15th St Between 5th Ave and Union Square West

   

Leading into Union Square and ending at a impassable wall of trees and park space, 15th Street is a unique mixture of industrial, residential and commercial. Fancy buildings like 15 Union Square West sit shoulder to shoulder with older towers like the Spingler Building (named after Henry Spingler who was responsible for purchasing much of the land that is now Union Square in the 18th Century).

restaurants offices and stores. The south side, by comparison is a bit bland and desolate with a few rare exceptions. This segment of 15th Street can be easy to miss, especially since 14th and 17th, which are able to go around the park, are so close by, and so much more convenient.

5th Ave Between 18th St and 16th St

    

Equidistant from both the East River and the Hudson and lacking a subway line with which to escape, it's not unusual to feel a bit stranded on 5th Avenue. While there are still plenty of opportunities to shop, this segment of the avenue is not nearly as commercially-decadent as it is in midtown. Washington Square Park vaguely looms in the distance, though it's still a ways off.

For me, the real attraction in this area is the architecture. Harkening back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the buildings are endlessly impressive with their rich detailing and imposing stature. Unfortunately, to see most of these works of art, you have to direct your sights upward. The bases of these buildings are merely the beginning of more sculptural elements to come several stories above.

Park Ave Between 17th St and 19th St

   

Filled with stores and restaurants that feed off the residual crowds from Union Square, this part of Park Avenue is a markedly different from the blocks that exist further uptown. Lacking the high-end corporations that dot the landscape to the north, these few blocks borrow a lot from the surrounding Gramercy and Flatiron neighborhoods.

Anchored by the W hotel on the corner of 17th Street, the remainder of the block is filled with a mixture of restaurants, none of which could really be described as affordable. The buildings are a mixture of old and new – with the latter style sticking out more with a few "sore thumb" examples.

The first place I lived in New York was a dormitory on 23rd and 3rd at the School of Visual Arts. I remember thinking at the time that Union Square felt far away. Believe it or not, I would often contemplate taking the Subway instead of walking down this part of Park Ave. What a twit I was.

Madison Square Park

This week I decided to take advantage of Saturday's perfect weather and dedicate all the posts to a few choice Manhattan parks. Enjoy!

While stunning in its own right, it seems that Madison Square Park isn't so much defined by what's in it than by what's around it. Though certainly not as densely-packed with skyscrapers as the financial district or midtown, the number of iconic buildings which surround this humble 7-acre patch of grass is rather startling.

While the Flatiron building on the southwest corner may the best most famous amongst visitors, many locals more closely associate the park with the Met Life Tower & its massive (26.5 ft. in diameter) clock faces.  After being renovated in 1964, much of the original ornate renaissance-inspired detailing was removed or covered up by a new limestone facade. If you look at old photos of the tower you can see there seems to be a bit more going on than what we see today. In recent years it's been particularly well-known for being illuminated at night in a manner similar to the Empire State Building.

Also visible from the park are the New York Life Building – something that's hard to miss thanks to its gilded top – as well as the brand new One Madison Park, a sleek and slender condo development which rivals the Met Life Tower in height, but not elegance. Regardless what one may think of the new building, it undoubtedly continues the trend of bringing unique architecture to Madison Square.

The Park itself is usually rather serene with the exception of Shake Shack, which would have a line running down 23rd Street at 4 in the morning on a Tuesday in December if only it were open that late...or in the winter for that matter. However, the day I picked to visit also happened to be the Sikh Cultural Street Festival - so the park was overflowing with energy and colorful garments. Unfortunately for the hundreds (or thousands) who had gathered, the park had yet to open its large center lawn which forced everyone to the crowded pathways.

The park is well-known for hosting different art projects each year wich range from simple and sculptural to more conceptual; such as this year's Event Horizon installation. Event Horizon consists of 31 life-sized figures designed by Antony Gormley which sit around the neighborhood and on top of many buildings near the park. If you look closely you can see the figures staring down at you from above. It's like a big neighborhood-wide easter egg hunt.

While beautifully landscaped (originally by William Grant and Ignatz Pilat- who has ties to Olmstead who was responsible for Central Park), the park still feels rather bland in comparison to other green space around the city. Overall it simply feels flat and predictable. Whereas other parks – such as Carl Schurz Park, which I talked about yesterday – lend themselves to a sense of discovery and unrestrained nature, Madison Square Park feels like an afterthought with a few pathways brought in for good measure.

20th St Between 6th Ave and 5th Ave

Steps away from the scene of this month's transformer explosion, this stretch of 20th Street is full of random stores and restaurants. The block itself is drenched in shadow by the tall and boxy buildings that surround it. To the west, the very utilitarian 6th Avenue sits in stark contrast to the higher-end 5th Avenue on the other side. 

While not exclusively the same, many of the larger buildings here share the same monochromatic color scheme. This allows for some of the other structures to pop-out a bit more. But again, everything tends to be so dark that by the time you get to 5th Avenue, you're just happy to see the sun casting itself down the street once more.

21st St Between Park Ave and Broadway

A typical street in the Flatiron district, this block has a varied collection of storefronts and residential buildings. Thanks to Broadway cutting through the neighborhood, each of the streets around here are different lengths – getting shorter the further south you go. Even though it's right next to the fancy Gramercy neighborhood, there isn't anything particularly high-class about this block. 

Most of the buildings along this stretch are older, 10-20 story structures from early last century. The brick and stonework you can observe is particularly nice, especially over the doorways. There's more signs hanging out on the buildings than I've noticed on most other streets – I suppose there's just lots of commerce (and parking) to be had here.