31st St Between 9th Ave and 8th Ave

This is a street of extremes. On one side you have a handful of utterly unremarkable structures, while on the other you have the imposing, history, and record-breaking James Farley Post Office building. Taking up two entire blocks, the city's largest post office claims to have one of the longest rows of Corinthian colonnade in the world – though I've found some sources that claim otherwise. Either way, it's an impressive building. Built by the same architects who designed the original Penn Station, which sat across 8th Avenue, it was intended to be as imposing and beautiful as the original train station. Now days, it isn't even a contest as it faces the utterly pathetic Madison Square Garden. 

While the 8th Avenue facade is the most visible and impressive front of the landmark, the longer sides which sit between this street and 33rd are something to behold. While the western side of the building is lined with loading docks, as you move eastward, it's taken over by an impressively strange dry moat, which acts as a barrier between the sidewalk and the building. I wasn't able to get a good shot of it, but Wikipedia has a nice view from 33rd St. 

The southern half of the block wouldn't even pass as impressive on a block without an 8-acre masterpiece facing it. So you'll pardon me if I didn't pay it much bother as I walked around here.

8th Ave Between 28th St and 26th St

It may have been the weather, or the time of day, but an overwhelming wave of depression and apathy overcame me as I walked down this block – and I'm not necessarily inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt. With towering public housing to the west and short tenement apartments to the east, you're able to experience low-income housing spanning five decades. 

Just block from Madison Square Garden, I can't imagine the proximity is a good selling point for many rental agents in the area. I can say that I like the curvy detour that 28th Street takes as it meanders its way through the megablock. The bubbled dome of the Midtown Tennis Club sits atop a Gristedes, a building which also holds the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. In addition to the large FIT building, which also takes over a street, there's a handful of other shops that line the block.

57th St Between 11th Ave and 10th Ave

Walking down this rather barren strip, the landscape is dominated by two 3-letter brands: CBS and BMW. With a rather unique-looking, pyramid-like showroom, the BMW of Manhattan dealership is hard to miss. Perhaps a bit more understated (though not by much, considering the building-sized posters) is the CBS Broadcast Center across the street. Taking up nearly a full city block, the CBS Broadcast Center is home to much of the network's main news operations- including the studios for the CBS Evening News and CBS Sunday Morning.

Besides that it's hard to notice anything else here. Several apartment and office buildings line the block, but few are very notable. As I understand it, the CBS news film archives live across the street from the Broadcast Center, comprising every piece of footage the organization has at their disposal. But obviously that isn't notable from the sidewalk.

11th Ave Between 60th St and 58th St

While redevelopment and condos shoot upward on 11th Avenue, these blocks are completely dominated by the massive IRT Powerhouse. Taking up the entire block between 11th Ave and the West Side Highway, it's a formidable structure. With beautiful Beaux-Arts style, the building looks like it could be a concert hall rather than a steam generation plant. It's currently run by Con-Ed, but since it's not (yet) a landmark, the building isn't entire safe from redevelopment.

The rest of this street is very typical for this area. Several new condos are all in different stages of construction– which stand in stark contrast to the IRT plant. I would think the rich people who will eventually be living here would appreciate a beautiful building like this sitting right next door.  But people can be surprising sometimes.

11th Ave Between 30th St and 33rd St

A bland, desolate stretch of concrete, the 11th Avenue Viaduct over the LIRR's West Side Yards provides very little to the pedestrian. With it's high, unscalable concrete walls (blocking what would potentially be some pretty fascinating views of the trains) you almost expect to see a "Last Exit Until..." sign as you walk under a spur of The High Line past 30th street.

There were signs of ambiguous construction all around - with trucks and signs dotting the street. Once again, the high walls serve only to block some spectacular views of midtown and the Hudson river. Even massive structures like the Jacob Javits Center can only peek over the hill.

With 11th avenue being a fairly dead and empty stretch of road to begin with, this area only serves to make one feel even less welcome than before.

39th St Between 9th Ave and 8th Ave

It's around here that, despite the emptiness and desolation, the influences and depression of midtown begin to fade away. However the rapid rate of redevelopment is evident, as practically every block is home to either an endless row of construction canopies or at least one giant crane.

Old neighborhood institutions sit side-by-side with the likes of Holiday Inn Express. It seems to be only a matter of time before everything here is replaced by some homogenized mini Times Square-like environment. Granted, there's not much here that I would really venture to save, but considering the unsavoriness that is Times Square, I think I'd prefer what's here.