*Walking Manhattan is what my friends and I call a walk we took in 2015.  It's the longest walk I have ever taken in the city. We had read about people (usually very young people) walking the entire length of the island.  It seemed completely do-able since Manhattan is only 13 miles long.  On an August day, we donned hats and tennis shoes and set out for the 215th St subway stop on the very upper west side of Manhattan. We followed Broadway the entire way down the island. The most surprising part of our trip to me was that when we reached 96th Street we were only about half way.  It took us 9 hours to walk all the way to Battery Park.  Of course, we stopped along the way for lunch and took bathroom breaks (finding public restrooms was the most difficult part of the entire trek).  Finally at the end, we rested on the benches in Battery Park looking out at Lady Liberty and then took a taxi to Madison Square Park where we splurged guilt-free on Shake Shack burgers and fries.  If you want to take this walk, wear good tennis shoes, a hat, and start out early.  You will never forget it!

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Bowery Boys Walks: New York City History Walking Tours All kinds of historical walking tours that include neighborhoods, food, and the Brooklyn Bridge. In March 2023 we took their tour of the Brooklyn Bridge with Kriss Roebling who is the great great grandson of Emily and Washington Roebling.

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9-11 Memorial and Museum  (180 Greenwich Street)

The memorial is very impressive and moving. I had not been interested in touring the museum until I read Garrett M. Graf's THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY: An Oral History of September 11, 200, and then I decided there might be more to the museum than I had thought. I'm so glad I went! It's a wonderful tribute to all the heroes of 9/11 and it's a good chronological account of everything that happened that awful day. There's so much to learn.

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Roosevelt Island (59th St at 2nd Ave)

A metro card swipe gets you in the tram that will take you across the East River onto Roosevelt Island where you can walk to its southern tip and see the monument to the island's namesake FDR and Four Freedoms Park.  On the walk, you'll pass the spooky, decaying remnants of a smallpox hospital from back in the day when this island was known as Blackwell's Island and when its main purpose was to house the sick and mentally ill.  It was at a women's mental hospital on this island that Nellie Bly, the newspaper reporter, went undercover and exposed the ill treatment of these patients.  There's a lighthouse at the northern tip and a portion of an old building that has been renovated, The Octagon. Benches line much of the west side of the island, a perfect spot to sit at dusk and watch the lights of Manhattan flicker to life.

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Big Onion Walking Tours

I have taken one of these tours and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I took the Original Multi-Ethnic Eating Tour which toured the Lower East Side with stops along the way to sample foods from the early days of immigration.

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*AIA and the Center for Architecture Tours

My friends and I took an architectural boat tour that circumnavigated Manhattan.  Expert guides lectured on the architecture, infrastructure, and urban planning of the city. AIA offers other types of tours. Highly recommend!

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Governor's Island

This is on my list to check out.  

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My Lower East Side Walking Tour

The LES is rich in history since it's the part of the island that was settled first.  As immigrants came to this country through Ellis Island, they often stopped here to settle, with big plans to move out eventually.  As a result, this part of Manhattan has been populated with Italians, Irish, Russian Jews, Chinese, and Koreans. To this day it is a rich cultural area and shouldn't be missed.  I created this walking tour in order to see some historic buildings and shops I had read about.  It includes food so what's not to love?  Here are the sites on my tour.

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• Lower East Side Tenement Museum (103 Orchard) Get tickets ahead and plan to arrive early for a viewing of the film which is about 30 minutes; great place to start since you'll see how and where the early immigrant to Manhattan's LES lived

• The Pickle Guys (357 Grand St)

• Russ and Daughters (179 E Houston St)

• Katz's Deli (205 E Houston) Lunch stop! They give you a ticket when you enter.  Hang on to that ticket!! You'll need it to check out.

• Yonah Schimmel's Knishery (137 E Houston) Save room to try a knish at this famous, old Jewish bakery

• Essex Market (88 Essex St)

• Economy Candy (108 Rivington St) Incredible candy shop!

• Ferrara Bakery (195 Grand St)

• Di Palo's Fine Foods (200 Grand St)

• Bowery Restaurant Supply (183 Bowery)

• John Varvatos (315 Bowery) This upscale men's shop is in the old CBGB blub of the 60's.  The walls have been preserved. 

• John Derian (6 E 2nd St) Three lovely shops in a row

• Bonnie Slotnick Vintage Cookbooks (28 E 2nd St) Vintage cookbooks galore; check on shop hours.

• McSorley's Old Ale House (15 E 7th St) Oldest continuously operated Irish pub in the city; they double your beer order so beware!

• Cooper Union (30 Cooper Square)

• Gramercy Park (20th St bet park and 3rd Ave) You can enter the park only with a key but you can look through the iron gates to get an idea of what it's like.

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