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What is New York?
To tourists, it’s the Empire State Building, Times Square, Central Park, and Ground Zero. To Columbia students, it’s pricey textbooks, pricier drinks, and free admission to museums. But students all too often explore the broader city only half-heartedly. On Saturday, two roommates took the first step toward eliminating that half-heartedness. We walked from the northernmost tip of Manhattan (225th Street) to the southernmost tip (Battery Park).
11:45 a.m.
Beginning at 225th Street, we embark on a trek totaling 13.4 miles as the crow flies, 15 accounting for crosstown travel. We’re surprised to learn that the borough is not confined to Manhattan Island—a tiny portion is actually on the mainland by the Bronx.
The picturesque, bustling Marble Hill seems more crowded than Morningside Heights even though there are fewer people: so many stores and awnings overlap with bright colors and clashing messages.
The Broadway Bridge takes us over the Harlem River into Inwood, and we stroll down Broadway.
12:20 p.m.
The entrance to Fort Tryon Park appears on our right, and Maggie clambers onto a stone pillar bearing the park’s name. At 175th Street, we stop at a street fair to buy sunglasses for a buck each.
A few blocks further, we spot an incredibly fat cat in the doorway of a corner store and stop to pet it. A Hispanic man comes up and stares at the cat, stunned by its weight. “Cat? You not a cat, you puma,” he says in broken English. “In Peru, where I from, we eat cat!”
Around 150th Street, we stop at a Mister Softee truck. It’s a chocolate cone for Maggie and a fluorescent strawberry shortcake bar for Melanie.
We’ve been walking up a hill for several blocks now. It’s not steep, but it’s long, and our feet are beginning to ache.
1:30 p.m.
We sit down outside a police precinct to rest and reapply sunblock. “When we get to 110th, we’ll be halfway done!” Wisconsinite Melanie says brightly.
But Maggie quickly disabuses her of the notion that Manhattan ends at 1st Street.
Melanie is not pleased: “Can we pretend it does?”
We’re tired and hungry, so we resolve to keep walking until we reach campus and then stop at Pinnacle for lunch. We pass the 100-block mark at 125th Street without even noticing.
2:30 p.m.
We reach 115th Street and collapse into chairs on the overheated upper level of Pinnacle, where we scarf down pizza. At 3, we rise grudgingly from our seats, tighten our shoelaces, and resume walking.
Somehow, when we thought about the trip beforehand, those unfamiliar blocks from 225th to 116th streets blurred to the point that we almost failed to account for them in our anticipation of how long the route would be.
At 110th Street we turn and make our way over to Central Park West where we cut through the northwest corner of the park and discover a sunny, grassy nook near 109th Street. We resolve to return with homework and stake it out as a study spot.
Descending through the Upper West Side, we pass a 30-something man with his six- or seven-year-old daughter.
Snippet of conversation:
Daughter: “Why not?”
Father: “Because I’m going to be really mean and I feel like not giving it to you.”
It’s that time of day. But we doubt the father has the excuse of feet as sore as ours are by now.
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