69th St Between 1st Ave and York Ave

A street with little to offer, the majority of this block is currently under construction (presumably for more hospital facilities - this neighborhood is littered with them). Aside from a church, a pizza place and a McDonald's there's practically nothing here to entice you.

Since York Avenue is the furthest east you can go at this point, the street is a literal dead-end. The New York Presbyterian Hospital sits as a monolithic structure at the end- blocking any views of the East River, Roosevelt Island, or Queens. That isn't to say it's not a handsome building. It is. In fact, many (though certainly not all) of the health care facilities around here are rather interesting.

75th St Between Park Ave and Lexington Ave

Anytime one veers towards Park Avenue, you can be pretty certain the type of street you'll encounter. Most often it's a mono-chromatic stretch of condos and apartments with doormen who give you the evil eye when you take a few pictures. This particular block is a bit better than that. 

While there's certainly your normal share of bland stone-front buildings, this block has a bit more variety than I'm used to. There was a very friendly doorman about halfway down the block (I can't remember his name, or what building he worked for) who made some suggestions as to what might be interesting to take some photos off – certainly a breath of fresh air from some of the typical reactions I get.

1st Ave Between 74th St and 72nd St

Like many of the other posts this week, I went down here early in the morning - before rush hour - and was intrigued by the people I encountered. Many, if not all those that I saw had an air of accomplishment and purpose as they walked- as if they all belonged to some special 'pre-dawn' club. The nature of commuting in Manhattan in the morning creates a flow, a stream of people into the centers of commerce - in midtown and downtown. When one reaches the outer edges of the island such as around here, every person is fighting to go the same way, to catch the same bus, to hail the same cab. The occasional individual going east, or north has to fight an endless barrage of bodies as they struggle past the iPodded masses. 

There are some really great street-level examples of architecture here, and despite the large glass towers taking over, it's still quite charming and filled with the feeling of 'neighborhood'. Up here I encountered a second 'Hands On' toddler music studio...something I had previously found on 50th Street. I can't say I know anything about this company first-hand, but I think it's a fantastic idea. My journey for today's post took from south from 74th to 72nd, which of course landed me smack dab at the corner where I first encountered the new Duane Reade logo which garnered so much blogosphere attention a few weeks back. 

Off-topic a bit, I've encountered an interesting side effect of the city's layout while creating content for this site. The dichotomy between the natural patterns in which people walk and the density in which commercial and residential real estate is distributed are completely at odds with each other. With some notable examples, streets are typically more residential, while avenues are more commercial. It seems quite obvious, I know. But, since the format of "NYC Grid" is one which individual streets, the longer blocks (segments of east/west roads in between two avenues) get the most coverage while shorter north/south avenue blocks (such as today's) get relegated to far more infrequent postings; both because there's fewer of them in Manhattan and because it has been harder to write extensively about such short stretches. Unfortunately avenues tend to be the most heavily traveled and contain some very interesting commercial spaces. Since my recent trek down to the Financial District, I've begun covering blocks which run longer than one street - a format that I believe will lend it self to creating more engaging avenue posts such as this one. So I suppose from now on, it'll be up to me to balance the longer, yet less dense street posts with shorter, more dense avenue posts.

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1st Ave Between 64th St and 62nd St

Lenox Hill is a quickly changing neighborhood. The once endless rows of low-rise apartments are now more frequently being interrupted by towering glass obelisks. Perhaps hurt most by the development are the small shops the line this stretch of 1st Avenue - while it could be argued that the new condos still provide a place to live for residents (not necessarily the SAME residents) - many of these buildings are not replacing the ground floor retail with anything substantive (save for a bank or two).

I shot the photos for this post very early in the morning as people made their way to work. It wasn't quite yet rush hour, so the streets were still fairly quiet. One of my favorite features of this part of town is the view one has of the 59th Street Bridge from many, many blocks away.  The same goes for the Roosevelt Island Tram. It's always amusing to watch people see it pass by for the first time as they exclaim "what the hell is that??"

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68th St Between 1st Ave and 2nd Ave

As far as I'm concerned, there's two types of parks in New York City. The first is your typical "nature-style" park with plenty of trees, green spaces and carefully-placed walkways (think Madison Square, Bryant and of course Central Park). The second (and far more common) is the "urban" park which I would argue is really more of a playground environment (and Google Maps seems to agree with that assertion, as these 'parks' do not show up as green on their maps). What these community squares lack in aesthetics they almost certainly make up for in functionality.

St. Catherine's Park between 68th and 67th Street is one of the latter examples. Taking up a solid half of 68th Street, the park has a great layout including jungle gyms, large basketball courts and just general space to hang around in.  Juxtaposed with the great open-ness is the restrictive, terrifying nature of all the rules posted on the outside gates. The park shares the southern half of the block with the Julia Richman Education Complex (also known as Talent Unlimited High School for reasons that escape me).

The north side of the block is a rather random mixture of residential units, a hospital, and small commercial shops. There were two buildings in particular that drew my attention. The first, closer to the park, was just encrusted with vines and trees. If it didn't seem so lively, I would almost assume it was abandoned. The second building, closer to 2nd avenue, was simply impressive in it's scale. It certainly is far from the largest building (in any dimension) that one could come across in the city, but something about it's facade gave it a grand presence and imposing nature.  

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