It’s been over a year since I posted one of the “Overlooked Manhattan” series, and it’s time I got back to it with one on East 36th Street, which most New Yorkers only know as an outlet to the Midtown Tunnel.
But there is more! Not only are there secret gardens.
But there are also the Missions for Chad and Armenia.
Got to keep my eyes open in this city. Looking for more.
Situated at the base of 70 Pine Street, The Down Town Association is a private club which dates back to 1887, making it the oldest club in New York and second oldest in the US.
Notable members have included Thomas Dewey (New York Governor), Franklin D Roosevelt, Wendel Wilkie, and Grover Cleveland, the only person to serve non-consecutive terms as president. Current members are mostly lawyers or financers.
The club was used almost exclusively for lunches and billiards back in the day, only offering overnight accommodations to members and guests beginning in 2016.
All of that said, Covid-19 has closed it up pretty tight.
While Trump’s statement that New York is a ghost town is a gross understatement, there are quite a few businesses that have kept their doors closed for the time being.
Along with the surprising closing of a Starbucks, many independent businesses have shut down, including a number of bars and restaurants, the iconic Century 21 store and Amish Market on Park Row.
But let’s be clear, Chicken Little, New York City isn’t close to being dead. As good as that might be for clickbait, it’s bilge water, as my father used to say. Just try to remember that a pandemic is a pandemic, which means that we have to respect the medical authorities, and that there is always something else coming around the corner.
In the meantime, it’s time to treasure that Escape from New York feeling. No doubt we will be sentimental about it in the years to come.
Surrounded by the tight streets and towering spires of Downtown Manhattan, it is more accurate to say that 70 Pine is under-looked. It is almost impossible to see it at close range.
As the plaque outside states, 70 Pine is an Art Deco building from the late 1920s and was, upon construction, the tallest in Downtown Manhattan and the third tallest in the world
The Art Deco details, prevalent inside and out, give residents of the 612 units with visual justification for their rent – ranging from $2,300 (studio) to $13,000 (three-bedroom).
This residential building also houses a couple of restaurants – Blue Park and Crown Shy – as well as a physical therapy studio where I am working on my new knees.
Sadly, the observation platform has been closed during the pandemic.
Downtown Manhattan was dominated by turn-of-the-century skyscrapers such as the Woolworth’s and Singer Buildings in the 1920’s.
The majority of these buildings are now gone, although some of the lesser know ones like The Underwood Building remain on the corner of Vesey and Church.
This 17-floor edifice was constructed by John Thomas Underwood in 1911 for his typewriter company and sits across the street from the World Trade Center site.
Cheap nondescript tenants give no indication of the building’s 100+ year history.
It is only when you notice the upper floors that a sense of history is revealed.
But you really have to look for it.
New York native Washington Iriving coined the name Knickerbocker in his 19th Century writing to exemplify the New York character – graceless, indomitable freethinkers – and soon enough the name dotted the city. 
The Knickerbocker name is ingrained, especially in the older corners, such as the Knickerbocker Post Office, an old brick building on East Broadway in Chinatown. 
The Google reviews on are less than positive: “Lack of Customer Service! wasted my morning!” “Very negative experience with staff” “The package was either lost or stolen in this USPS location.” 
Knickerbockers one and all.
Liberty Park has recently been opened atop the parking garage immediately south of the 9/11 Memorial in Downtown Manhattan.
It has the same design aesthetic as the Chelsea Highline but is much less crowded, although it is also marred by an excessively almost angrily worded memorial, America’s Response Monument.
And so, while the crowds of the 9/11 Memorial may not be here, this statue can give the feeling of impending doom
North of City Hall and the World Trade Center Memorial is a spot much less frequently visited: The African Burial Grounds National Monument. 
Africans – enslaved and “free” – were buried here, outside the boundaries of what was then called New Amsterdam in 1690-1794. The grounds were rediscovered in 1991 during the planned construction of a Federal office building. 
It’s as good a place as the 9/11 Memorial – and far fewer people.
Banksy’s famed New York residency last October drew all sorts of hype, all of which I bought into…and yesterday, visited three of the sites to see what was left behind.
23rd Street, between Lexington & Third Avenues, Murray Hill:
October 2013
May 2014
Staples Street at Jay Street, Tribeca:
October 2014
May 2014
24th Street, between 10th & 11th Avenues, Chelsea:Â
October 2013
May 2014
Not too much going on now.
Forget Wall Street, Park Avenue and Broadway. 
Tunnel Approach and Tunnel Exit Streets, perhaps the most heavily traveled thoroughfares in the city, remain the least visited.
Only a few blocks from Grand Central Station, Bryant Park and the United Nations, to say nothing of the Midtown Tunnel, these aptly named streets give access to the city for some 70,000 cars per day. Â 
It is true the Tunnel Street sidewalks are narrow.
However there is an abundance of artwork 
Plenty of street food
Even a few wildlife specimens. 
One only has to look beyond changing lanes to see.
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