This as-told-to story is based on a conversation with Krissy Oechslin. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
For years, I wanted to walk every block of a city.
In 2012, I read a New York Times story about Matt Green, who was on a mission to walk every block of all five boroughs of NYC. I thought it was incredible and wanted to replicate a similar walking project one day.
During the pandemic lockdowns, I toyed with the idea of doing it in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I lived at the time. It wouldn’t really be possible — Charlotte is very car-centric, and there are parts of the city that just aren’t pedestrian-friendly. I knew I would get odd looks if I was strolling next to a highway.
When I decided to move to New York in February 2024, I thought exploring every block of Manhattan would be a cool way to get to know my new city.
It took me 13 months of on-and-off effort to walk every block. When I was finished, I felt like I saw so many unique parts of Manhattan — ones even lifelong New Yorkers might not know about.
I tracked my progress with a 6-foot map
Originally, I planned to both bike and walk the city, so I couldn’t use CityStrides, a map that only tracks running and walking. (In the end, I walked over 99.5% of the project.)
Because I wanted to tackle the blocks out of order, tracking them was a multi-step process. First, I needed a map of Manhattan.
Finding a complete one was trickier than I expected. The first one I bought on Amazon stopped after 110th Street and many I found capped the island at Central Park. Manhattan stretches over 100 blocks further north, ending at Marble Hill right before West 230th Street.
The best one I could find was from 2011, a 6-foot-long version that I stuck to the wall in my apartment.
By the time I was done with the project, I learned that one was not fully up to date, either — I encountered areas in real life that were blank on the map, like Waterline Square on the Upper West Side, which was completed in 2020.
I downloaded Strava to track exact steps every day, then traced my progress to the map with a Sharpie.
My first entry began in Harlem, right after I returned my moving truck and walked 10 blocks to my new home.
Afterward, I started trying to find unique routes when I made plans — how could I incorporate a new block on my way to meet my friends? Other times, I specifically walked to new areas on my list, like the FDR Drive highway service road on the easternmost side of the borough.
The oldest streets were my favorites
I didn’t want to miss any historic landmarks.
When I started the project, I bought “The New York Nobody Knows” by William B. Helmreich, a sociologist who walked every block in NYC. It felt more like a sociology textbook than a walking guide, but it gave me some ideas of what I wanted to stop and look at on certain blocks, so I saved them in Google Maps.
I also stopped a lot during my walks to search different buildings or historical figures on Wikipedia, with what felt like hundreds of tabs open on my phone. I snapped photos of the original Statue of Liberty sculpture in Midtown and old, weathered ads for omega oil in Harlem.
Walking up to 10 miles a day sometimes, I ended up saving a lot of buildings on Google Maps that I plan to revisit during Open House New York, a weekend when normally private buildings are accessible to the public.
I’m a sucker for cobblestone streets, so some of my favorite neighborhoods were the West Village and Tribeca. I also loved the Financial District — some of the oldest streets in New York combined with towering skyscrapers made for such a cool contrast of old and new.
One of the most beautiful streets I discovered was on St. Nicholas between 152nd and 153rd — it was lined with historical rowhouses and pockets of greenery.
In the East Village, I encountered the two oldest cemeteries in New York: New York Marble Cemetery and New York City Marble Cemetery. The former, established in 1830, is partially obscured: I could only see it at the end of the block through an iron gate.
I stumbled upon other hidden gems like a Mexican folk art store or a used record shop in the middle of an apartment block. I loved learning that they exist.
I finished at an iconic New York spot
By March 2025, I bought a co-op apartment in a neighborhood I hadn’t finished exploring: Morningside Heights, at the top of Manhattan.
That month, I officially ended my project near my new home, in front of Tom’s Restaurant, otherwise known as the “Seinfeld” diner.
Four people completely ignored me when I asked them to take a photo of me in front of the restaurant. It made me feel like a real New Yorker.
Moving to a new city, I didn’t have many friends yet. Having this project gave me built-in plans every weekend — if I had nothing else going on, I could always go for a walk.
When I tell people I walked every block of Manhattan, I can tell how long someone’s lived here based on their response. The ones who’ve been here the longest aren’t too impressed: walking everywhere is just part of the experience.
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