FROM EAST TO WEST AND CHINA ON THE WAY

The High Line Park & Meatpacking District

The High Line is an elevated park created form an old 1930's freight train track running North-South on the west side of Manhattan. It has been elegantly designed to preserve the unusual vegetation that has thrived in this unique landscape over the years. The floor and an half height offers an unusual perspective of the cityscape and top architects have begun to design and create structures around it.

High Line Park & Meatpacking District map

security camera . photo: Kjell

The Bowery & East Village

The Bowery is a stretch of of street between Chinatown and Astor Place with a very colorful history from it's origin as a Lenape footpath, being a home for farms and freed slaves to times of sordid amusements, prostitution, numerous nightclubs and gambling. In the 1970s the famous CBGB rock club opened up, bringing a cool punk rock to the street. In the late 1970s into the 1990s many famous artists, poets and rock stars lived along the Bowery. Currently the area is going through major socioeconomic and architectural changes; many of the centuries-old buildings have been demolished to make way for glitzy nightclubs, cutting edge art galleries, hotels condos, bars and the dynamic New Museum for Contemporary Art.

Bowery & East Village map

Bowery . photo: Jonas

Water Tower . photo: Kjell

graffiti art on Bowery . photo: Alexandra Knospe

little pavement bird . photo: Alexandra Knospe

Astor Place Tower reflections . photo: Kjell

Alamo sculpture @ Astor Place . photo: Alexandra Knospe

East Village . Astor Place . photo: Jade Doskow

Chinatown & Lower East Side

Manhattan's Chinatown, the largest Chinatown in the United States and the site of the largest concentration of Chinese in the western hemisphere, is located on the lower east side of Manhattan. With a population estimated between 70,000 and 150,000, Chinatown is the favored destination point for Chinese immigrants, though in recents years the neighborhood has also become home to Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Burmese, Vietnamese, and Filipinos among others.

Lower East Side was once home to thousands of European immigrants crammed into tiny tenement dwellings. While many nationalities made their homes here, it was and is especially important in the history of Jewish immigrants, many of whom ran businesses for years and whose spans of generations lived in the neighborhood. Today the LES, as it's called, is full of cool clubs, bars and shops, and has changed quite a lot since it's early immigrants days.

Chinatown & Lower East Side map

graffiti on the roofs of Chinatown . photo: Torgeir

Canal street, Chinatown . photo: Alexandra Knospe

sparrow enjoying the sun . photo: Alexandra Knospe

street life in Chinatown . photo: Siri

bizarre mountain sculpture . photo: Alexandra Knospe

spilled liquid . photo: Kjell

@ Bridge Gallery on Orchard street . photo: Jade Doskow

@ Bridge Gallery on Orchard street . photo: Alexandra Knospe

graffiti paradise @ ABC no Rio on Rivington street . photo: Jade Doskow

@ ABC no Rio . photo: Jade Doskow

wild animals . photo: Jade Doskow

all these colors . photo: Alexandra Knospe

Crossing the River

Constructed in 1909, the Manhattan Bridge was the last of the 3 suspension bridges built across the East River. It was designed by Leon Moiseff. On the Manhattan side of the bridge a magnificent arch, designed by Carrére & Hastings, welcomes travelers.

Manhattan Bridge side view . photo: Alexandra Knospe

crossing the bridge . photo: Jade Doskow

photo: Alexandra Knospe

Manhattan Bridge arch . photo: Martin H

graffiti . photo: Alexandra Knospe

graffiti on the roofs in Chinatown . photo: Alexandra Knospe

down town view across the roofs of Chinatown . photo: Alexandra Knospe

Chinatown street view . photo: Alexandra Knospe

First stop: DUMBO

DUMBO - District Unter the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.

Since the 1990s Dumbo has fast-tracked the change from being an area of deserted huge warehouses and factory buildings to a new home of many art galleries, design studios and beautiful lofts and condo-apartemnts looking out over the East River and onto the Manhattan skyline.