery park all day do not go home empty handed, as we always assumed - they catch sea monsters.
we moved to manhattan nine years ago today. i have no doubt we'll be here nine years from now.
17 comments:
What a great thing to do, especially on your anniversary of moving to the city.
I wish that I still lived there.
Will you ever walk one of the Boroughs? Grand Concourse has its moments.
it would be hard to know where to start and stop in boroughs which have non-watery borders, but i'd certainly be open to it. my knowledge gaps with the bronx are particularly huge; i've been meaning to run around out there for years now (i've heard that before about the concourse - joe was making noise about looking for an apartment out there long ago).
Fantastic fountain.
I like to think of this annual walk as your couple's board meeting.
And again, your annual trek inspires me to set a date for D and myself to walk from DTLA to SM. They do an official one each year and we miss it everytime. Also, given my extreme annoyance with poor walkers (slow, drifters, random stoppers) I'd probably do better on a less crowded one.
Do you plan your stops ahead of time or do you just choose whatever looks appealing in the moment?
that thing dangling from the left claw is satan's decapitated head. why did it take me nine years to find this fountain?
it would be pretty rough trying to do the walk with lots of other people, i bet. we've thought about bringing people along over the years, but you have to be very sure there's a common pace agenda.
this was the first time we didn't stop for brunch at toast, which is up on broadway just north of columbia and almost exactly a hundred blocks into the walk (which is when one starts feeling the need to congratulate oneself with eggs florentine and/or beer). joe decided early on to switch it up and aim for earl's this year (earl's is usually WAY too crowded, so we thought giving it a try at four on a saturday was good strategy), and then the fancy beers at earl's inspired the pilgrimage to sakagura ("i think this year i don't need to end this walk quickly or completely sober," joe mused).
result: earl's had room for us and was awesome, but it is in fact a bit too far south and east to be the ideal brunch stop. one hungers after the hundo.
that sounds about right.
Also, that is MY STATUE/FOUNTAIN. You can't have it.
i should've known you were hoarding.
I hoard very few things, but I'm touchy about them; I expect you know this, being one of them yourself.
I walked from 104th down Broadway to somewhere in the 20s once. Close as I ever came to the true perambulation. NYC is its very own thing. I hope I get to visit soon. I hope you had a good walk.
wait, i thought you hated brunch? has nyc changed you?
also, have you considered adding the marble hill neighborhood to your manhattan walk? it's attached the bronx now but is technically manhattan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Hill,_Manhattan) i used to visit the kennedy high school campus up there for work. awful, depressing building, but amazing views of the hudson from the 8th floor. plus, this gives me a chance to plug the wonderful time capsule that is loeser's deli on 231st street, one of only two remaining kosher delis in the bronx.
i still hate brunch in most contexts; if i had to queue for brunch at toast i probably wouldn't be up for it. as we tend to hit 125th street at two in the afternoon or so, the brunch stalwarts have generally cleared out.
we tend to go by manhattan-the-island rather than manhattan-the-region, but who knows? we really do need to poke around the bronx.
clearly you were not ready fir satan's decapitated head until now.
My old boss used to wax poetic about the sense of space and vistas on the Grand Concourse. She introduced me to the area, so I've always seen it in that light. There are also a lot of good views from up there.
Also, if you're interested in doing some Bronx exploring, Sustainable South Bronx runs a walking tour of their area called the "Toxic Tour," which is very interesting.
MINE.
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