Continually break on through to the other side

March 17, 2009 9:18 PM

Is there a list or map out there that shows all the city blocks one can cut through (as a pedestrian) in Manhattan?

I used to work in midtown Manhattan and regularly utilized a string of shortcuts that allowed me to travel from 46th St. down to 43rd without ever touching an avenue. (This was insanely useful when running to the post office in the winter. Or if it was St. Patrick's Day.)

Open plazas, buildings with entrance hallways or lobbies that span a block, underground passages, or intermediate streets themselves seem to make up the most of these shortcuts. I'm certainly not the first person to cobble them together like this. Has anyone ever compiled a list, or map, of them?

posted by greenland to travel & transportation (4 comments total)

Don't know, but I find the satellite view option in Google Maps (or Google Earth) to be useful since I'm new to my area and the street view doesn't show things like this.
posted by hungrysquirrels at 9:36 PM on March 17

Google Maps in "map" mode for Manhattan now shows all the building outlines. (I think someone there has too much time on their hands.) Implicitly it also shows where there are not buildings e.g. here.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:59 PM on March 17

Kottke:

In Rockefeller Center Ho!, published in the Talk of the Town section of the Feb 11, 1956 issue of the New Yorker, John Updike described the discovery of a path from the Empire State Building to Rockefeller Center that didn't make use of 5th or 6th Avenues. Instead he cut through building lobbies, parking lots, and underground passages on his way through the thicket of Midtown's tall buildings.

Recently a pair of New Yorker staffers set out to discover if Updike's journey could still be made and brought back photographic evidence.

A stingy parking attendant refused to let us pass through his gate to Fortieth Street. Faced with no other option, we offered to pay the half-hour fee to park a car; his bemused manager finally let us through without charge.

posted by ocherdraco at 5:27 AM on March 18 [1 favorite]

Ocherdraco, thanks for the Kottke link. Very cool. :)
posted by zarq at 8:52 AM on March 18