Walking Manhattan. Ellen Levitt
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with its 30-story tower, and then the New York State Supreme Court Building, reminiscent of a Greek temple. neoclassical in design, these buildings are often in the news; trucks and vans from media outlets are usually nearby. The Supreme Court Building should also be familiar to fans of TV’s Law & Order.
Across Centre St. from the courts are Thomas Paine Park to the north and Foley Square to the south. Foley Square has a black-marble modernist sculpture called Triumph of the Human Spirit, which relates to the nearby African Burial Ground. The horizontal piece is meant to evoke a slave ship, the vertical piece an African antelope mask. This space was originally the Collect Pond, a freshwater source that was drained and filled in (1811). During the Victorian era, the immediate neighborhood was known as the rough and tough Five Points, a breeding ground for gangs that was immortalized in the novel and movie Gangs of New York. Hard to believe that this highly bureaucratic district was once so lawless.
From the south end of Foley Square (more of a triangle, really), walk northwest on Duane Street. The modern building on your right, with the huge glass windows, is the United States Court of International Trade. Just past it is 26 Federal Plaza, the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building. (Javits was a longtime US senator from New York.) If you like 1960s space-age office buildings, you’ll love this one.Evoking a completely different era and mood are the green space and memorial to your left at Elk Street, the African Burial Ground National Monument. In 1991, during excavation for the construction of a government building, hundreds of graves were discovered; research determined the site to have been a major burial ground for enslaved and free blacks from the late 17th century into the 18th century. The current site, comprising a monument, burial mounds, and a visitor center, is supervised by the National Park Service. Granite structures, the Circle of the Diaspora and the Ancestral Chamber, are inscribed with signs and symbols that are significant to different African cultures, such as an Egyptian ankh, a Muslim star and crescent, and a Ghanaian sankofa.
Walk back on Duane Street to Lafayette Street and turn left.
At Worth Street, lined with even more government buildings, make a right. On your left is the New York City Department of Health building; the geometric metal grillwork over its entrance is a typical Art Deco touch. A freestanding column topped with a stylized eagle flanks each side of the entrance. Then cross Centre Street to see the Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building, named for a New York attorney general. Art Deco with a twist, this 1928 building incorporates Egyptian elements into both its exterior ornamentation (such as the sphinxlike gargoyles at the roofline) and its extravagant lobby. A bit farther along Worth on the right side is a newer court building, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse, named for the late New York senator. It’s opposite Columbus Park, an oddly shaped but appealing green space with a playground, sports courts, lots of benches, and an open-air pavilion on its northern end. Nowadays it seems relaxed, dominated by Chinese seniors playing mah-jongg or doing Tai Chi exercises, kids running around, teens shooting hoops. But in the mid-1800s this was Mulberry Bend, the heart of Five Points, rife with slum housing and gang domination.
Walk on Baxter Street with Columbus Park to your right, passing the New York City Criminal Courts Building on your left, and make a right into the park. Just inside the entrance stands a bronze statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China, atop a descriptive black-marble base. Sun was once a New Yorker, having lived in Chinatown briefly at the turn of the century before returning home to help overthrow the Qing Dynasty and establish the Republic of China.
Notice the park’s cottagelike pavilion, built in 1897. For decades, it was a blighted eyesore—and a favorite haunt of the city’s pigeons—but it was renovated in 2007.
The stately columns of the Tweed Courthouse
If you haven’t been yanked into a game of checkers, continue on through the park to Mulberry Street and Bayard Street. The redbrick corner building diagonally across from the park, #70, has some cool architectural touches, such as corner windows set on diagonals. It was built as a public school in the early 1900s, but now Chen Dance Center and Chinatown Manpower Project are among the cultural and community tenants here. Walk onto Mulberry with that building to your right and examine a typical Chinatown street: fish store, tchotchkes and souvenirs, Chinese and Vietnamese eateries, and much more.
Cross Canal Street carefully; it gets crowded here, and some drivers jump the traffic lights. Farther up Mulberry Street, the ethnic pride shifts to Italian. This was traditionally the heart of Little Italy, but over the years Chinatown has expanded and the Italian presence has diminished. Still, pause a moment to see the Church of the Most Precious Blood, set back from the street on your left. (If it looks plain and drab, that’s because this is the rear of the church—the main entrance, on Baxter Street, would look right at home in Italy.) An arched gate announces the church’s name; a colorful Statue of Liberty mural is painted on the side wall of the building next door. Most Precious Blood is a focal point of Little Italy’s annual Feast of San Gennaro, an 11-day street fair held in late September.As you might expect, this block also has numerous Italian restaurants and pastry shops. The building at 121 Mulberry bears the inscription ANNA ESPOSITO 1926 near the roofline, along with a pretty sunburst decoration. (The Espositos, one of Little Italy’s leading families, built #121.) Also notice the WELCOME TO HISTORIC LITTLE ITALY banners on streetlight poles. Red, white, and green streamers are strung from one side of the street to the other on Mulberry and other streets around here, reflecting the colors of the Italian flag.
At Hester Street, make a right and you’ll notice a greater concentration of Italian establishments. On the right, at Mott Street, is The Original Vincent’s. Established in 1904, this red-sauce joint is one of the oldest restaurants in the area, and it has a nifty neon sign.
The rest of Mott Street, however, is much more Chinese in character. Turn right on Mott; past Canal Street, at #68, is House of Vegetarian, one of the better-regarded vegan ethnic restaurants in Manhattan. (Try the turnip cake. My younger daughter and I love it.) At 64 Mott is the Eastern States Buddhist Temple. Housed in a storefront, it’s far less splashy than other area temples but is nonetheless dominated by the color red. Look left at Bayard Street and you’ll see The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, the place for unusual ice-cream flavors such as red bean or lychee.
Walk farther on Mott Street to where it bends at Pell Street. Here, on your right, are the Church of the Transfiguration, a Catholic congregation, and its companion school building. Built in the Georgian style, the church dates to 1801 (it was originally a Lutheran congregation) and features Manhattan schist as well as brownstone; an octagonal copper-clad tower was added in 1868. Inside, the church is beautiful and light, with a fresco of the Last Supper painted on the ceiling above the altar. Most of Transfiguration’s parishioners are Chinese, so you’ll see signs in both Chinese and English.
As you walk along Mott and other streets in the vicinity, don’t forget to notice the Eastern decorative touches on the buildings: human faces, sunbursts, floral swirls, shells, and such. Sometimes there are political touches, too, such as the Taiwanese flags hanging over Hop Lee Restaurant at 16 Mott.
Mott Street ends at Bowery (also signed as Park Row and Chatham Square) and intersects Worth Street, Oliver Street, and East Broadway. Be vigilant when crossing Bowery, especially if there’s no traffic cop on duty. Walk to the pedestrian plaza, Kimlau Square, which consists of a statue, memorial, and small park dedicated to Chinese American servicemen who perished in World War II. (The square is named for Benjamin Ralph Kimlau, a bomber pilot who grew up in New York City and was shot down over New Guinea in 1944.)
With the park to your left, walk on Oliver Street and stop in front of the Mariners’ Temple Baptist Church on Henry Street. It was built in the 1840s, in the Greek Revival style. Turn left on Henry Street; on your right is an old school building, still active, with GRAMMAR SCHOOL NO. 1 inscribed over its entrance. Known today as PS 001 Alfred E. Smith, the school dates to 1897.
Go back in the direction you came on Henry and then Oliver to St. James Place. At the large intersection, make a left on St. James. Pass a building with a few stores, then come to a tiny