Travel || New York 02 - Layout of the city

Contrary to popular belief, New York City is NOT the capital of the state New York. Instead, its capital is Albany.

The state of New York is bordered by the US-Canadian border in the North. Popular cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Syracruse, Utica, Albany (of course), Queensbury, Troy and New York City. Staten Island & Long Island are also a part of the state of New York.

Popular names that one gets to hear when one is in New York city - Long Island, Staten Island, Coney Island, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Flushing, Long Island City, Bronx, Jersey city, Edison, etc. We'll talk about them all, one by one.

New York city is a combination of many small cities. The area of New York city which is famous for the tall buildings is Manhattan. Crossing the bridges on the lower side, there is Brooklyn. On taking a ferry from Manhattan, one reaches Staten Island. Travelling towards the Northern side, one reaches Bronx, while traveling in the East (after crossing East River), one lands up in Queens. One arrives in Jersey city once one crosses River Hudson.

All the cities in United States have an uptown (upper area of the town, higher in altitude), midtown and a downtown. The downtown area is the happening place, while uptown area is more peaceful. People staying in midtown, get to enjoy the best of both the worlds. Point to be noted - The downtown in Manhattan is different from the downtown in Brooklyn, which is further different from the downtown in Queens. Confused? Expected.

In this post, I'll be talking mostly about Manhattan coz for me that is the actual New York city! I know I'm being biased, plz bear with me for that one.

The entire New York city has areas represented by avenues and streets, i.e. if you wish to go to a place, you'll be told the street number and the avenue number, and that's how you find it. Initially, the avenues range from one to six. However, as you go up, with the variation in the land area, the number of avenues increase up to 12. When we look at the map, we observe, that the streets are horizontal, while the avenues are vertical roads.

Before I start talking about avenues, I should brief you about the streets.

Broadway: The most popular street of New York which, by the way, is like an avenue because it goes vertically up. Post 10th Street, Broadway goes on in an oblique shape and takes a turn near 204th Street. Broadway goes on till outside New York city and ends up mergining into Albany Post Road, after becoming a state highway en route. The street numbers become important if we go up in New York, primarily because numerous streets in downtown have names and in the big lot, the numbered ones get a little lost. However, 4th street is something unforgettable because near this street is the campus (open) of the famous New York University.

The avenues, midtown onwards (post Central Park), are not numbered. Instead, they are called by specific names:

6th Avenue - Lenox Avenue

9th Avenue - Columbus Avenue

10th Avenue - Amsterdam Avenue

11th Avenue - West End Avenue

If you look at the map of New York, you'll observe that both Broadway, and 4th Avenue are in an oblique shape, i.e. they are not straight. Post 14th Street, 4th Avenue becomes Park Avenue.

23rd Street onwards, two new avenues spring up adjacent to Park Avenue - Lexington Avenue, between 3rd and Park; Madison avenue, between Park and 5th. All these avenues, barring Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway, get terminated when they meet Harlem River Drive. Post 160th Street (approx), there is Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway. Post Cross Bronx Expressway, St Nicholas Avenue comes into existence, between Broadway and Amsterdam Av. (Av is commonly used for Avenue .. short form!)
This avenue business is never ending and I think I'll put a stop to this here.

Commonly heard areas in NYC are - Battery Park City, SoHo, NoHo, Tribeca, FiDi, Upper West Side, Lower East Side, Chinatown, Little Italy, East Village, Meat Packing District, Theatre District, Harlem, Morningside Heights, Washington Heights, etc. Of these areas, SoHo stands for South of Houston Street, NoHo stands for North of Houston Street, Tribeca is the name for the TRIangle BElow CAnal Street, and FiDi stands for Financial District. The other names genuinely represent areas (cities/counties) and have no short/long names.

Battery Park City, as the name suggests, houses Battery Park. If you wish to visit the Statue of Liberty or Governor's Island, Battery Park is the place you need to be.

NoHo and SoHo are near the East/West/ Greenwich Village and all these areas are popular hangouts. All these areas are a part of the downtown area. SoHo is a shopping destination and is quite expensive.

Chinatown, as the name suggests, houses a lot of people of Chinese origin along with fabulous Chinese restaurants. Little Italy has a story, similar to that of Chinatown, albeit the Italian version.

FiDi, i.e. Financial District, has the popular Wall Street and World Trade Center, along with the 9/11 Memorial.

The Meatpacking district/Chelsea area used to have lot of meatpacking factories earlier. These factories have now been closed down. But the name just stuck.

In the midst of talking about streets, avenues and areas, I forgot that I need to mention about all the tunnels and bridges.

So BMW - Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridge connect Manhattan and Brooklyn. For Liberty Island, Ellis Island and Governor's Island, a ferry needs to be taken from Battery Park City. Holland Tunnel and Lincoln Tunnel have been built below the Hudson river and are to be used if you wish to go from Manhattan to Jersey city. George Washington bridge too makes the same connection.

The roads, bridges and infrastructure of New York is endless and can't really be described. All this is something that is to be witnessed. So I guess, I'll end my post here. I hope you, my reader, got a teaser of the layout of the city.