Several weeks ago, I had the good fortune to be in New Orleans for a few days, a city I don’t know very well. On the last day, my wife and I took a walking tour in the French Quarter, ending up on Royal Street, lined block after block with colorful art galleries, cafés, cool little shops and historic, charming architecture. It was a sunny Sunday, and a jazz band was tucked into one street corner, complete with guitar, bass, clarinet, drums and the most beautiful singer you ever could hope to hear. Dozens of people were circled around them, not going anywhere, just luxuriating in the warm sound, while others strolled by. I wish we didn’t have to head to the airport that afternoon; I would have stayed on Royal Street for hours more to just soak it all in.
This got me thinking about streets I love to walk on. In Los Angeles on the Westside, in Venice, I always love to walk on Abbott Kinney, chock full of little shops and restaurants, not a franchise business in sight. It’s hard to pick just one in New York City—I’m always happy to wander in Greenwich Village—but I usually gravitate to MacDougal Street, where Eleanor Roosevelt lived after her husband died, Jackson Pollock painted, and you can always find a lively café for a good coffee. Outside the city, my family used to take the train up to Cold Spring or another town in the Hudson Valley to stroll along the main street, peer in windows, and stop in an antique shop here or there. Truth is, there are few things I savor more than having time—in a place I know or one I’ve never been before—to walk the streets, explore, and hopefully get lost.
What about you? What street do you love to walk on? What about it grabs your attention? I know: It’s not easy to pick just one. Mention a few if you like! As always, I’m looking forward to hearing what comes to mind—and the chance for this community to read about each other’s experiences.
I would call my favorite walk Memory Lane, my route home from high school through downtown Bradford, PA My weekly allowance was $2.25 from which I was to pay for my cafeteria school lunch and for town bus tokens to go to and from school. I always walked home to have a few nickels in my pocket to stop at the drug store soda fountain-they existed then with little tables, chairs-to buy a cherry coke with my friends. If we really wanted to splurge, we went in the diner just off of Main Street, and got french fries. At the top of Main Street stood the impressive Emery Hotel where we would sneak through a side door and use the rest room; to a small town girl, the hotel had an air & smell of class & the unknown. It later became a dorm for Univ.of Pittsburgh branch, then, the old home. I passed by two movie theaters, stopped & looked at the pictures showcased of the movie playing. Whenever there was a Martin,Lewis movie playing, Mother & I always went and had some laughs together.There was one jewelry store, Budd's. One day the owner stopped me on the street & asked me if I wanted a job. Sure. More nickels. So for a number of months, I sat behind a counter/desk after school and addressed/stuffed envelopes of sales ads sent to town residents. At the end, I used my savings to buy white roller skates, also sold by the store.Owner charged me full price !! There was a 5&10, Woolworths,that sold everything you can think of. Daddy used to give Mother a $20 bill for groceries which she deemed not enough, so she got a job there behind the candy/nut counter. Daddy said she would break a cashew in half so as not to go over the pound ordered. On one corner was the most modern store in town, Levy's, a sort of stationary store. It was also a bus stop. The big stop was near the hotel where you could sit on benches and wait for a trip to some exciting place in the country like Erie or Buffalo or maybe, wow, Philadelphia.On down the street was J C Penney's where I once wanted a white coat so bad, I pretended to cry. Mother put it on lay a way and paid weekly til I could claim it. : ) And next door was the ritzy women's clothing store that had actual mannequins and high prices. A girl at school bought her clothes at Penny's, cut out the name tags and replaced them with those from the expensive store. She knew someone there who got them for her. A few steps away on a side street was Zippo, world famous lighter company. And a library where once I was interviewed about an essay I wrote for a contest asking who was the most influential person to live. I wrote about Jesus. The sponsor was the local Jewish Temple. I won ! There were parking meters. When I was learning to drive, I drove around and around until someone pulled out of an end space. With that clutch and gear shift, I wasn't taking any chances with the pink and grey '55 Chevy that Daddy refused to take off the hot plastic seat covers. After crossing railroad tracks, Main St. ended facing a high stone wall against a large hill upon which houses stood. On the wall was the town motto -Go, Go,Go But Slow ! At that junction, I turned left onto East Main St. and walked the couple of miles remaining to get home.
Paris it wasn't, nor New Orleans nor NYC, but it has more meaning to me than any street in any of those places would have. To remember it is to be 16 again.
I can't remember the names of the streets, but anywhere in the old section of St. Augustine, FL, has always been my favorite. Maybe it's because they never change. Unfortunately the community around it is like the rest of Florida, subdivisions replacing the orange groves and too many people, but I can remember going when I was six or seven, and you could anywhere in the old fort. This was before it became of National Monument and many areas are now restricted. But the streets are the same now as they were then, after 70 some odd years. The shops and restaurants are still there and I find that somehow comforting.
One of my favorite street walking experiences was in Venice Italy, on the streets that feed into the Piazza San Marco. I can remember taking an early stroll from our pensione to a coffee bar for an espresso on a brisk morning. Then into the piazza to wonder about amongst the pigeons to the shoreline where the gondolas lined up. There is a well known photograph of several gondolas all lined up at the waters edge.
I love roaming the streets of N.O. Full of beautiful people, music, and food. I will never forget being serenaded to by Grandpa Elliott on Bourbon Street. Thank you for an uplifting article filling me with some of the greatest memories of my life. I love N. O. Next opportunity to visit again, try a muffaletta. ✌🏼
Congress and Broadway in downtown Tucson, AZ to wander before picking a place to eat. Canal street in NYC ending up at Venieros for a pastry. Somehow, my choices always end up with food! :@
Love the streets of New Orleans, Paris, NYC, Rome and more but living in Asbury Park (the city by the sea) i love to walk to boards and Cookman Ave with its shops & restaurants
The side streets of Tribeca are quiet and hold an air of mystery. I used to love walking down the streets around my childhood home in Mt Airy, in NW Philadelphia. There were old houses, crunchy leaves in autumn, and a peaceful feeling. I can’t go back there now; I did once and the house looked somewhat worn and it made me sad. I love to see rain clouds gather over the mountains in Jamaica!
I love to walk the streets of Lenox, MA. Those streets have so much charm, such great eating places and shops; and when I’m there I know I am just a few minutes away from Tanglewood. I love Tanglewood. It is my “happy place”.
1. The streets along St. James Park London. 2. On another note, since you have experiences in Hudson Valley, I have 4 files of newspapers from Orange County circa 1940. Filled with info about the war and local reaction, and of course, American life at that tumultuous time. I want to give them to someone who would be interested in the history of the period, and wants these original sources. I know of course everything is digitized, so "originals" are not what they used to be. Just a thought in case you know anyone who is interested. Am waiting to hear from the WW2 Museum which, by the way, and coincidentally, is in New Orleans. It's all connected somehow.
Just walked the streets along the beach in our small New England town. Lots of families out in the nice weather, people with dogs, elderly couples. It was nice. Now, I know that most of them are raging liberal idiots with no appreciation for what they have. They will be the ones threatening to whack people who are not in line with their radical agenda over the head with their “Black Lives Matter” and anti-gun signs when it comes to the next election cycle. They are the ones who will scream at you advocating for more Section 8 housing for the poor (and then make phone calls to ensure the next condo building doesn’t go into their neighborhood). But it was nice to walk around for a moment with the illusion and alongside some coastal white people walking their pure bread dogs.
Almost any San Francisco street.
Rita Richards Newhouse
2 min ago
I would call my favorite walk Memory Lane, my route home from high school through downtown Bradford, PA My weekly allowance was $2.25 from which I was to pay for my cafeteria school lunch and for town bus tokens to go to and from school. I always walked home to have a few nickels in my pocket to stop at the drug store soda fountain-they existed then with little tables, chairs-to buy a cherry coke with my friends. If we really wanted to splurge, we went in the diner just off of Main Street, and got french fries. At the top of Main Street stood the impressive Emery Hotel where we would sneak through a side door and use the rest room; to a small town girl, the hotel had an air & smell of class & the unknown. It later became a dorm for Univ.of Pittsburgh branch, then, the old home. I passed by two movie theaters, stopped & looked at the pictures showcased of the movie playing. Whenever there was a Martin,Lewis movie playing, Mother & I always went and had some laughs together.There was one jewelry store, Budd's. One day the owner stopped me on the street & asked me if I wanted a job. Sure. More nickels. So for a number of months, I sat behind a counter/desk after school and addressed/stuffed envelopes of sales ads sent to town residents. At the end, I used my savings to buy white roller skates, also sold by the store.Owner charged me full price !! There was a 5&10, Woolworths,that sold everything you can think of. Daddy used to give Mother a $20 bill for groceries which she deemed not enough, so she got a job there behind the candy/nut counter. Daddy said she would break a cashew in half so as not to go over the pound ordered. On one corner was the most modern store in town, Levy's, a sort of stationary store. It was also a bus stop. The big stop was near the hotel where you could sit on benches and wait for a trip to some exciting place in the country like Erie or Buffalo or maybe, wow, Philadelphia.On down the street was J C Penney's where I once wanted a white coat so bad, I pretended to cry. Mother put it on lay a way and paid weekly til I could claim it. : ) And next door was the ritzy women's clothing store that had actual mannequins and high prices. A girl at school bought her clothes at Penny's, cut out the name tags and replaced them with those from the expensive store. She knew someone there who got them for her. A few steps away on a side street was Zippo, world famous lighter company. And a library where once I was interviewed about an essay I wrote for a contest asking who was the most influential person to live. I wrote about Jesus. The sponsor was the local Jewish Temple. I won ! There were parking meters. When I was learning to drive, I drove around and around until someone pulled out of an end space. With that clutch and gear shift, I wasn't taking any chances with the pink and grey '55 Chevy that Daddy refused to take off the hot plastic seat covers. After crossing railroad tracks, Main St. ended facing a high stone wall against a large hill upon which houses stood. On the wall was the town motto -Go, Go,Go But Slow ! At that junction, I turned left onto East Main St. and walked the couple of miles remaining to get home.
Paris it wasn't, nor New Orleans nor NYC, but it has more meaning to me than any street in any of those places would have. To remember it is to be 16 again.
I can't remember the names of the streets, but anywhere in the old section of St. Augustine, FL, has always been my favorite. Maybe it's because they never change. Unfortunately the community around it is like the rest of Florida, subdivisions replacing the orange groves and too many people, but I can remember going when I was six or seven, and you could anywhere in the old fort. This was before it became of National Monument and many areas are now restricted. But the streets are the same now as they were then, after 70 some odd years. The shops and restaurants are still there and I find that somehow comforting.
One of my favorite street walking experiences was in Venice Italy, on the streets that feed into the Piazza San Marco. I can remember taking an early stroll from our pensione to a coffee bar for an espresso on a brisk morning. Then into the piazza to wonder about amongst the pigeons to the shoreline where the gondolas lined up. There is a well known photograph of several gondolas all lined up at the waters edge.
I love roaming the streets of N.O. Full of beautiful people, music, and food. I will never forget being serenaded to by Grandpa Elliott on Bourbon Street. Thank you for an uplifting article filling me with some of the greatest memories of my life. I love N. O. Next opportunity to visit again, try a muffaletta. ✌🏼
Ocean Avenue in Carmel-by-the-Sea.
Congress and Broadway in downtown Tucson, AZ to wander before picking a place to eat. Canal street in NYC ending up at Venieros for a pastry. Somehow, my choices always end up with food! :@
Anything with cobblestones in Philadelphia; Germantown Ave, Headhouse Row, etc.
Love the streets of New Orleans, Paris, NYC, Rome and more but living in Asbury Park (the city by the sea) i love to walk to boards and Cookman Ave with its shops & restaurants
The side streets of Tribeca are quiet and hold an air of mystery. I used to love walking down the streets around my childhood home in Mt Airy, in NW Philadelphia. There were old houses, crunchy leaves in autumn, and a peaceful feeling. I can’t go back there now; I did once and the house looked somewhat worn and it made me sad. I love to see rain clouds gather over the mountains in Jamaica!
Michigan Avenue, Chicago. The shops, the food, the parks, Art Institute, bridge over the river, the lake.
I love to walk the streets of Lenox, MA. Those streets have so much charm, such great eating places and shops; and when I’m there I know I am just a few minutes away from Tanglewood. I love Tanglewood. It is my “happy place”.
I enjoyed Mass. Ave. through downtown Lawrence, KS, when I last passed through.
1. The streets along St. James Park London. 2. On another note, since you have experiences in Hudson Valley, I have 4 files of newspapers from Orange County circa 1940. Filled with info about the war and local reaction, and of course, American life at that tumultuous time. I want to give them to someone who would be interested in the history of the period, and wants these original sources. I know of course everything is digitized, so "originals" are not what they used to be. Just a thought in case you know anyone who is interested. Am waiting to hear from the WW2 Museum which, by the way, and coincidentally, is in New Orleans. It's all connected somehow.
Just walked the streets along the beach in our small New England town. Lots of families out in the nice weather, people with dogs, elderly couples. It was nice. Now, I know that most of them are raging liberal idiots with no appreciation for what they have. They will be the ones threatening to whack people who are not in line with their radical agenda over the head with their “Black Lives Matter” and anti-gun signs when it comes to the next election cycle. They are the ones who will scream at you advocating for more Section 8 housing for the poor (and then make phone calls to ensure the next condo building doesn’t go into their neighborhood). But it was nice to walk around for a moment with the illusion and alongside some coastal white people walking their pure bread dogs.