During the pandemic lockdowns, I toyed with the idea of doing it in Charlotte, North Carolina<\/a>, where I lived at the time. It wouldn’t really be possible \u2014 Charlotte is very car-centric, and there are parts of the city that just aren’t pedestrian-friendly. I knew I would get odd looks if I was strolling next to a highway.<\/p>\n Not all of Charlotte, North Carolina is pedestrian-friendly.<\/p>\n joe daniel price\/Getty Images<\/p>\n When I decided to move to New York in February 2024, I thought exploring every block of Manhattan would be a cool way to get to know my new city.<\/p>\n It took me 13 months of on-and-off effort to walk every block. When I was finished, I felt like I saw so many unique parts of Manhattan \u2014 ones even lifelong New Yorkers might not know about.<\/p>\n I tracked my progress with a 6-foot map<\/p>\n I hung up a six-foot-long map to help track my progress.<\/p>\n Krissy Oechslin<\/p>\n Originally, I planned to both bike and walk the city, so I couldn’t use CityStrides, a map that only tracks running and walking. (In the end, I walked over 99.5% of the project.)<\/p>\n Because I wanted to tackle the blocks out of order, tracking them was a multi-step process. First, I needed a map of Manhattan.<\/p>\n Finding a complete one was trickier than I expected. The first one I bought on Amazon stopped after 110th Street and many I found capped the island at Central Park. Manhattan stretches over 100 blocks further north, ending at Marble Hill right before West 230th Street.<\/p>\n Related stories<\/p>\n Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know<\/p>\n Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know<\/p>\n Sylvan Terrace, on St. Nicholas Ave between 160th and 162nd Street, wouldn’t show up on some of the Manhattan maps I saw.<\/p>\n Krissy Oechslin<\/p>\n The best one I could find was from 2011, a 6-foot-long version that I stuck to the wall in my apartment.<\/p>\n By the time I was done with the project, I learned that one was not fully up to date, either \u2014 I encountered areas in real life that were blank on the map, like Waterline Square<\/a> on the Upper West Side, which was completed in 2020.<\/p>\n Some of my favorite buildings, like the UN Headquarters’ Turkevi Center (left) and the Lantern House in Chelsea (right) were finished in 2021 and 2020, respectively.<\/p>\n Krissy Oechslin<\/p>\n I downloaded Strava<\/a> to track exact steps every day, then traced my progress to the map with a Sharpie.<\/p>\n My first entry began in Harlem, right after I returned my moving truck and walked 10 blocks to my new home.<\/p>\n Afterward, I started trying to find unique routes when I made plans \u2014 how could I incorporate a new block on my way to meet my friends? Other times, I specifically walked to new areas on my list, like the FDR Drive highway service road on the easternmost side of the borough.<\/p>\n The oldest streets were my favorites<\/p>\n Historic rowhouses in Hamilton Heights; a building in Sugar Hill, built in the late 1800s.<\/p>\n Krissy Oechslin<\/p>\n I didn’t want to miss any historic landmarks.<\/p>\n When I started the project, I bought “The New York Nobody Knows” by William B. Helmreich, a sociologist who walked every block in NYC<\/a>. It felt more like a sociology textbook than a walking guide, but it gave me some ideas of what I wanted to stop and look at on certain blocks, so I saved them in Google Maps.<\/p>\n The original Statue of Liberty sculpture, used to cast the real one, located in Midtown; vintage ads in Harlem.<\/p>\n Krissy Oechslin<\/p>\n I also stopped a lot during my walks to search different buildings or historical figures on Wikipedia, with what felt like hundreds of tabs open on my phone. I snapped photos of the original Statue of Liberty sculpture in Midtown and old, weathered ads for omega oil in Harlem.<\/p>\n Walking up to 10 miles a day sometimes, I ended up saving a lot of buildings on Google Maps that I plan to revisit during Open House New York<\/a>, a weekend when normally private buildings are accessible to the public.<\/p>\n I’m a sucker for cobblestone streets, so some of my favorite neighborhoods were the West Village<\/a> and Tribeca<\/a>. I also loved the Financial District<\/a> \u2014 some of the oldest streets in New York combined with towering skyscrapers made for such a cool contrast of old and new.<\/p>\n The West Village was one of my favorite neighborhoods, especially around the holidays.<\/p>\n Krissy Oechslin<\/p>\n One of the most beautiful streets I discovered was on St. Nicholas between 152nd and 153rd \u2014 it was lined with historical rowhouses and pockets of greenery.<\/p>\n In the East Village, I encountered the two oldest cemeteries in New York: New York Marble Cemetery and New York City Marble Cemetery. The former, established in 1830, is partially obscured: I could only see it at the end of the block through an iron gate.<\/p>\n I stumbled upon other hidden gems like a Mexican folk art store or a used record shop in the middle of an apartment block. I loved learning that they exist.<\/p>\n I finished at an iconic New York spot<\/p>\n I ended my project at Tom’s Restaurant, which served as the exterior diner shot in “Seinfeld.”<\/p>\n Krissy Oechslin\/NBC<\/p>\n By March 2025, I bought a co-op apartment in a neighborhood I hadn’t finished exploring: Morningside Heights, at the top of Manhattan.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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