Lucie: Hey everyone, it's Lucie Fink. Welcome back to my YouTube channel, and today's video
is about my favorite city in the world... New York City, baby! Born and bred... Okay,
not really. So, I'm actually from a town just north of New York City...
but ever since I graduated college in 2014, I have lived on the island of Manhattan. I know that so many of my viewers out
there are from outside of this state, but also outside of this country, and I've
heard from a lot of you that you're either coming to New York sometime soon
or you're planning on coming here sometime down the line in the future... So
I figured you could use this video as kind of your crash course about the
general layout of the city. As I will get into later, there are a lot of different
parts of the city... So this video is just focused on Manhattan. And in particular,
lower Manhattan. In the scale of the world, this is a very small place, but
there's just a lot going on and a lot of different parts to touch on... So I'm
hoping that this video kind of gives you a beginner's look at New York City. And
now, let's get into the water coloring! For today's video, I'm focusing on
Manhattan, but remember that New York City is comprised of five boroughs:
Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Manhattan, and the Bronx. They're all very different,
and they have their own unique vibes. And even within each borough there are loads
of different neighborhoods and offerings! But let me give you a general tour of
Manhattan, which is where I live. The island is 13.4 miles long and 2.3 miles wide.
It's not exactly this straight on a map... it's actually a little bit more diagonal...
but people on the island refer to this as North, this as South, this as East, and this as West.
Manhattan is an island so on the West side is the Hudson River, and to the East is the East River.
It's connected to other places with bridges and tunnels.
So, on the Hudson River side, we have the Lincoln and the Holland tunnels running
into New Jersey... as well as the George Washington Bridge up North which is
actually cut off of this map... And then on the East side we have the Queens Midtown Tunnel,
the Williamsburg Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge which takes you further South, and the Manhattan Bridge which goes into Dumbo.
And, by the way... Dumbo is actually an acronym, and it stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.
There's a giant patch of greenery at the top of the island called Central Park,
and this park runs from 59th Street all the way up to 110th Street.
But that's not Manhattan's only greenery. So there are also smaller parks downtown
like Bryant Park, Madison Square Park, Washington Square Park, Union Square Park,
City Hall Park, and many more triangles and tiny plots of green. The streets of
Manhattan are an entire system of their own. So, 14th Street right here is pretty
much the widest Street in Manhattan since it's where the island expands
furthest East. Some other main streets in Manhattan are 23rd Street, 34th Street,
42nd Street, and 59th Street... which is the base of Central Park South. The area
between 34th Street and 59th Street is generally considered Midtown. Here the
streets form a complete grid. The avenues run North to South, and the streets run
East to West... So starting all the way at the East we have 1st Avenue, 2nd Avenue,
3rd Avenue, Lexington, Park, Madison, 5th Avenue up the side of the park, 6th
Avenue, 7th Avenue, and 8th Avenue, (which goes up the other side of the park) 9th Ave,
10th, and 11th. And then you're at the river. The streets continue to go up all
the way into the 200s, and then they go all the way down to 1st Street. But 1st
Street is not all the way at the bottom of Manhattan. It's just about right here.
And then the streets continue below it. Most of this Midtown area is a pretty
straight grid, so right here you'd be on 42nd and 9th, and here you'd be on 59th and
Lexington. There are so many different neighborhoods in Manhattan, and the
regions that are not even visible on this map because they're too far North are
places like Hudson Heights, Washington Heights, Harlem, and more.
And then the rest of this map is probably not 100% to scale...
Honestly, it's probably not going to be perfectly aligned with where I drew the
bridges and tunnels... but everything here is just the general gist of the neighborhoods.
So here's the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side... In the
Midtown area there's Hell's Kitchen, the Garment District, and Murray Hill...
Then there's Chelsea Gramercy and Kips Bay... Back to the West, we have Meatpacking,
the West Village, Greenwich Village, and then Stuy Town. I think I drew Gramercy a little bit too big here...
It really does comprise various areas like Rose Hill, which is not drawn here... and also Union Square.
And then there's NoHo... the East Village, and Alphabet City...
there's SoHo, Nolita, Little Italy, Bowery...
the Lower East Side, TriBeCa, Chinatown, Civic Center, Two Bridges, Battery Park City, and the Financial District...
Broadway is actually a diagonal street that runs all the way up North and
continues into the Bronx, and then travels down into Midtown, cutting right
through Times Square and continuing all the way down to the very tip of
Manhattan. So when people say that they're seeing a Broadway show,
most often the show is not actually on the street Broadway... but they're just
somewhere in the theater district around Times Square. Streets in most of the city
are directional based on their number. So, even streets run East, and odd street
numbers run West. There are some exceptions, and, also, various Main streets
run in both directions... like 14th Street, 23rd Street, 34th Street, and more... I'd say
that 14th Street is really where Manhattan starts to divide and things
start to stray from the grid system. So, on the West side, the streets start
getting a little bit diagonal... We're starting to see streets being called by
names instead of numbers... and then on the East side, where the island expands out a little bit past where it previously was,
we get four new avenues. So we have Avenue A, Avenue B, Avenue C, and Avenue D... Which is why it's called Alphabet City over there.
And once we go down past First Street, here the streets also turn into names and they start to lose their grid form.
So it's very organized and grid-like before... but as you go down lower and lower in Manhattan, it starts
to get a lot more confusing. Some other interesting things... Like the DUMBO
acronym, a lot of neighborhoods are actually acronyms. So this street right
here is Houston Street, and SoHo stands for "South of Houston", while NoHo stands
for "North of Houston". Same thing here: This is Little Italy, so the region just
North of Little Italy is called Nolita... "North of Little Italy". Down here is the
financial district, where the refinery29 office is, and where I used to commute to
work every single day when I was full-time there... And this is just a
general look at lower Manhattan. So, here are some of my favorite spots on the
island: The Brooklyn Bridge, the Flatiron Building, the High Line, which runs from
the Meatpacking District all the way up North... Central Park,
the Washington Square arch, Chelsea Market, the Union Square Green Market, One
World Trade and the Oculus down there, Times Square... and so much more!
I hope you enjoyed this video. It was really fun to set that up and to draw the map of New York City.
I do have to say it was a little bit difficult for me because I
did not have any sort of grid paper, and I also was not drawing it to scale... so it
was kind of difficult for me to align where the streets were with making sure
the streets lined up at the parks, and making sure the bridges lined up with
the streets... honestly, it was tricky. But I think I did a generally good job, and I hope that that layout gave you a first layer of
information about New York, and now you feel a little bit more informed. Comment
below and let me know if you liked this water coloring video. Maybe you found it
soothing, maybe you found it informative and entertaining... But let me know.
Let me know if you want to see more videos like this. If you liked it, maybe I can do some
deeper dive watercolor videos on specific areas of the city. For example,
just a deep dive on Central Park... just a deep dive on the East Village... a deep
dive on Midtown... anything like that. Thanks for coming back to my YouTube
channel. Give this video a thumbs up. Be sure you're subscribed by clicking right
here, and I'll see you next time on YouTube!
*Sings* New York, New York!