The Boulevards of Dreams

Broadway is easily the most famous thoroughfare in NYC. Overflowing from Westchester and running from the most northern spot of the Bronx to the most southern tip of Manhattan, Broadway ties Manhattan and the whole city together, giving all New Yorkers and visitors a sense of direction, a constant North Star.

But as important as Broadway is to the identity and movement of the city, it is not the most impressive artery in NYC. 

In the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, you can find major avenues that are more than roads but less than highways. They are marvels of city planning and building, amazing examples of NYC at its best -- places that belong not only to vehicles but also to people. 

In the Bronx, the Grand Concourse traverses 5.2 miles of the borough running from 138th street in Mott Haven up to the Mosholu Parkway in Bedford. Sometimes called the "Park Avenue of the Bronx," it has also been compared to the Champs-Elysees in Paris -- a wide, long, beautiful street. It is populated with Art Deco buildings and other impressive structures, and was originally envisioned as a home for middle class NYC. It fell on hard times in the 1960s and '70s but has since had a rennaissance of new housing. The Grand Concourse is the glory of the city's most northern borough. 

In Queens, Northern Boulevard is not quite as gorgeous or symbolic but is impressive nonetheless. It is, in fact, a highway, but doesn't always look or feel like it. Northern Boulevard starts at the westernmost part of Queens, at the mouths of the Queens-Midtown tunnel and Queensboro Bridges, and cuts straight through the entire borough. While stretches of its resemble a highway, it also goes through many neighborhoods of the city -- like Long Island City, Woodside, Jackson Heights, Corona, Bayside, and others -- where apartment buildings, stores, subways stops, and all the signs of city life exist. Queens is a vast, unwieldy borough but Northern Boulevard gives it a sense of order. It runs for over 73 miles, out of Queens and through Nassau and into Suffolk counties. But it is in NYC that Northern Boulevard gets its character. 

You haven't really experienced Brooklyn, you can't really "know Brooklyn", until you've gone down Eastern Parkway. And the "park" part of "parkway" really is just that -- designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux, they envisioned it as being an extension of Prospect Park, the park hitting the road (it was the first "parkway" in America, hence the name). It starts at Grand Army Plaza and runs through Crown Heights, ending in East New York near the Evergreens Cemetary. There are lots and lots of trees on the avenue, and many impressive buildings and structures along Eastern Parkway, including the Brooklyn Museum, the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. What's most amazing about it is whole massive and intimate it feels, how it is both at the heart of city life but also has a real park-like feel. It is Brooklyn's most amazing street. 

New York City was built by people who envisioned the city as a gift to itself, a place that its people would not only live in but also enjoy. These great thoroughfares live up to the promise of NYC, the city of dreams, and show how dreams can often be realized here -- literally, on the streets.