Manhattan Island Walk

This Christmas weekend, we had not planned any trip as we normally would have done on a long weekend. Instead, my husband Vikram and I were lazing around at home on the day of Christmas. That’s when he came up with this crazy idea. He suggested that we walk the entire length of Manhattan Island! The idea sounded at once crazy , brilliant and thrilling to me. We decided to do it the very next day starting from the 215^th street and ending at Battery Park. We had to take Broadway, since Broadway is the only road that runs the entire length of Manhattan. I looked up on the internet to see if anyone had attempted such a thing before and found a couple of links where people had done it before. But all of them had done it in summer, though that did not deter us in anyway. The walk had taken 6 and half hours for them to complete. I thought we could do it in 5 hours.

The next day morning, we enthusiastically left home by the 6:53 am train. After reaching New York, we took the subway to the last station in Manhattan – the 215^th street. As the train was chugging along the entire length of the island, it gave us a sense of how long it is and how much we will have to walk and it sparked nervous butterflies in our stomachs.

8:45 am: The first steps

We got off at the 215^th station and began our walk at 8:45 am. The day was cold. Thankfully we were prepared for the cold weather with layers of clothes, gloves and caps. But I was hoping that as the day progresses the sun would show up and smile down its reassuring warmth upon us. We decided to maintain a steady pace. The countdown began – 214, 213, 212… This part of Manhattan was closer to Bronx. There were tall brick buildings and not many people around (much to Vikram’s apprehensionJ). That was probably because it was a Sunday morning. Also, I felt this place was a lot colder.

A minor scare

Soon we reached 201^st street and here the pavement forked into 2 putting us in a dilemma – one going straight ahead and the other curving to the right. The one on the right was going parallel to the subway tracks above. So it probably made more sense to take that one. However, we could see the 200^th street ahead of us and chose the straight one instead. As we walked on, the pavement slowly curved away from the main road and took us along the Harlem River, which separates Manhattan from Bronx. The cool air was refreshing. But soon I began wondering why we are not seeing street numbers and instead seeing a big highway to our right. Still we walked on. My apprehension soon turned into desperation and I couldn’t wait to see some sign board showing a street number. For one insane moment, I even contemplated walking back to where the fork was and taking the other path. But Vikram asked me to keep calm since we definitely were going in the right direction. By now, it started getting even colder. After what seemed like eternity, we saw a traffic signal. I was relieved to see some people crossing the road at the signal. We hurried over to it and found to our delight that we had reached the 155^th street! We crossed the road and kept walking on 155^th street until we reached Broadway. We badly needed a break! We had a cup of coffee and snickers bar to recharge ourselves. Then once again we hit the streets.

Back on track

There were more people in the streets now and with renewed vigor we kept a steady pace going. While walking we came across a beautiful church and saw that its doors were slightly ajar. We slipped in giving it a gentle push and sat down in the last bench. The church’s roof was very beautiful. There were a few people seated in the front rows and a man started playing some soft music on an instrument. It was very soothing. We sat there for about 5 minutes and then resumed our walk. We reached the 142^nd street at around 10:15 am and I thought we were maintaining a pretty good pace and at this rate we could easily finish in about 4 and half hours. Of course, at that time I was oblivious of the impending storm!

At 11’o clock we reached the 104^th street and stopped at McDonalds. After a short break, we continued our walk excited that we would soon see the double digit street numbers. That’s when it started. Little flakes of snow started falling. They looked pretty, innocent. At that time no one could have thought they would eventually cause nearly 10,000 flights to be cancelled and leave thousands stranded. The streets seemed even more crowded now that it was almost midday and we were closer to the city. Soon a thin layer of snow covered the sidewalks. It also started becoming windy. We were surprised to find that pretty soon we felt like having another break. The snow was making us very cold and slowing us down. As we were approaching the 75^th street at around 11:45, we came across Starbucks looking irresistibly inviting. We decided to halt yet again. We resumed at 12. By now it was snowing heavily and the wind had picked up too. At 12:30 we reached the 44^th street. My hands were totally numb. We couldn’t keep up the same pace with which we had started. We stopped at a shop for about 10 minutes and then kept going.

Caught in the blizzard

The heavy snowing soon turned into a raging blizzard. For the next few streets, we didn’t talk much. We didn’t even lookup because the wind was sweeping the snow straight into our faces. We had to slow down considerably. After walking for about an hour we reached the 12^th street. We wanted a break but with the destination so close (or so we thought) I didn’t want to stop. Little did we know that we were going to be in for a rude shock.

Just when I was excitedly getting ready to make the final countdown, we couldn’t find street number 11 after 12. Instead there was some other street. After walking down some 6 to 7 streets, we saw the signboard showing 11^th street! Oh my God! This was too bad. Just when we thought we were reaching the finish! The same pattern continued. We couldn’t find 10^th street until we walked about 7 more streets. By now we were really exhausted and freezing. It was 2’o clock. We had to take a break. This time we had some hot soup and stayed inside for about half an hour watching the raging blizzard. We asked how far Battery Park was and the lady at the restaurant told us it was at least 45 minutes away! No way! Thoughts of quitting crossed our minds. But no! How could we after coming so far!

All’s Well that Ends Well

And so on we went. Every step was an effort to say the least. What would I have not given to see a signboard saying ‘Battery Park’! The howling winds made the snow fly about in all directions making it very difficult to keep looking ahead. Visibility also reduced drastically. We carried on like this for another 30 minutes. We just couldn’t go any further and got into a subway station that we came across. On the map there, we saw that we were agonizingly close to reaching our destination. Mustering every ounce of strength left in us we walked on for another 15 minutes when at last I could faintly make out Battery Park in the distance. We felt a mad rush of excitement and hurried towards it. Lo and behold! There it was – the Battery Park and the South Ferry subway station behind it. We had done it! I looked at the watch. It was 3:15 pm. It had taken us 6 and half hours to complete the distance of 13.1 miles. But it didn’t matter. I let the amazing feeling wash over me. It was priceless!

After we reached home (we were lucky to get home before services were cancelled!), we learnt that the blizzard would continue through the night. In all, it dumped around 20 inches of snow (32 inches in some parts) with wind gusts reaching up to 80mph bringing the city to a standstill. Now , its 2 days since the blizzard and things are slowly crawling back to normal. But I am sure we will cherish the memory of that day for years to come!