You are familiar with the famous neighborhoods of New York like Times Square and Chinatown
and Wall Street in lower Manhattan.
Then there’s Greenwich Village, Washington Square, Central Park.
But there is another big fascinating chunk of Manhattan that a lot of visitors don't
see between 34th Street and 14th Street, and we’re going to show you the highlights in
this movie.
In many ways it's the authentic, commercial heart of the city.
Just a mile from bottom to top, but we’ll take a winding route three times longer.
We’ll start at Union Square and walk you north to 34th Street, giving you a taste of
the real life of New York City.
This quick summary reveals the contrasts of this Midtown South – coffee shops to relax,
some famous landmarks, busy shopping streets, Koreatown, Asian imports.
There are some characters on the street that you'll meet.
Hotel prices are a bit lower here.
At the end we’ll have an extended sequence on rush-hour at Penn Station, 34th Street,
but we start out in a much more quiet zone.
George Washington presides over Union Square in the spot where he met the public after
the British evacuation in 1783.
The farmers market happens all day, year-round, Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from
about eight in the morning until 6 PM.
You can see it's a big hit with the local residents.
This park has been here for 200 years.
Originally called Union Place, a name deriving from that connection of a union of streets,
Broadway and 4th Avenue.
In that early 19th century it was quite a rural place with a truck farm nearby, but
by the 1870s this neighborhood became the center of good living, with theaters, hotels,
and fine restaurants reflecting the exuberance and energy of the growing city.
But by 1900 the fashionable part of the city was moving northward, leaving Union Square
as a low-rent, cheap manufacturing area, especially for the garment industry.
In recent decades.
Union Square has been rejuvenated and has really become one of the most desirable neighborhoods
in the city for residences, restaurants, a place to work and shopping.
Notice across the street, Paragon Sporting Goods.
This is typical of the kind of big shop that you’ve got in this area, loaded with hard-to-find
specialty items.
From Union Square we’ll take a little walk up to Gramercy Park and continue up to the
Flatiron District and Madison Square Park.
Wander a few blocks east as far as 2nd Avenue, which is becoming a booming new residential
district, and you will reach Stuyvesant Square, a quiet park that was originally part of the
farm of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch governor back in the late 17th century.
Now it's a pleasant 4-acre neighborhood park bisected by 2nd Avenue.
Continue four blocks north towards Gramercy Park.
You will pass Pete's Tavern, a famous restaurant and bar.
Gramercy Park has a big fence around it because it's private – only for the use of those
residents of the neighborhood, a very exclusive enclave of old money.
Also on the square you'll find the National Arts Club in a distinctive building.
It's open to the public.
There's a small art gallery and you can visit several of the rooms.
The mission of this private club is to stimulate and educate the public in the fine arts.
The mansion was originally the home of Samuel J. Tilden, who ran for president after Ulysses
Grant and won the popular vote, but lost in the electoral college.
Walking along 21st and 22nd streets, we’ll be heading north another block to the Flatiron
District and Madison Square Park.
Flatiron is a sharp-angle triangular building at the scissor-like intersection of Broadway
and 5th Avenue facing Madison Square Park, which was named after President Madison.
The restaurant chain, Shake Shack, started here and because of its gourmet, affordable
hamburgers has expanded to nearly 150 locations.
Eataly is another astonishing food success.
Founded in Italy in 2007 as a kind of food megastore, it has rapidly been expanding,
combining elements of a high-end food court, a European street market and an American supermarket.
The obelisk monument in the park as a memorial to Gen. William Jenkins Worth, hero of the
Mexican War.
This 6-acre park was opened in the mid-19th century and aristocratic mansions were built
all around it.
It later became an entertainment and office district, and it is still a thriving area.
Looking up Fifth Avenue provides some nice views of the Empire State Building.
The popular CitiBike program has one of its 700 station racks here, and we had a chance
to see them manipulating – they have to relocate the bikes to even out the distribution
and availability.
Now we’re going to walk a while along the streets and avenues of the mid-20s in this
lower midtown section.
Sometimes called Midtown South, it's an area that a lot of tourists never get to, but it's
fascinating.
There is a raw mix of downbeat and upscale here, all mixed together.
There are ten million stories in the city and this is one of them from the bubble salesman,
who was having difficulty getting a permit, losing some money that he's been trying to
get back.
Well, these lawyers got on the case right?
There is a gang of them down there.
They do these cases, right?
They get back millions and millions of dollars, and you know, they make tons of money.
Yeah, he said, don’t worry were going to get you that money back.
But they overcharged me.
It was a thousand dollars.
Yeah.
Well, I’m going to get it, I’m going to get it.
See what I’m saying?
It sells better in the sun.
These few blocks north of Madison Square Park are sometimes called NoMad, north of Madison.
It's one of those pockets of the city that just do not have clearly defined name or label
to it, it overlaps with the Garment District, with Koreatown.
In mid- 20th century this was quite an industrial area – a lot of manufacturing going on,
especially of clothing, and now it's becoming a lot more retail and residential, with discount
clothing stores along 6th Avenue Continuing north along 6th Avenue a few blocks
up to 32nd Street, which is a great example of a fascinating neighborhood that most tourists
never get to, because it's just a bit south of what is normally considered midtown Manhattan.
34th Street is often the lower boundary for many visitors, where you’ve got Macy's and
Herold Square, as we will show in a moment.
But just a couple blocks south of there you get this busy commercial street that is loaded
with all kinds of Asian goods.
It's Koreatown, which also spills north a few blocks above 34th Street, with lots of
hard-working Korean merchants, and of course a lot more with a big cosmopolitan mix in
this heart of the city.
This brings up an interesting question: what do we call this part of Manhattan?
It's not only Koreans, it's not really midtown, which is more like starting about 34th Street
and on up to 59th Street at Central Park, and it's not lower Manhattan because that’s
below 14th Street.
It's kind of an ill-defined area, but the emerging consensus seems to be, “let's call
it Midtown South”.
Realtors and commercial brokers like that name because it gives it a certain pizzazz,
and this is definitely an up-and-coming neighborhood.
The whole stretch we’ve been showing you, between 14th Street and up to 34th Street.
You might even call it working-class neighborhood with affordable places to eat, and rents a
little bit lower than the Manhattan average otherwise.
Café R is a large hot-food buffet that is a decent place for a quick and relatively
inexpensive lunch, or a meal anytime.
They never close.
It's an international food court and makes another reason for you to explore 32nd Street.
Or how about a merchandise store where you can find a wide variety of stuff for a dollar,
like there's been of socks?
You can see that New York does not have to be an expensive place to visit, especially
down here in Midtown South.
In addition to walking along 32nd Street if you like this kind of nitty-gritty urban life
than you might also walk along 31st Street and 33rd Street, 30th Street.
All of these parallel streets in the lower 30s are quite similar and fascinating.
That cluster of trees is Greeley Square, between 32nd and 33rd Streets at 6th Avenue and Broadway.
You really might be surprised to see in New York City so many little parks, so many pedestrian
malls, and have oases of tranquility in the midst of this really busy city.
But they’ve done a great job in New York.
They’ve closed off a lot of lanes to traffic and put out café tables, and made it a really
comfortable place to live and work.
Twenty years ago these spaces were just neglected and wasted.
But now they're taking full advantage of this prime real estate and turning it into a park
in the middle of the city.
You can always find delis and buffets to get a reasonably priced meal, and it's pretty
tasty and fresh.
Walk another block east on 33rd Street over to Fifth Avenue.
An example of the amazing new condominium high-rise construction that's going on in
this midtown area.
It's really being revitalized.
It's a lot of fun.
Continuing east along 33rd and you're going to run into some very inexpensive foods.
Look at this, two eggs on a roll for a dollar, wow, or a big sandwich for five or six bucks.
And these guys are open 24 hours.
Cheese dog, fish sandwich, corndog, cheese fries, but no papayas.
The number one iconic building of New York, the Empire State building a hundred and two
stories completed in nineteen thirty-one it was the tallest ruling in the world until
nineteen seventy.
Continuing east to Madison where you'll see some very upscale residential condos with
rooftop terraces.
This is strictly for the multimillionaires.
Back at ground level returning west along 34th Street heading towards Macy's and Herald
Square at the corner of 34th and Broadway.
Macy's has been at this location since 1902, where it now occupies a full city block with
ten floors and over 2,000,000 square feet of sales area.
The block of Broadway in front of it has been closed off to automobile traffic and transformed
into a pedestrian mall, and there's a convenient subway station on the corner with two major
lines running through it.
This neighborhood along 34th Street is one of the busiest retail sections of the city
with Macy's serving as a big anchor to lure the shoppers in.
Until now the movie has stayed between 14th Street and 34th Street, that area of Midtown
South, but for a minute, let's go north to 35th and 36th and have a look at how Broadway
has been enhanced by more pedestrian zones.
The city closed off two lanes of traffic and made open space for people to sit at tables
and chairs, and this goes all the way up to Times Square.
It's an amazing transformation.
They’ve only left one lane for automobiles.
There is even a farmers market in what had been a couple of lanes of busy Broadway traffic.
It brings a refreshing kind of rural vibe to these blocks, with tons of fresh produce
and baked goods and fruits, and you can also buy sandwiches and other prepared foods to
sit down and eat lunch right on the spot, and do a little outdoor shopping for clothing
while you're at it.
Of course, will there are many retail shops along the streets in this part of busy Midtown.
Wandering a little further east on 36th Street, you will soon come to the Morgan Library and
Museum, at the corner of Madison.
They usually have excellent special exhibits happening.
It's worth taking a look.
The Morgan also has a small permanent collection, and beautiful rooms that you can walk through.
It would be worthwhile alone just to go see Mr. Morgan's library.
Originally the private mansion of J.P. Morgan, it's been expanded and modernized into this
lovely museum that is open to the public.
We have a separate movie about the museum of New York.
And you'll find that art is all around you as you walk through the streets of the city
– maybe it's a young art student doing a project, sitting down on the sidewalk.
Just be careful where you sit.
It's a place that's always under construction and renovation.
The city is constantly reinventing itself.
Notice how nonchalant the people on the sidewalk are as this stack of lumber is carefully threaded
through them.
New skyscrapers have gotten taller and skinnier in recent years.
There are nearly 2000 coffee shops throughout New York City, with a big concentration here
in Midtown.
You're also going to find a lot of camera shops here in Midtown that look professional.
They seem to have a big inventory and a good variety.
Prices are posted, but, not the best place to buy camera gear.
Instead, you can go to B&H, probably the largest and best camera shop in the world, and my
personal favorite store.
Perhaps you've seen their website, which is a great place to buy audio, video, camera
gear, but there's nothing like being here in the actual shop itself.
It's quite a thrill for a techno geek to be surrounded by such a big variety of high-quality
items, with knowledgeable salespeople.
Located just west of Madison Square Garden at 9th Avenue between 33rd and 34th Street.
You're going to see these sales guys on nearly every corner, selling tickets for the open
top bus, which is a good way to have a three-hour tour of the city.
The Hotel Pennsylvania across from Madison Square Garden is a well-known budget hotel.
It's a hundred years old and when it first opened, it was the largest hotel in the world.
It's still huge, with nearly 1700 rooms, recently renovated.
If you're going to Boston or Washington, there are some very cheap bus rides that you can
get, for example twenty dollars one way or sometimes thirty dollars.
There's about ten different companies that offer this kind of service, just Google it
and book online.
They have different pickup points throughout the city.
This one is near Penn Station.
Located in the same building as Madison Square Garden, Penn Station is a phenomenally busy
place with about 600,000 passengers a day, making it the busiest passenger transportation
hub in the Western Hemisphere.
While several subway lines go through Penn Station, the main rail traffic is to the suburbs
and intercity, operated by Amtrak and the Long Island Railroad.
Most of the people you'll see in the next few minutes are commuters just heading home,
probably on a one-hour train ride out to the suburbs.
It's what you might call rush-hour.
Penn Station has 21 tracks and is at the center of the Amtrak Northeast corridor, with lines
connecting to Boston, Philadelphia and Washington.
But most of these people are heading out to the suburbs on Long Island and New Jersey.
The tracks and station are running at full capacity, so there are plans for expansion.
They are going to have a new Penn station across the street in the former post office
building, and they'll eventually be doubling the number of tracks.
Life for the New York worker who commutes home every day out to the suburbs is quite
a bit different than the typical tourist experience in New York.
Visitors have that luxury of staying put in Midtown or some nice hotel that is centrally
located, and don't have to worry about fighting these crowds at rush-hour.
If you ever thought that living in New York would be a glamorous and exciting life, consider
this: Perhaps it's pretty difficult.
Rents in Manhattan are among the world's highest, so you would probably be commuting out of
the suburbs like this every day.
However, you might be using Penn Station on arrival or departure from New York.
Just try and avoid this rush-hour crowd if you can.
There is direct service out to Newark Airport.
Or perhaps you're arriving by train from Boston, or Philadelphia, or Washington, so you just
might be coming through Penn Station yourself.
Another option to consider, if you have a long layover at Newark Airport, let's say
you’re ten hours between planes, you could take the train in from Newark Airport to Penn
Station.
It just takes about 1/2 an hour.
And walk around in Midtown for a few hours then easily take the train back out to the
airport to catch your flight.
Or if you want to enjoy some people-watching, just stand here at the corner of 7th Avenue
and 33rd Street at the afternoon rush-hour, from 4 o'clock till 6 o'clock.
You'll see lots of New Yorkers streaming by.
That completes our look at Midtown South, the area between 14th Street and 34th Street.
As you have seen, it's a part of the city that's not heavily visited by tourists, but
it would certainly be worth your while.
We’re going to leave you here on the corner with the New York faces streaming by.
Look for the rest of our New York movies in our collection