Stone St Between Broad St and Whitehall St

    

When I set out to walk down this block, I had blindly selected it based on the fact that I had heard people talking about its unique outdoor cafe seating and cobblestone surface. Imagine my disappointment when I realized I had picked the wrong segment of Stone Street (the part everyone talks about is two blocks away). But, I had made my choice and went ahead and took photos of this depressing block.

The block is fairly typical of this neighborhood – towering buildings with decaying bases and dirty sidewalks. The rare moment of sunlight trickling through is immediately curtailed by either construction canopies or rows of parked trucks. Both ends of this block are dead ends with huge buildings blocking thru-traffic. Walking down it you almost feel like you're on a movie set (you know, the type where you can't see infinitely down the street, usually due to the impracticability of building a ridiculously-long set?) that's easily escapable.

Broad St Between South St and Pearl St

   

Surrounded by the constant whirr of landing helicopters, the blaring horns of Governor's Island ferries and the thunderous hum of idling buses, it didn't take much to convince me to begin walking away from South Street. Though the views of the ferry terminals and the Brooklyn Bridge is quite picturesque, the convergence of land, sea and air transportation is a tad overwhelming.

Walking north, you can feel the scale of the Financial District overtake your senses. The shadows creep inward and the horizon disappears. Long vertical lines make up newer sky scrapers while burly stone work makes up the older ones. A single block of buildings, bound by Water, Pearl and Broad streets remains untouched by modern developers. This row of 17th and 18th century buildings is almost comically misplaced amongst the towering monoliths that surround it. You feel like you're looking at, not a real city block, but a diorama created by some skilled craftsmen to illustrate the diversity of Manhattan – condensed into a single scene. Surely it couldn't be real.

Park Row Between Ann St and Spruce St

Ah Park Row – where government and commerce meet. City Hall, and the far-more-important J&R stores sit directly across from each other with only the triangular park as a buffer. I remember as a kid listening to Yankee radio broadcasts and hearing commercials for "J&R Music and Computer World" which would proudly end with "Located on Park Row, across from City Hall". At the time I didn't know where that was, how the street  was configured, or why City Hall would be in such a lame part of town that its neighbor would be an electronics retailer.

Years later I'm now well aware of Park Row's location in Manhattan, and have actually become quite a fan of the area. With the maze of streets that sprawl out behind J&R, the Brooklyn Bridge to the north, and of course City Hall and City Hall Park to the west, there's a lot of variety here. Taking up what appears to be 75 small storefronts, J&R is a megacomplex that occupies the majority of the block between Ann Street and Beekman St – only halting for a moment for Wienstein and Holtzman Hardware to peek its face through. Each instance of J&R sells a different category of products, so lord help you if you enter the wrong entrance.

Park Row itself is rather short with a myriad of twists and turns at its beginning and end. Down at the base, by St.Paul Chapel a series of turns and lights make it difficult for pedestrians to find their way without getting run over by bridge or FDR traffic.

Historically this used to be the place for the city's newspapers. It's also home to one of the very first "skyscrapers" (15 Park Row). Of course the presence of City Hall alone lends plenty of historical significance to the neighborhood. What often strikes visitors as strange is the fact that the City Hall building itself faces south – towards the Battery, and not much else. Meanwhile several miles of major New Yorkness sits behind it. What one needs to consider is that when it was built (in the early 19th Century – making it the oldest City Hall in the country) there wasn't much more than farmland north of Canal Street; the majority of the city was contained in what is now known as the Financial District, so that's the way it faced.

Ann St Between Nassau St and Park Row

I must admit, I didn't really know this street was even here. The whole maze that makes up this neighborhood makes it very easy to overlook entire areas. When you're standing on Park Row, this block seems to disappear into the background; and why wouldn't it? You have so many prominent landmarks surrounding you, what use is it to notice Ann Street? 

The block itself was a lot of fun to walk down. Full of incredibly narrow, yet tall buildings that cast uneven shadows on the ground. One third of the way down the street is Theater Alley, which Scouting NY had a great little write-up on recently.

Really, the key to this block is to keep your gaze skyward. Every rooftop and wall seems to have something unique to present. The street-level, by comparison, isn't all that much to look at.

Battery Pl Between State St and West St

With Bowling Green behind us, the sparsely populated Battery Place is a mostly-open concrete sidewalk. Sure, the park offers a respite to the south, but the sheer width of the space here makes it seem like almost a chore to make your way over there. Across the street, One Broadway lines the street with a series of great marine-inspried images. Previously owned by the International Mercantile Marine Company, the plaques surrounding the second floor list a series of ports-of-call, while two entrances on the ground floor are labeled "First Class" and "Cabin Class". 

Though significantly less ornate, the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel air shaft (which may also hold offices? Anyone?) is also a rather interesting building to look at. Perhaps better known from the movies as headquarters for the Men In Black, this is one of the more plain-looking air shafts around the city. I'm always amazed more attention isn't given to them, since they show up at every underground river crossing.

Before entering Battery Park City, a large, classic-looking building currently known as "Ocean" sits at 1 West Street. Claiming to be the "First address in Manhattan" (I didn't know addresses were necessarily ordered outside of their street numbers), the building is just over 100 years old. Digging in a little deeper I found that this was originally the Whitehall Building, and is landmarked. The taller building behind it is actually one in the same; known originally as Greater Whitehall, it was built only 5 years after the original structure since it had been such a big hit.

Trinity Pl Between Morris St and Rector St

I always feel bad for the people driving their cars around this area. The streets are such a confusing mess that one wrong turn could be taking you to Brooklyn instead of the east side. Likewise, walking around as a pedestrian is not picnic either. More than once I've found myself somehow stranded between streets, practically walking through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, and thus forcing my to wander through the Battery Parking Garage to get back on track. 

The various streets that run around here create for some unique sights, it's a shame there isn't much more than a bar or two around here. Working you way northward, a large and unsightly Syms store takes over one block while the back end of Trinity Church offsets it across the street.