70th St Between Lexington Ave and 3rd Ave

This is the sort of block I imagine they often shoot movies on. With everything from classic New York architecture, to schools, to a neighborhood diner with a vintage sign hanging out front, this street was made to be photographed.

With a good, but not overwhelming amount of greenery covering the block, the sunlight just barely reaches the sidewalk in places, allowing for a very comfortable walk.  Like most blocks with narrow sidewalks, you'll often have to sidetrack around trees and other obstacles. The New York School of Interior Design sits in the middle of the block with large wooden doors and an interesting brick sidewalk pattern. At the end of the block, you're greeted by one half of the massive Gracious Home store.

85th St Between York Ave and 1st Ave

With a whole mess of different architectural styles lining this block of apartments, it's hard to find any sort of common lineage. Even some identical, connected buildings have been painted to differentiate themselves. This hodge-podge of styles make for an interesting residential stretch.

Like many of the blocks this far east, it's generally very quiet and had a rather narrow sidewalk dotted with trees. I didn't notice any particularly new buildings, but you can certainly see them rising up all around on surrounding streets.

67th St Between 3rd Ave and Lexington Ave

Today marks the 200th block posted to NYC Grid. Celebrate accordingly.

This block is like an entire Fisher Price neighborhood unto itself. All along the block you'll continually run into a series of neighborhood staples- First up is a rather ornate synagogue, which sits, rather imposingly on the north side of the street. Down the way you'll encounter a very classic-looking fire house, complete with big red garage doors. Finally, immediately after that you'll run into the green lights of neighborhood's police precinct. If the block only had these three buildings, you'd have many of your municipal needs covered.

The block is also home to several apartments and businesses which sit scattered along the way. If you make it to the Lexington Ave side, you'll see the huge 7th Regiment Armory building, which looks more like a fortress than anything else.

60th St Between 1st Ave and 2nd Ave

You can easily spot the people who have never walked around in this area before: They're always the ones staring up at the Roosevelt Island Tram as it makes it's way overhead. Really, it's a pretty startling sight the first time you encounter it – especially if you didn't know there was a tramway in New York.

Like many of the streets in this neighborhood, there are some pretty stunning views of the Queensboro Bridge as it reaches its way across the East River to Queens. The north outer roadway (now used for pedestrian and bike access) terminates on this street and before it turns north bound, you see a little garage. Now, if my understanding of Queensboro Bridge history is correct, this is where the trollys used to enter and exit from on their way from the Manhattan terminal on 2nd Ave.

The street itself is a random mishmash of high-end apartments (many seem to have clever bridge-related names), strip clubs and bridge off-ramps. It's a pretty even mixture of grimy industrialism and comfortable living.

59th St Between York Ave and 1st Ave

Under the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge is a large open field, the Queensboro Oval. In the winter it is covered with a large, inflated dome for tennis, while in the summer it remains open for softball and other sports.  Across the street, expensive apartments and condos offer sweeping views of the bridge, field and river. 

Further down the block, as the bridge gets closer to the ground, some shops and restaurants pop up in its anchorages. All built fairly recently, during the bridge's multi-year renovation, all of them feature some magnificent architecture that borrow heavily from the inherent beauty of the structure. 

However, despite all that this street has to offer, it's fairly quiet. Most of the traffic is from cars looking to find their way to the FDR. Occasionally you'll pass a person, either walking a dog, or making the trek to the east river walkway – which begins just a block away.

92nd St Between 2nd Ave and 1st Ave

With 2nd Avenue all torn up for the Subway, getting to any of these connecting streets can be a bit of a challenge. Even still, it's rather impressive how they've managed to replace the entire roadway with what appear to be massive concrete and steel tiles and still have traffic flow.

This shady block is home to mostly apartments and a few businesses. Lots of colors and patterns graced the fronts of the buildings while construction on a few new places continued despite the recession.