Manhattan End-to-End via #1

Let's take a little trip. Let's travel from one end of Manhattan to the other.

Let's traverse this narrow thirteen-mile island that fascinates and captures the imaginations of peoples around the world.

And let's do it via the #1 subway line, noting the most signficant stops along the way, subway stations that are more than just various gateways into Manhttan -- they are portals into American culture, history, and power. 

Now there's something important to remember: Manhattan technically extends beyond Manhattan Island. There is a small neighborhood just north of the island called Marble Hill that is legally part of the Borough of Manhattan. So as we look north from the bottom of Marble Hill, we can look north towards the Bronx.

Then we turn around and see  the northern tip of Manhattan island as well as the bridge with the crosswalk and subway tracks that will take us into it.

Now we'll go upstairs to the Marble Hill 225th Street station and take a look at the subway route on the #1 that we'll be following (as well as map of the geographic route we'll be crossing).

Now the train has rattled into the station, we get on and sit down, and we're off!

After a few stops we hit 181th street street. This is where we'll find the George Washington Bridge. Dubbed "the world's busiest bridge," this northern-most expanse connects the city to the rest of America, with cars flowing in and out of NYC and the rest of the continent. It's also, apparently, a popular place for some lost souls to end their lives -- sometimes to dark, comic effect. 

Few more stops and we hit 137th street and City College. 

This public college in the heart of Harlem is one of the great institutions for American learning. For over a century, poor kids from all over NYC could go to City College and pursue the American dream. The students and graduates of City are extraordinary: ten Nobel Prize winners, mayors, Supreme Court justices, US Senators and Secretaries of State, Oscar-winners, Emmy-winners, Pulitzer Prize-winners, astronauts and founders of big companies, and so many more! Heck, even fictional people have gone to City College: Gordon Gekko from Wall Street and Don Draper from Mad Men most notably.

Also, it's where both of my parents worked for almost 40 years, met, fell in love, and produced Mr NYC.

One more stop and we're in Harlem, above ground, at 125th Street.

What else can I say about Harlem, the capital of the black American experience, where great black artists and pioneers lived and worked. Also, it's also one of the hearts of American culture with Apollo Theater and the Cotton Club.

One more stop and we're at 116th street and Columbia University.

One of the seven Ivy League Universities, this institution of higher learning pre-dates the United States itself, originally chartered in 1754 by King George II (hence the original name King's College). Besides being a great and famous university, Columbia has been a site for brilliance and controversy, where great minds have flowered and fought over decades. 

Now we chug down past several stops on the Upper West Side to 66th street and Lincoln Center. 

Home to ballet, opera, symphonies, musicals and plays, Lincoln Center is the multi-theater complex that, along with Broadway, defines NYC as the cultural capital of America. While encompassing only a few small blocks, its impact across America is massive -- including the many performances that are broadcast from there. I have personal recollections of performing at Lincoln Center and have blogged about it a lot -- including my own experience in partaking in a live broadcast. 

One more stop and we're all 59th Street and Columbus Circle.

The site of the big memorial to Christopher Columbus, it is one of the crossroads of Manhattan, with different avenues intersecting and hugging the lower southwest portion of Central Park. It is also, to my knowledge, the only traffic circle in all over NYC. And these days it is now home to the massive Time Warner building that looms over it.

Two more stops and we're in the most square in all the world -- Times Square. 

Dubbed the "Crossroads of the World" it is the very center of American culture, bedecked with electronic billboards, Broadway theaters, massive chain restaurants -- for many it is New York City, the heart of the heart of it all. And, obviously, it's where the world celebrates New Year's every year.

A quick one-stop and we're at Penn Station on 34th street -- or Pennsylvania Station as it's officlally known.

If the George Washington Bridge is the city's businest car-route into America, Penn is the easily the busiest railway route. Amtrak, New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Railroad all go through it, a central hub that connects the outer-edges of Long Island to the West Coast of the United States.

Penn Station also has a tortured history -- the once gorgeous station was torn down in the 1960s and replaced by a dingy undeground hovel. In the last twenty-years it has been dramatically rebuilt and re-imagined, a vast improvement of what it was but a sad reminder of what we could have had if we had only preserved the original. Hey, at least the new Penn Station now has a Dunkin' Donuts!

Now we go down several stops and hit Christopher Street -- Stonewall Station. 

Christopher Street is actually a quiet, beautiful area of Greenwich Village but it is now of the iconic birth place of American gay rights movement. On June 28th, 1969, right after the death of gay icon Judy Garland, the Stonewall Inn was raided by cops -- and for the first time, gay people fought back. It took decades for gay rights to be enshrined into American culture and law but it has triumphed mightly. And it all started on this small block of Manhattan.

Our journey is almost over but we have one more stop until the end -- the World Trade Center.

Of course it used to be the World Trade Centers -- until September 11, 2001 when it became Ground Zero, then, after an extensive rebuilding, One World Trade Center. 

The story of this patch of Lower Manhattan is one of great triumph and tragedy in American history, where George Washington celebrated his victory in the American Revolution and where American was also brutally attacked two centuries later. It's the symbol of American financial power and dominance. Its where Manhattan and NYC began and where it grew out from. It is the complicated heart and soul of the world's greatest nation and its greatest city.

 

And now we come of the end of our journey. We reach the South Ferry-Whitehall Station aka. the Battery, and we pop up out of our seat and go upstairs into the very southern edge of Manhattan. 

We're right across the street from the entraces to the Governor's Island and Staten Island Ferrys, and we can see (and smell) the vastness of New York Harbor, the watery gateway to city and the force that unites the five boroughs. 

And then we walk down a few blocks, turning to look uptown to see where we came from ...

... and then we look down to the southern tip of Manhattan with the rest of NYC and America beyond it.

I hope you've enjoyed this trip along the #1 subway line, seeing the amazing stops and spots of Americana along the way. You can do it yourself in just under and hour. And I hope, maybe, that you learned something!

Mr NYC in Milan & Italy

The thing about Italy is that, like all great places, it isn't just one place or one thing. There are so many parts of Italy that are so distinct and special, so unique unto themselves -- cities like Rome, Naples, Florence, Naples, Turin, Venice and others; areas like Tuscany, Lombardi, Sicily and others -- that visiting just one of them is an amazing experience unto itself. 

And, of course, NYC and Italy have many historical links. 

Of course, a big reason why Italy is so diverse and fascinating is that for roughly 1500 years -- after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and the unification or "risorgimento" in the 19th century -- Italy as a country didn't exist. It was a collection of small kingdoms, duchies, city states, and republics -- and thus each city and region fashioned its own identiy.

I've visited Venice and Rome multiple times but, until recently, had only spent one night in the city of Milan. That changed last month when I visited the city for almost a week -- first for work, then for fun, with my wife. We had an amazing time and here I'll tell you all about it!

First, a few things to understand about Milan. It's very far north, very close to the Swiss border, and it's not only the biggest city in all of Italy but it's one of the biggest cities in all of Europe. It's also really rich, one of the biggest banking, fashion, and chemical capitals of the word. There's even a couple of jokes about this -- "For every church in Rome, there's a bank in Milan" and "Milan works so the rest of Italy doesn't have to."

While Milan has an ancient history, its doesn't have quite the same feeling of antiquity that Rome obviously does. Milan lives in the future. But it's still replete with history and we saw a lot of it.

The center of the city, what "ties it together", is the Duomo Cathedral. A massive structure, the Duomo is the biggest cathedral in Italy -- except for St. John's Basilica in Vatican City, technically not Italy -- and all the rest of Europe. It took 600 years to build -- between the 1300s and the 1900s -- and you can see why: it is the most ornate, intricately designed house of worship that you'll ever see. It's drench withed marble statues, beautifully carved, on the walls of Duomo and on the top of the cathedral -- that you can visit and that also provides amazing views of the square and city beyond the Duomo. We spent a long time there and this is what we saw: 

Across from the Duomo, as you can see, is the King Victor Emmanuelle statue and the entrance to the Galleria which has lots of high-end stores. After we walked around the Duomo and the Galleria, we treated ourselves to a lovely Aperale Spritz:

That night we went to a ballet at the world famous La Scala Theater. It was under construction when we got there but, along the way, we saw a beautiful LED exhibit and headquarters for the 2026 Winter Olympics which will be held in Milan:

In fact, as the wife and I were crossing the street toward La Scala, a young guy behind us asked if we were American and, when we said we were, he excitedly told us that he was from East Flatbush, Brooklyn and was in Milan visiting a friend -- small town, small world!

Then we saw the ballet that consisted of three seperate pieces choreogrpahed, ironically, by Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine of the New York City ballet. Here's the program of the show we saw as well as the stunning interiors of La Scala (from our nosebleed seats):

Next day, we went to the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie to see one of the most famous paintings in the world -- the Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci. Along the way, we saw some lovely architecture and an interesting little fountain:

Painted on the wall of the church, Da Vinci created the Last Supper between 1494-1498. You shoud read about it at the link above but a few interesting things to note about this painting: 1) Because it's painted on a wall, many people think the Last Supper is a "fresco" but it's not -- it's a "deco" or a mural. A fresco is something painted on wet plaster, which means it's captured and dried, much like a photograph. A mural is painted on dry wall -- like the Last Supper was. 2) You'll notice, in looking at the painting, that almost everything is grouped in threes and that Jesus himself looks like a triangle. This represents the Holy Trinity -- Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It's a stunning painting and, according to our tour guide, his greatest painting ever, even better than the Mona Lisa in Paris.

The church protects the Last Supper like a nuclear warhead -- it's in a air-controlled room, only a few people can visit it at a time for about 15 minutes, and you can go to through a few rooms before you get access to it. Also, there's another painting across from it, The Cruxification by Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, that is also an amazing thing:

Also, during World War II, Milan was heavily bombed by the Allies. The Last Supper was protected by a whole bunch of sandbags that kept it safe. In addition, there's a lovely little garden behind the church is a fountain with a some frogs that, our guide told us "No kissa, no prinza."

That afternoone was visited the stunning Sforza Castle. It was built by the family the ruled Milan in the 15th century and it's a huge fortress with massive battlements, courtyards, and walls:

On our last day, we visited the funky, vibrant, artistic neighborhood of La Brera -- it's like a Soho, Williamsburg, Upper West Side place -- full of culture, history, good food, and highly walkable. While there, we visited the Palazzo Brera which is a big building full of art academies and cultural institutions. It also has a beautiful garden in the back that was built by the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa in 1775 when Milan was part of the Habsburg Empire:

And, nearby, we also found another cute little church:

As you can see, there's so many fascinating and beautiful things to see in Milan that it's hard even to comprehend it all. Just so you also know, Milan has a really great Metro system, it's a super easy city to get around. 

Finally, the food! We ate two really great meals in Milan that signify everything that's great about Italy -- the nouvelle restaurant 28 Posti where we ate a delicious tasting menu (and where we met a lovely couple from Chicago who were having a last big trip before the expected birth of their child in 2025) and the Boeucc, an amazing place that's been in business for 1696 -- it's older than the country of Italy itself! We had a dinner than included an incredibly good truffle pasta -- super good!

And then we left. Back to NYC. Just so you know, the airport is quite far from the city of Milan -- it's an hour by train. It's always painful to be in a train station in Italy because you can see all the amazing cities that are just one ride away, and it's tempting not to just hop onto one of them and go to Venice, Verona or so many other places:

But Milan is a great place and totally worth seeing. 

I've been to Italy a few times now but, as indicated earlier, mostly in Venice and Rome. As a kid I spent some time in Florence and saw the David Statue and the Duomo there but I haven't been back since. One day I shall return there and also go to many other great places in Italy. And, when I do, I'll be sure to blog about it all here!