New York, a geography lesson

Just so you know, Manhattan Island, one of the five boroughs which make up New York City, is 13 miles long and 2 1/2 miles wide at its widest point. Eight million people live on this Island, during the night and weekends, but the population swells to 16 million during the weekday. This will help you understand why the real estate here is so expensive and why New York had to grow skyward and underground. Take Rockefeller Center, it is an underground mall. Students in my school could not imagine a one story school building. This is why New Yorkers relish their parks. I never appreciated the park until I moved here. More on parks later.

The city includes four additional Burroughs; Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Brooklyn and Queens are located on Long Island. Manhattan is an Island in the Middle of two rivers. The River on the west is called the Hudson and on the east is called the East River. The Harlem River runs between Manhattan and the Bronx. The coast of Brooklyn borders the Atlantic Ocean where you will find Coney Island and Brighten Beach. Each Borough is divided into areas, each area having its own name. Some of those names are acronyms. In Manhattan you have Soho which stands for south of Houston Street, Tribeca which stands for triangle below Canal Street. In Brooklyn, Dumbo stands for Development under the Manhattan Bridge. There are many other names, Greenwich Village named for the original Greenwich village, the East village which is on the East side of Manhattan opposite Greenwich, Chelsea, Harlem, Upper East and West Side, Chinatown, where all the Chinese markets are, Little Italy (which is now completely surrounded by Chinatown and too many more to name.

Manhattan contains a grid of avenues and streets. The avenues run north and south and the streets run east and west. In order to confuse tourists there are also many streets which will run every which a way. For example Broadway which runs diagonally north and south from east to west.

Anyway, check out a map before you visit. Nothing is very far but you do need to be prepared to walk and climb stairs (and there are many stairs to climb) because the best way to get around in New York is the subway and a good pair of walking shoes.