Walking through Manhattan on Father's Day

Friends, I’m so sorry to be sending this a day late. It’s a long write of an event that happened on Sunday, and I ended up just being too busy yesterday to finish it. I also finished writing it maybe fifteen minutes ago, so I scrambled through the Obsessions sections and am not editing anything. Thanks for your patience!

I left the apartment early Saturday morning (read: before 10 a.m.) to grab bagels, and it was a massive accomplishment. I hadn’t left the house in 72 hours, and my 101-degree fever broke the day before. This triumphant walk was early enough before sleepy families or hungover gentrifiers were outside in full force, and I was sweating profusely as my body tried mimicking how it used to move just a few days back.

I needed to feel good on Saturday. I needed to be able to walk around without profusely coughing or needing to blow my nose. Armed with a negative COVID test and a precautionary text to the group chat, I was scheduled to lead a ragtag group of disparate friends along a journey they’ve always longed for: the Manhattan Top-to-Bottom Walk.

You may remember my tip-to-tail trek down Broadway on Christmas Eve, an odyssey spent alone and fueled by chaos. Readers and/or friends have since told me Omg I’ve always wanted to do it! and Can I do it with you next time? so I decided to find an early summer opportunity to make it happen.

Thankfully, the group voted on Father’s Day. Either everyone has daddy issues or lives far from home. I was happy to have a distraction for this day. In the weeks leading up to the walk, I was really bad at communicating with the walkers. In a group chat, I would send a brick of text with information and questions for everyone, which would often go unanswered if grouped with multiple questions. I really wanted to know how to structure the walk and if there were neighborhoods, sights, or bites people wanted to hit.

Most people did not have opinions, which sent me into a conniption. We are about to spend an entire (very physical) day together, and you don’t care where we go? I am used to being one of the few decisive people in a room of my friends, maybe just because I subconsciously choose friends who let me do what I want. My goal was for everyone else to have a great time and see what they wanted; therefore, my nightmare would be a bored group who wouldn’t speak up.

This would be the first of many moments I would project my thought process on a group of unsuspecting adults and stress myself in circles. Just doing the walk is exciting; there doesn’t need to be a prescribed path to fund. My friends were excited to be outside all day, see neighborhoods change, and talk to people all day. This is how I feel about most situations, so I’m not sure why I couldn’t just be like that.

When I got sick, I really hoped I would be good enough for the walk. As someone who hasn’t been practicing what she preaches about taking time off from work lately, I called out Thursday and Friday, spending all of my time in front of my phone or TV. I took my latest New York Magazine with me on every transition from couch to bed, but I just could not bring myself to read words on pieces of paper. As Saturday continued, I was confident I’d be able to do the walk, but I was still a bit nervous.

I’ll take you through my walk. I don’t divvy up the sections by neighborhood in the same way. We voted and decided to start at Dyckman Avenue 200th Street. Last time, I did Broadway from start to finish. This group barely touched Broadway.

The group was meeting at 10, but a few of us were waking up extra early to meet at Marble Hill in the Bronx and walk across the bridge into Manhattan. This then implicated Meera in my early wakeup. I think I woke up at 7:15.

Things were not stacked in our favor. The L train was down all weekend again, we had a long distance to go, and we left the house later than we hoped to. We walked around 20 minutes to the J train and compared navigation apps’ predictions of the best ways to the top as the J crossed the Williamsburg Bridge. Our friend Aimee was on an M train that left a few minutes before us and suggested we transfer over to her. As we waited for an M and our ETA continued climbing, she decided to bike up the island instead to get there on time.

Aimee did end up getting up there in time to walk the bridge and meet the entire group at Dyckman, only a few minutes after Meera and I arrived there. Our journey was excruciating, with an M train being down for awhile, a lengthy 42nd Street transfer, and the realization that not only would we miss the overachiever length of the walk — we would be late to the actual start line. I was fuming.

We accepted defeat and just took the A train to Dyckman, ending up on the same train as two other Bushwick friends joining the walk. They left 30 minutes later than we did. We really screwed up.

Other than me, there were 10 of us. The original list was a bit larger, but random father activities and lack of sleep can really do someone in. This was a commitment of not just a full day, but a night before of good rest. For many participants, this is the furthest up Manhattan they’ve been. They are in for a treat. Here we go!

I wouldn’t have picked Dyckman as the true start point because then you miss all of Inwood, but it turns out a lot of people walked through it earlier. Most people had coffees in hand, but I got there too late to rationalize holding the group up for me to get a drink.

We start on Broadway. God, our group is so, so loud. I was honestly embarrassed, but why is this any different than any other time old people sitting on benches sulk at me? Maybe it’s because it’s still the morning and most people aren’t out yet. Mini conversations line the sidewalk as we pass Fort Tryon Park on our right. They don’t even know how cool this park is, but why does that matter at all? I made a meme to show the situation.

I am still heated from my commute and need to return to reality, but it’s hard to be calm when the weather matches your mood. We’re going uphill towards the GW Bridge in the hot sun. I don’t remember much of my preliminary conversations aside from being excited to see my friend Hannah. She’s visiting from Florida this week and ended up joining us for the day, easily weaving through conversations with people she just met. I relished my moments with her and didn’t have to babysit her.

I wish I kept this attitude with everyone else. With 11 people, we have 11 changing speeds, desires, and distances. Some people were way up front and never looking back, while others were far at the back and not going to scream for people to stop. I was so stressed making sure that the whole group was as together as we could be. I felt like I was the only person making sure everyone was going the right way and was really frustrated. At this point of the walk, I thought Wow, I really signed up for this, and I have to work my body hard today.

The group chose shade once we got near the GWB, and I felt less cranky after sipping water and We ran into a second group in front of us doing the same challenge, a group of med school dudes with the same drawstring bags and/or fanny packs. Some people mingled with them, and they apparently saw a few other groups doing the same thing earlier. It really was the perfect day for it — sunny, 70s, clear skies.

No one seemed to have uptown route preferences beforehand, so I was scheming earlier in the week that instead of going down Broadway, we go down St. Nicholas Avenue, which slinks from Washington Heights at 168th Street down to Harlem. It passes by a few parks and seemed to be less hilly than Broadway.

St. Nicholas is our first forced choice. Broadway is such an obvious yellow brick road for the beginning of the walk, but I already saw our group’s frontrunners starting to split as Broadway and St. Nicholas looked equally appetizing. I had to be a mom and yell for everyone to stop and scheme.

Meera says I have a Project Manager voice when I need to get things done, but I feel like yesterday was closer to a teacher or a parent. As a project manager, you want to give people space to feel like the decision is mutual. I hit into a more authoritarian, decisive, and quick way of speaking that felt like an adult talking to children. I pleaded my case for St. Nicholas, and the group agreed to go down that way after some discussion.

I don’t like authoritarian leadership of any kind, from a teacher that yelled at you in elementary school to the dictators of today. I really wished I had more of a partner in corralling people, but I also didn’t really give anyone room to be that. People at the front were questioning why everyone at the back were walking so slowly; people at the back were complaining about people at the front straying too far from the group’s nucleus. I wanted everyone to be happy, and I felt that we could best do that by all having the same mindset. No one was going to have the same mindset as me, though, because I was doing too much (and I’ve done this before).

St. Nicholas itself was a beautiful breeze and one of my favorite parts of the walk. We zipped through a little over 40 blocks with ease after already zipping through the 30-some that came before. The whole group was impressed with our speed, as was I. I kept cautioning people that it gets harder the more stops we take, and especially after the first stop. My goal was to go as long as we can before we stop for lunch. Everyone else seemed very down with that, many people going so far as to sit for as little as possible at lunch to not trick our lower bodies into resting too much.

The avenue is a mix of lively and quiet blocks, old houses and tiny parks. Two women sitting on a bench were blasting “My Type,” which I had no choice but to enjoy. But even the busier areas did not feel crazy busy. I wasn’t as observant of my surroundings while trying to keep up with conversation and make sure the group was still in tact, but I did a lot of ogling on these blocks.

We stopped at a Foodtown in search of light drinks and snacks, especially yerba mates for Meera. They did not have any, and I was also in search of a yerb. A few blocks later with the backside of picturesque City College peaking over trees, we hit a corner store and St. Nicholas Park. A few of us tried to find yerbs there too and failed. I threw in the towel and got an Arizona Iced Tea, which is unironically my drink of the summer (probably since I never had it at the age you’re supposed to, which is 15 years old).

We walked through St. Nicholas Park, which goes in a straight line for a few blocks. Some of the group split off and raced up a bunch of stairs, but we would all end up together on the other side once they sped down a different flight. Yesterday was a multi-holiday day at the park, so we had some cute families ready to hit the grills for Father’s Day and other cute families wearing gorgeous matching clothes for Eid. Everything felt so serene under the trees, and it was nice being in a shadier park than what I’m used to in Bushwick.

We soon veered off of St. Nicholas onto Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem. Now we started seeing a lot of people, especially (of course) once we hit 125th Street.

Everyone was in good spirits but beginning to think about lunch as we all exchanged which parts of our lower bodies had just finally started to crave rest. A perk of being in this large of a group is that you are too distracted to think of how tired the walk is making you. Plus, the natural peer pressure of everyone having fun makes you want to keep going.

We passed by a lot of enticing restaurants, including a cafe called Silvana (my middle name) and a place that had live music playing inside. They also had a Levain store, which I only saw white people sitting outside of. We saw one really massive gentrification building, but it will be interesting to see how the blocks look in 5 years.

We approached Cathedral Parkway, admiring the Frederick Douglass statue as we traversed the circular crosswalks that got progressively shadier.

I can’t believe we’ve made it to Central Park. We walk along the sidewalk outside of its gates for a few blocks before making another deli pit stop. I got one of those Poppi drinks, which was fine. We were stopping for drinks and whatnot around 100th Street, meaning the group had walked 100 blocks (but the early risers hit that milestone in Harlem).

During my Christmas Eve walk, I stopped for a bagel at 108th and sat to eat it. Once I rose again, the rest of my walk was physically painful. I cautioned our group of my previous follies and suggested we go as long as we can until we need to eat. Thankfully, they were super on board.

We walked into the park and walked along the paved loop that is usually taken by bikers and runners. I’ll take any opportunity to make a runner’s day worse. It was so refreshing to immerse ourselves in the park, soaking in all things lush (and I’m not talking about bath bombs). We stopped in front of the reservoir to take pictures and gaze across the water to the Upper East Side. The Bushwick crowd stared in awe, but Allie was ready to move on (an Upper East Sider herself and reservoir frequenter).

After enough walking and sun blasting through the trees, it was time to find food. The ideal situation would be a foodhall that could fit our group’s size and indecision. Jordan somehow found one, so we exited the park and walked to its location at 70th and Broadway.

Walking through the idyllic Upper West Side brownstones was the first time on the walk I remembered it was Father’s Day. This is my fourth Father’s Day since I last spoke to my dad. Since then, this day has usually been weird for me. I usually try (and fail) to stay off of Instagram and be cynical, sometimes about my own dad but usually about the state of fatherhood. I find the majority of Instagram stories this day feature Instagramless dads that look beyond bored in the pictures posted of them.

Most years on Father’s Day growing up, my family would get brunch somewhere (usually Bistro 19 IYKYK), which was usually a fun morning. The first feeling I remember when I reminisce on most events with my dad is discomfort with my outfit. This is usually when I would wear a skirt or something. I’m not a skirt girl. My legs always chafe. Despite whatever grief, there has certainly been a lot less uncomfortable, slightly formal events in the past few years.

I was talking about the day with two of my friends (who both seem to have pretty good dads) and ways I’ve dealt with my rage or calmed myself down. We turned the corner onto Broadway and joined the staccatoed streams of people. A young couple talking with coffee in hand, two older dudes chatting in the shade, a runner completely in the zone, plus plenty more people I didn’t clock.

During depressed Pittsburgh summers in my young adulthood, I learned to comfort myself through the striking, multicolored sunsets. Every night, we’d get a great sunset. The greatness varied, but it was always worth a moment to gawk at. In whatever sadness, valid or vapid, the sunsets would always continue. No matter my mood — no matter anyone’s actions — the sunsets came and went every night.

Seeing these classic New York neighborhood archetypes, I remembered how I love New York the same way I love the sunset. No matter the day, no matter my actions, the city will always carry on like normal. I witnessed it on Christmas Eve, the usual crowds in all types of neighborhoods carrying on their days. In my suburb on Father’s Day, you can see everyone and their mother (literally, and probably their father) going to one of five brunch spots in similar clothes as you. Now, I live somewhere that doesn’t have to remind me of this grief. In your pivotal moments, it can be frustrating when the world around you doesn’t stop for you, but in this case, I’m happy New York doesn’t.

I talked about the sunset thing with Aimee, who also has that same way of thinking. Our conversation led to how the inevitability of sunsets parallels the inevitability of New York crowds. Appreciating the city in one of its prettiest neighborhoods! Anyway, time to eat.

We happened upon the foodhall, if you can call it that. It might be the future of food service, whether we like it or not. It’s called Wonder, and they have a few locations around the city. It’s a glorified ghost kitchen with millennial branding. It’s definitely meant more for delivery drivers to pop in and out of, but they have a physical space with a Sweetgreen-esque color palette and sterility.

You walk in and can order on these screens, choosing from at least 20 different restaurants that you can mix and match. Doing research now, these restaurants’ physical locations are spread throughout the country. The middle eastern place I ended up getting food from, Maydan, is apparently a Michelin-starred restaurant in DC.

There were a few tables with deceptively hard banquettes that we took over. A few people left and got pizza down the block, while we finally reunited with Kaylie and Ria, who veered off to check out Columbia’s campus (which ended up being locked). I wasn’t really paying attention to what people were eating because I was so hungry for my chicken shawarma “wrap,” which ended up just being an open pita that I had to taco-fy myself. They gave me sauces to spread and pour, too, so I ended up making a mess all over my hands. Whatever. Obviously not Michelin quality, but it was the perfect type of filling that would make me full but not truly sleepy.

We were also joined by Katey, who couldn’t make the walk but was tracking me and met us for lunch, which happened to be near where her job was that day. She took a few disposable camera pics of us on our way out and walked with us the next few blocks to Columbus Circle. The group was feeling good after our break. Since I stretched a lot in my seat during the meal, walking felt laborious but not nearly as painful as it did during this point of my Christmas Eve jaunt.

This was one of many portions of the day I was frustrated with our group’s lack of unity. Now, we’re in one of the busiest parts of the city and we must stay together. At Columbus Circle, one half of the group ended up multiple blocks ahead of the back half that had to wait for a crosswalk. I got us all back together, but I was so annoyed watching the front half go further and further away, none of them thinking to look behind themselves.

It’s not really their faults. These are all people who are so genuinely engaged in conversation with one another. Some of them are meeting each other for the first time or having their first true hangout after months of hellos and goodbyes at parties. No one is trying to leave anyone else in the lurch (I don’t think). But I just hated being one of the few people to care about wrangling.

This was another moment of two competing parts of me, one Oh my god, why aren’t any of these adults caring about staying together? and another Duuuuuuude this not only isn’t that deep, but everyone is having fun except you. Please chill, respectfully, you are not the victim here. Usually the Karen side would win out. Any soothe technique I’ve had went down the drain, because everything felt so dire and in the moment.

We got better as we moved down 8th Ave. It’s busy, but not nearly as overwhelming as some of its parallel, Times Square-housing avenues. The skyscrapers shielded us from the sun. We passed by a few places that made me nostalgic. On my first trip to the city, I took a picture in front of the New York Times building. My second trip was with my high school choir, where we stayed at the multicolored Westin. One of my roommates that trip was on our walk today (Gabby did not recognize the hotel when I pointed it out).

Somewhere in the 30s, we hung right to pop into Culture, a coffeeshop and bakery that Sam and Kunaal wanted to go to. Even semi-Floridian Hannah knew Culture because of their corn cookies. I went to a different Culture branch multiple times on the weekend I first moved here because it was a few blocks from our hotel. My mom bought a t-shirt from there that she still wears. It has a great design. I nabbed a vanilla latte I found mediocre and a black-and-white-cookie-filled cookie that I forgot about and ate last night. Meera says it’s one of the best cookies she’s had here, and I have to agree.

Nostalgia tour through Midtown continues, I guess. I don’t remember who pitched it earlier in the journey, but I was excited to finally return to the High Line. For those uninitiated, the High Line is multiple blocks of an old, elevated train line on the west side of Manhattan that has been converted into a park.

Before moving here, I was obsessed with the High Line, and I went here every time I visited. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, an artful intersection of urbanization and nature. There were little art installations littered throughout, innovative seating designs, and gorgeous buildings to stare into. Through my teen years and early twenties, I felt so inspired by this place, and it made me want to move here.

Oddly enough, I haven’t been to the High Line since moving here, so I was excited to take a detour. We walked down a few avenues and up the stairs. Guess what? I kind of hated it! The art installations that seemed so groundbreaking were instantly forgettable. The massive crowds made walking through more of a chore than I assumed it would be. I was just underwhelmed, which was hilarious. A true mix of New York raising your standards so high and making you a hater.

We maneuvered slowly through the meek trees and meeker people. When I was looking down at my phone to navigate us, Sam said That’s Stephen Colbert. I whipped my head around and saw the very end of his face while he walked with his wife. It was definitely him. That’s probably the most famous person I’ve seen, or at least almost seen. I saw Conan O’Brien in a similar way, whipping my head back while ensconced in Apple Maps.

Seconds later, the crowd hit a standstill while staring at the block under us, which was filled with tons of leather gays for Folsom East, which I had to tell my other gay friends who either don’t know their history or don’t know kink what it was. It was funny being amongst the High Line tourists just taking videos of the block below, filled to the brim with buff dudes.

After we got out of that mess, I was worried about timing. Some of our walkers had to leave early because they had a dinner reservation, and I was determined that they see through to the end. You can have your omakase and eat it, too. We all decided to exit the High Line so we could regain speed. That is, until half of our group stopped to pet a leashed cat for a while. Haven’t you seen enough cats in your life? (Just kidding.)

We had a last-minute join from another friend, making our group just a smidge bigger as we stopped outside of Chelsea Market. I love this little intersection showing what sort of remains of the Meatpacking District’s coolness. I finally used Apple Maps in a real way, navigating us from here to Battery Park, which would allegedly take just over an hour. This would be the perfect amount of time for everyone to be able to finish together. I relayed this information to the group, and everyone was down to speedrun ‘til the end.

A lot of this walk would take place down Greenwich Street, where I spent a similar super long walk last year. It starts off cute before getting boring. We walked through some adorable streets with little apartments and bars. There were some people around, but it was mostly quiet. We were all starting to lose steam. The frontrunners were unapologeticly booking it to the finish, and at this point I understood. Everyone was tired, with fast people getting faster and slow people getting slower. I craved water but finished my bottle hours ago.

As predicted, the street got boring once we peeked into Tribeca. Soulless office buildings on one side and big warehouses on the other with no people on the sidewalk but us. Once a real neighborhood starting peeking out, we had to turn on Moore Street and go by the water. When the frontrunners crossed earlier than the back group, I turned around, and Kaylie made a motion suggesting to keep going. I then didn’t look behind me for the rest of the walk, which I naturally got clowned for later. Totally fair. I guess I was just done being mom, which I have the luxury of discarding!

Music was playing and the sun shone beautifully as we appeared at the piers along the Hudson. Children played, bikers biked, everyone was out being active. It was beautiful, and a great final stretch. I was starting to get a bit delirious and lightheaded, but I knew that the end was near and I was more than capable of getting there.

I remember on my solo walk thinking Can I do this? and only being able to know that I officially could once I crossed Houston Street. With this walk having such a big group, no one ever questioned if the walk wouldn’t finish. There was never a group moment of uncertainty. Maybe people had some silent moments on their own to feel that way, but I didn’t know about it.

I spent the majority of this last stretch with three other girls, walking along the path that takes you through Battery Park, past the Oculus, and over to the Statue of Liberty ferries. I’ve never been on this path before, let alone Battery Park City, which is funny since I work nearby. It was so peaceful and shady. This was also one of many interludes we walked backwards, saying It works different muscles! and giggling.

I felt so much gratitude for my body, which was bedridden a few days prior. I was also so grateful for this group, for indulging me in one of my favorite ways to see the city. I think I had the least fun of everyone in the group because I was too busy worrying about people that didn’t ask me to worry but I still felt like I needed to. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t have fun, though. I had a great time. Just another reminder that I don’t need to be anyone’s parent soon.

I finally saw the Statue of Liberty in the distance as we walked on bike lanes (like true tourists) through Battery Park. Aimee wanted to run to the exact bottom, but the rest of us were fine with just being close enough. Since there was still construction, we couldn’t just see out into the water past a wall. But we hit the bottom. It was triumphant and fun. I remember on my solo walk I felt an emptiness when I finished, but it turns out a victory feels like a victory when it’s shared.

The omakase crew promptly left while the rest of us went to a grassy area to rest. There’s all of this fencing around the lawn and only two open areas you can walk in, which are both far from each other. My friends climbed atop benches to the fence and jumped over, a final physical feat of the day. I walked to find water and met up with the slower group, who had just finished their walk. Everyone did the same fence jumping except for Meera and I, who ended up walking to find the fence opening way further away, only to find out there was one much closer that we didn’t see.

I started feeling how much my feet ached as I traversed through the bumpy lawn. Once I laid down and took my shoes off, I saw that I broke out in hives around my socks. I took them off and had hives all over my feet. My friends said it might have been because this was my first time wearing these socks and the plastic mixed with sweat made me react. Later that night, I saw that I had hives on other parts of my body, especially my chest. I’ve only had hives once in my life before. I wonder if my stress had anything to do with it. They’ve died down but still haven’t gone away.

After enough rest, most of the crew started their journey home. A few of us ended up at a bar on Stone Street, where no one else in the group had been before but me. It was nice to sit outside on one of its many sprawling benches and sip an Allagash of accomplishment. We tried debriefing, but there really wasn’t much to debrief. Very little drama, nothing too crazy, nothing we didn’t all already know.

It’s time to go home. The L train is still down. We took the J to Flushing, and Meera and I walked the final 20 minutes home. I didn’t ache as badly as I thought I would. I don’t remember much of that night aside from enjoying a restorative shower, stretching a lot, and complaining about how I’m the only competent person in a group. I wish I were less Woe is me and more Wow, love we. That sentence made no sense. I’ve been writing this entry since yesterday and am ready to be done. The club outside my building is loudly playing music. It’s a Tuesday evening and has been going on since 5 p.m. I’m going crazy.

Anyway, if my job ever laid me off, I think I would start leading tours like this for money. Maybe on something like Airbnb experiences. Let me know if you need any guidance. Things I learned on this walk: 1. I worry too much. 2. I’m wrong to worry too much. 3. I’m actually right to worry too much. 4. This doesn’t matter. I had a fun day, and everyone else did, too. 5. Brooklyn bodegas are more likely to have yerba mates than Manhattan.