City Walks Architecture: New York

By Alissa Walker and John Spelman

Packed with 25 walking adventures, this unique guide uncovers the Big Apple's most breathtaking buildings, parks, and monuments! Each page focuses on a specific area and features helpful background information, detailed walking instructions, a full-color map, and stunning photography. Covering both landmark structures and little-known wonders, this is the perfect gift for design-savvy travelers and adventurous locals alike.

Walks include:
Greenwich Village
Empire State Building
Central Park
World Trade Center Site
And more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chronicle Books Digital
• Release date: Jul 28, 2009
• ISBN: 9780811872997

Alissa Walker

Alissa Walker is a freelance writer who lives and works in Los Angeles.

Book preview

CITY WALKS ARCHITECTURE NEW YORK

NEW YORK ARCHITECTURE

From the sky-piercing Empire State Building on Fifth Avenue to a minuscule carriage house in a Brooklyn alley; from the sturdy Gothic arches of John Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge to the swooping curves of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum; from the modest pre-Revolutionary War St. Paul’s Chapel to the bold, sustainably designed One Bryant Park, New York is a study in architectural extremes.

New York is a place of new ideas, and its architecture is no exception. A walk through the city’s streets reveals a history of innovation as generations of visionaries have imagined the impossible—taller buildings, longer bridges, implementation of radical materials—and then made it reality. But New York also provides a glimpse of the future: world-class architects flock to this city for an opportunity to build cutting-edge creations before the world’s most riveted architectural audience.

As a result, New York’s architecture is a wonderful way to understand the story of the city—past, present, and future. Over more than 300 years, New York has been spread out, filled in, dug down, and built up many, many times over. It’s forever being graded, razed, paved, restored, reused, renovated, bought, sold, and rented. Considered in this light, every building feels remarkable in some way, whether it’s a survivor from another era, the first of its kind, or on a street filled with dozens of buildings exactly like it. And every building tells a story, of booms and busts, triumphs and defeats, and most of all, the pioneering spirit of this city’s citizens: architects, designers, artists, developers, and builders, forever determined to make New York the biggest, brightest, and most beautiful city on earth.

GETTING AROUND NEW YORK

Thanks to the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, most of Manhattan is laid out on an easy-to-navigate grid. Streets run east to west; avenues run north to south, with Fifth Avenue forming a rough centerline through the island. Below Houston Street, things get a little tricky, from the curved streets of Greenwich Village to the narrow colonial cowpaths on the tip of Lower Manhattan. In the other boroughs, it’s a different story. While some places, like Brooklyn Heights and Queens, adhere loosely to a grid, the rocky terrain of the Bronx and Staten Island yields hills, twisted roads, and even staircases. The city is generally safe, clean, and full of people at any time of day or night, but still, it’s best to keep your wits about you and always be aware of your surroundings.

The subway is one of New York’s greatest architectural masterpieces. From the iconic Gustavino-tiled archways to the sleek new design of its cars, the New York subway system is a marvel of engineering. Buy a Metro card at a ticket kiosk, which can be found in most stations. You may pay using cash or credit; loading the card with a higher monetary value will get you a discount (worth it if you’re staying for a few days), but you can always add more value to the card later. Maps and information may be found easily online (www.mta.info) or requested from any of the station operators. Buses—which also take Metro cards—are sometimes the best way to get across Manhattan; these routes are clearly mapped at subway stations. Ubiquitous yellow cabs are available for hire if the center roof panel is lit, and most are equipped to take credit cards (just ask your driver when you get inside). Water taxis, which can be found in some boat slips, are a fun way to travel between parts of Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn.

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (www.nyc.gov/html/lpc) offers great resources, including borough-wide maps, for locating the city’s historic districts and landmarks. While walking, look for brown signs on sidewalks and marker plaques on the sides of buildings, detailing historic district information. Additionally, neighborhoods often have their own wayfinding signage that highlights points of architectural interest. And many of the buildings and neighbor-hoods on these walks offer walking tours, either self-guided or conducted by employees, architectural historians, or longtime residents.

For further information, check out the following architectural organizations: American Institute of Architects Center for Architecture (www.aiany.org), Architectural League of New York (www.archleague.org), and Storefront for Art and Architecture (www.storefrontnews.org). In addition, the following Web sites feature conversations about current issues surrounding the city’s built environment: Wired New York (www.wirednewyork.com), Curbed (www.curbed.com), and the Architect’s Newspaper (www.archpaper.com). Finally, if you’re looking to plunge even deeper, invest in the Bible-like AIA Guide to New York City (Three rivers Press), which covers the city’s notable buildings almost block by block.

Standing on a crowded Lower Manhattan corner staring up at skyscrapers can be crushingly overwhelming. But stumbling upon a hidden Victorian on a Staten Island side street can be downright religious. The city’s scale is massive, but tiny details vie for your attention at every turn: look for stained glass, ironwork, ornamentation, statues, and lettering. A world of unexpected discovery awaits.

HOW TO USE THESE CARDS

Each of the 25 cards in this deck explains an important