How 10 blocks can be categorized in 2sets of 5 !

Oceane Mercadal

Activity 3#

The third activity for my Urban Studies class was to walk a ten-block radius and identify public from private places. In order to accomplish this activity I decided to walk around my friends place s I’m staying there for a little while. He lives on 85^th and Lexington Avenue. I decided to walk up Lexington Avenue to 95^th, which is near the EHS dorms were I first lived when I moved the city. I thought the activity was going to be fun and a piece of cake but actually came to be one of the hardest things I had to do.

A quote, which I found particularly appropriate for this exercise was from Jane Jacobs book The Death and Life of Great American Cities: "...frequent streets and short blocks are valuable because of the fabric of intricate cross-use that they permit among the users of a city neighborhood." I thought this quote was good for this exercise because it clearly states that the streets we live on today exist for what they are due to what the neighborhood makes them to be.

As I walked up the streets I realized it was really crowded from 85^th to 89^th-90^th, everything started becoming quite after that. I would say that 85^th and 86^th street are public blocks. A Best Buy, Pet Co, Victoria Secret, H&M, Sephora and some other utility stores such as the small AT&T shop and the Duane Read can be found on this very small radius. These streets also shelter the 6-train subway line as well as the express trains 4 and 5. This area could be considered public. It is busy from morning to night with people coming out or going in the subways, busy workers going to get coffee at the Starbucks on the corer before work and the ones going shopping on a nice day off from work. "Traffic congestion is caused by vehicles, not by people in themselves.” This quote from Jane Jacobs book fits this public area perfectly. Even though the street is packed with people, what stands out the most are the yellow cabs going stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to take passengers when your crossing the street.

As you go further up the amount of big stores decrease and the noise level diminishes as well. I can’t really say that it gets quiet, as it never does in the streets of Manhattan. You’re always going to have a fire truck or a police car coming out of nowhere blasting their annoying and painful serene. As you walk up to 95^th the streets become more private though. There aren’t any big stores like the Barnes & Nobles on 85^th between Lexington and 3^rd Avenue. It is mostly private apartment buildings. On the contrary to the rest of Manhattan there is a mixture of tall skyscrapers and small 4-5 stories buildings. Actually you can distinguish the difference from one avenue to the next. Between Lexington and Park Avenue are the shorter buildings; while on the other between Lexington and 3^rd Avenue are the humongous skyscrapers. As you walk up you can find some small shops such as the nail place, which you never know whether it is open or not. A few restaurants all a block away from one another and the Crumbs Cupcake shop on 91^st (where I was obliged to stop in order to get a tiramisu cupcake).

Walking up these 10 blocks on Lexington Avenue as fun and interesting because you get to discover the city and your neighborhood and a completely new way. You also realize how the surroundings can change from one block to the next. I’d say there is a wide variety of public and private places everywhere and that it is up to you to decide what you want this area to be for you.