Welcome to the Metropolitan New York City photo tour--whew, we finally made it! It has taken me two years, two cars, two cameras and twice at attempting to bring you the city of New York and that is just what I will do. There is no possible way for me to verbally express just how much I love this place and therefore I will show you. In this unique form of urban exploration I have gained tons of knowledge about the surrounding in which I live. I have discovered New York’s most intimate streets and diverse communities. I have found it’s greatest assets in the many pocket parks that you can find scattering the city courtesy of Jacob Riis, tons of shopping from 5th Avenue in Manhattan to the Fordham Center and the Hub up in the Bronx and all the way out to Austin Street in Queens and beyond.
In this photo tour you will discover the honeycomb of nodes that surround Manhattan, those of which you never knew existed and would never have imagined in your fantasy of what New York was--most likely the one island that sits between Long Island and New Jersey.
Here you will see just how diverse this city is from Albanians to Hasidic Jews, Guyanese, Portuguese and Vietnamese. We will enter the cities two Little Italy’s, 3 Chinatowns and the unofficially named communities like little Odessa in Brooklyn and Little Poland up in Greenpoint. We will tackle the rows after rows of endless Brownstones and get lost in the concrete jungle they call the Bronx. I’ll show you that mysterious borough of Staten Island that just never seems to get any action on these boards…not just a few shots here and there but the entire borough.
Our journey will not only cover the five boroughs of New York but cross over those imaginary lines into Westchester to the north, Nassau to the east and Jersey to the west. We will erase the myths that NY turns into sleepy villages past Queens and the Bronx with the bustle that exists beyond them. Here, we will see just to what extent the “urbanity” New York covers. I’ll take you into the satellite cities of White Plains, Yonkers, Long Beach, Newark, Bayonne and Jersey City. You will not only get to see the center of the Metropolitan area is but the bucolic north shore of Long Island, the 300 year old communities along the Hudson River and LI Sound of southern Westchester County, the beach towns, bedroom communities, projects, chateau-like mansions, tightly packed residential blocks, core communities, business districts, shopping areas and even some of the Universities and their campuses. We’ll trek into the Zoo and Botanical Gardens. We will enjoy the Hudson and East rivers from the Circle Line and the landmark Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. This tour covers well over 400 neighborhoods so you are sure to get more than just a glimpse. There are over eight million stories in the naked city and this is mine, welcome to the apex of modern capitalism, Gotham City.


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3438/3948973161_070d848b3c_b.jpg

Here is how it will all work; we will begin our tour at the southern tip of Manhattan and after the bonus tours of the rivers and islands that surround Manhattan we will travel over the 207th street bridge into the borough of The Bronx. After we circumnavigate the stomping grounds of the Yankees we will enter into Westchester county but limit ourselves to just the southern part as it is very large. We will then cross over the Hudson River into New Jersey and work our way down the small portion of Bergen County into Hudson County, into the Meadowlands and then over into the city Newark. After we tour Newark it’s back over into Hudson County . We will jump over the Bayonne Bridge and circle the Borough of Staten Island. We will then skip over the Verrazano Bridge into the Borough of Brooklyn and then the Borough of Queens. Once we are done in Queens we will begin at Nassau County’s north shore and zig-zag through the county down until the south shore where we will end @ Point Look-Out. There will probably be about 165 threads all together and up to 20,000 pictures. This will take some time and I estimate if it is done right about 3 months to complete if I can get in at least one every day. We will see how that goes. I will also limit all comments to this page only. So if you have any questions or just want to pop in and say hi then I’d prefer to keep it all on this introduction. My threads will vary in size. They will all most likely have more than 100 pictures to them and most will reach up to 200 but I will present them in a series of posts as I have found that makes loading a bit easier. There can be a thread that might only showcase one particular part of the city and threads that feature up to 5 and six neighborhoods at a time. Each thread will have a soundtrack that I thought may add another emotion to viewing the threads…a story I might have associated with the neighborhood or just something I liked listening to while editing through the photos.
Not all the photos will be great photography by all means and I don’t want to pat myself on the back for beautiful images this photo project was more so about the quantity of photos and quantity of neighborhoods and attractions covered. I didn’t slouch, however, and did the best I feel I could do with the equipment I have and time I have allotted myself to take pictures. I did cheat and drive through some areas but you will find that 85%-90% of the places I have been to are traveled by foot.
Enough with the introduction…please continue on.


If you are a New Yorker, you are my neighbors, I love you, you are what makes this place so fantastic and you already know.

If you have been to New York City before then welcome back you’re always invited

and if this is your first time in the city well this is for you so come on in, kick off those shoes and find your spot…it’s waiting for you… Enjoy the tours!

Well the first one is up...took me a while to upload but I'm on Flickr and using pro so hopefully this will work smoothly.

That will be the basic layout of each thread but the amount of photos will vary where some will have significantly more than others and some will have significantly less. I'm going to attempt to put up the Financial district tonight as well.

I know these are all ready up and this is nothing new yet but you just wait and see...in about a month and change everything within that red outline will be up here and we'll make it from the bustle of downtown to the sandy shores of Long Island.

Stay tuned.

Awesome. Good idea making the photo threads only galleries.

Yeah that way they all stay in order and when I am done with it I'll just bump this so that it is always at the top.

I'm working on the Financial district now but I've scattered so many on my discs that I have to pick apart through my cd's to find photos relevant to the financial district that I took on days when I shot other parts as well. I saved the photos as I went along so some are mixed up. I hope I can finish it tonight.

Great stuff nygirl. thx for the ridiculous amount of work you have/are going to put into this. looking forward to seeing the places i've never been and know nothing about

Very ambitious project. Thanks for all the work, I'm already enjoying it.

Is it a mix of both old and new? Because I see some that look familiar.

Really awesome! I can't wait to see more of the lesser known areas.

I assume you were using a compact digicam, not a full blown DSLR? That would make you less conspicuous, of course, but you still spent a lot of time wandering the streets. Were you ever bothered by anyone for taking pictures (security guards, cops, etc.) especially in the more secluded areas? Do you have any funny stories that happened to you while you were out there?

Anyway keep up the good work. :cheers:

Ian...the pictures are all already taken and on disk it is the work on SSC that will be long and tedious and SFenn no worries we will visit tons of places.

Snowman, oddly enough no one did bother me for taking pictures. There were cat calls from guys in some neighborhoods and people who obviously knew I was taking pictures. People confronted me on it every once in a while but no one ever bothered me for it. I honestly found the nicest people to confront me were from West Newark which probably would resemble some of Detroits lesser neighborhoods. I didn't use any sophisticated cameras. There are probably a few funny stories here and there but none I can think of right now.

P.S.

Everyone, I know Manhattan has already been done but I wanted all the tours to be insync and the layouts wouldn't work if I just started with the Bronx. In a week or so we will be in the Bronx and I know you guys haven't seen those pictures yet so that should be a treat. Also the Manhattan tours I did before did not include my trips to the Islands nor the rivers around Manhattan but they will in this one.

Alright so Manhattan is almost done and I'm pretty happy to be moving on past it because it's already up in the showcase section (I'll delete the original showcase) BUT...what you have not seen so far are the bonus tours and they should be good and after that we move along to the Bronx and we'll be dealing in that borough for about a week and a half (hopefully). Stay tuned.

Bring on that Brooklyn! :banana:

^^ Gonna be a while. We have to first get through The Bronx, Westchester, Jersey and Staten Island before we can get to Brooklyn.

Something actually came up and I'm going to leave thread #31 unfinished for the night. We've basically gotten through the bulk of the South Bronx and I know it's pretty gritty and you're probably tired of seeing the area but the next couple of threads are going to be on the Botanical Gardens and the Zoo so that should be a pleasant change of pace.
I hope if you're checking out the tours so far you like what you see. There are so many to get through that I think we could end up going into 175 tours in total.
Tour will resume tommorow.

I was wondering what's going on with #31, thanks for the update. You really did a great job. I can't wait to see some distant areas we don't see often such as Nassau, Westchester, Staten Island, Jersey City and some "far out" locations of Brooklyn. Thanks for bringing NYC closer to us, we all love you. :cheers:

Your threads will satiate my desire to be in NY until my next trip.

Thank you so much for all the time it took to take all of the photos!

You're welcome.

Great idea and wonderful pictures. Thank you.

At the Bronx Zoo, you'll notice...there were peecocks roaming around all over the place. I thought that was nice as they are very beautiful birds. We also went through another large Bronx Italian neighborhood--Van Nest and through the largest Albanian neighborhood in the country--Pelham Parkway in the last thread. Now we are moving onto the last of the South Bronx tours.

Brace yourself for....Castle Hill. :lol:

It's been 2 years since you first announced your tour of the city and it's finally here. I've gone through all the threads so far and I just can't wait for the rest. It's insane how the Bronx is covered in RIP murals, some even seem to date nearly 20 years ago! Although much of those are remnants of a more dangerous period, it's evident that these areas continue to have their issues and I'm glad you're posting it up for all to see. That's what makes this tour so much more real, complete; I love it. I do think you're missing out on much feedback having all the threads locked down, though. Either way, amazing work, I really am enjoying it.

I think I'm missing out on feedback because it's not really "out there" so to say.

I'm not too worried about that, however, as we are not even near 1/3 the way. I figure by the time I get to Fort Lee we will be 1/3 done. When we reach halfway through Brooklyn--2/3 complete and when I end it all at Point Lookout I think, personally, I'm done. I might go back out there and continue to photograph the met but it was really time consuming and to be honest risky in some areas. I don't think the Bronx is anything like it was during the 80's or the 70's or even the 90's but it aint no wallk in the park.

In the thread that covers Bronx River, you will notice a police tower. That was situated at the end of a block on the major street in the neighborhood; Watson.

That thing, I found out can see well over 1/4 of a mile in each direction if uninterrupted by a structure. If you find yourself in any neighborhood that needs one of those things up and active (which it was) 24/7 you are in no way safe if you are an outsider. On top of that there was this sense of idolizing the dead as seen with the many murals for "Headache"...he was not the only one I saw but because his name appeared 7 times on the walls of Bronx River, yes 7 times on large murals I felt 3 would be sufficient enough to show you how important it is for the communities to memorialize their "soldiers" and they are because they are in a constant war, one many of us will never understand even if we think we can.

There were other memorials scattered throughout the area as you will notice the crude memorial for "Frank White" also in the same tour and neighborhood and if that isn't enough..Frank was killed on the same block.

You won't really find these memorials so prevalent in any other region across the met as you would in the Bronx.

The Bronx is definetly a rough, concrete jungle but it has plenty of character and expands further than even I imagined. Art Deco can be found far off of the Grand Concourse and these concrete blocks cover a little over 2/3 of the borough but are much more dense @ the south, center and west.

Kool Kid I'm glad you replied. I was wondering where the heck you were. I know you've been waiting and I'm happy to show you. There is plenty more to come. I can't wait to show off parts of Jersey and Staten Island.

I chose to lock all the photo threads because I don't want them to go to page 3 and 4. I want them to remain one page photo galleries and leave all the commenting for this page but also because order is important for me. If this was scattered it would make searching for areas that much more difficult. I'm thinking 5 pages for this showcase is plenty just to search for neighborhoods let alone allowing each thread to reach more than one page.

It also restricts users from adding their own pictures which I don't want to do in this showcase like I did in the last. I find that intrusive and uninvited.

Do you have photo from "Jackowo" ?This is polish region in New York.

I've never heard of Jackowo...sounds like it could be JACKson Heights but that neighborhood has no dominating ethnic group and is your basic cornucopia of ethnicities (most in the city and the country)
I believe Greenpoint in Brooklyn has the largest percentage of Polish people and yes I have over 60 photos ( I think) of that area.

I'll post them when I get to that area. You'll like it..it's very dense and very Polish. :)

I've never heard of Jackowo...

There's a Jackowo neighborhood in Chicago, that's probably what he was referring to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avondale,_Chicago


As to your previous post about the Bronx and the nypd impact tower on Watson, those blocks are all missing from Google Streetview, while virtually every other street in the Bronx is covered. Probably no coincidence. It's also the neighborhood where Diallo got shot, btw.

How did you feel walking around East NY? From what I've seen driving through the area, as a shortcut, the streets seemed to be more deserted and also looked more intimidating to me. But then I'm really no expert on these things... and I have no reason to walk around there anyway. :)

I've never heard of Jackowo...sounds like it could be JACKson Heights but that neighborhood has no dominating ethnic group and is your basic cornucopia of ethnicities (most in the city and the country)
I believe Greenpoint in Brooklyn has the largest percentage of Polish people and yes I have over 60 photos ( I think) of that area.

I'll post them when I get to that area. You'll like it..it's very dense and very Polish. :)

Sorry,I mistake.
I question about greenpoint!! : )
Ok,do you send on this forum this photos?

PS
Sorry but my english is not perfect.

In the thread that covers Bronx River, you will notice a police tower. That was situated at the end of a block on the major street in the neighborhood; Watson.

That thing, I found out can see well over 1/4 of a mile in each direction if uninterrupted by a structure. If you find yourself in any neighborhood that needs one of those things up and active (which it was) 24/7 you are in no way safe if you are an outsider. On top of that there was this sense of idolizing the dead as seen with the many murals for "Headache"...he was not the only one I saw but because his name appeared 7 times on the walls of Bronx River, yes 7 times on large murals I felt 3 would be sufficient enough to show you how important it is for the communities to memorialize their "soldiers" and they are because they are in a constant war, one many of us will never understand even if we think we can.

I read about those watch towers, that the NYPD set up, in the paper. That's when you know a neighborhood has some problems with safety! As for the murals, I find them interesting because I feel like they tell part of the story of the neighborhood and what the passing of these individuals meant for many living there. As you said, not 3 but 7 (!) murals of "headache" were made, there's probably even more. The guy obviously meant a lot to those whO knew him.
Other things I noticed were the abundance of Puerto Rican flags(It's no surprise why the Boricua parade was 2 million strong last year!) and the 9/11 murals. And yeah, the Bronx is a cool borough with lots of architectural gems, dense neighborhoods (be it slum or not; I kid) and even it's own "downtown hub" which reminds me of Fulton st in Brooklyn. It's even denser than most American cities. How's that for the birthplace of hip hop?

As for my absence, I've been busy with school but manage to snoop in a little now and then to view the threads (which, now that you mention it, are better off closed and kept in order.) And yeah, I can't wait for Staten Island either as it's usually under the radar. The southern tip of Staten Island has some really great historic housing stock that's similar to those photographed on city island. It's gonna be fun watching how different/similar parts from the city are from one another when you're all done, especially compared to Manhattan. (which "whores itself" the most to outsiders). Truly admirable work, I'm definitely tuning in.

Yep we just got a little taste of New England in NYC with City Island

As for the 9/11 murals...I've seen countless. I'd like some feedback someday from other places around the country to see if they have any like the ones I am showing but man o man are there tons and tons of 9/11 murals around the NYC area.

When I'm done I am going to comb through the threads to find all the 9/11 murals and make a thread just for them.

Ahmed: I figured you meant Greenpoint. I got tons of Greenpoint shots but it'll be a while till they get up here. I've got 3 more major locations to post before I get to Brooklyn and even when I do Greenpoint is pretty much at the end of that location (Brooklyn).

So I know that thread 45 is a pretty large one. One that is on par with the Circle Line tour and that was gigantic. It is, however, well worth it I believe so if you have a fast enough connection or just want to see it there's the mansions of Riverdale and Fieldston, Wave Hill (a true hidden gem), Van Cortland park teaser, magnificent views of the Palisades, Manhattan College and it's castles in the sky....

Hope you liked it if you checked it out because it rings in Westchester and closes out The Bronx...we can finally move on.

Take note of all the bus stops you see; rail lines, pedestrian activity and the distance you see it from the center of the met (in this case, midtown), popular use of public parks, similarties and differences in housing stock from neighborhood to neighborhood. We could be in Jersey by Sunday or Monday.

So thread 62...Union City. I think we can safely say that this is New York's "Little Havana"...hope you enjoyed JFK Boulevard and all the views of Manhattan. Believe me they are quite breath-taking in person.

It's also definitely safe to say the Fort Lee - Palisades Park area is anothr one of our real korea towns along with Flushing(I don't consider Manhattan's two block strip a korea town). I think I'd put it before Flushing as it seems to be specifically Korean it it's majority while Flushing is really more mixed with other nationalities. I also noticed the big presence of Brazilians in Westchester, that was a surprise. I knew Newark and, to some extent Astoria, had some Brazilians but westchester? News to me. You did a fantastic job capturing the beauty of Westchester, especially the towns on the Hudson which are by far my favorite, AND the views:

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/9642/irvintononhudson4040250.jpg (http://img269.imageshack.us/i/irvintononhudson4040250.jpg/)

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/5944/irvintononhudson4039500.jpg (http://img17.imageshack.us/i/irvintononhudson4039500.jpg/)

INSANE. Look at that machine in the distance! Oh yeah, I'm enjoying the views. Thank you nygirl. Thank you.

So we just finished up with the Meadowlands communities (thread # 65). Unless we count the North Ward of Newark as such..I don't.
I know it looks a little ratty but to be fair it is in the swamps of New Jersey. I still really enjoyed Harrison and I think it had a really cozy feel to itl. I would call that area coupled with the Ironbound in Newark "Little Iberia".
There is a large Spanish an Portuguese group within the area. If you look at the cross-walks in Harrison you'll notice the beautiful pink designs all over. That is influenced, most likely, by the Portuguese and Brazilian community in the area.

We're anxious to see more! When is next batch coming, is there more of NJ?

wow, congrats nygirl. amazing stuff you are doing here. go on like this!

Thanks China...

A little warning to you viewers. Staten Island is the next section after I finish up with Jersey and there are about 6 more tours to finish up with that. Understand that Staten Island will have it's lows and highs so I don't want to turn you off because after that is the Brooklyn tours which will be followed up by an equally fantastic group of tours for Queens and then some surprising tours for Nassau. Don't become deterred after seeing some of Staten Island's more drab neighborhoods as there are quite a few bedroom communities in the center of the island as well as at it's southern tip. In the mid-section @ the shore there are some beaches to be seen but it aint kokomo. In the north there are going to be some more interesting neighborhoods and then there is Snug Harbor which is also quite enjoyable (at least for me snapping pictures).

I hope Jersey surprised some of you as I consider much of JC+ Hoboken to be the spitting mirror image of Brooklyn sans all the brownstones. Paulus Hook and Van Vorst Park have a nice Brooklyn-esque atmosphere to them and then there will be great views from Liberty State Park. Stay tuned for tonights line up: JC's old Downtown, The power and lights district (W.A.L.D.O) and possibly Exchange Place.

Whoa I just realized how little of Liberty State Park I actually got. I can't believe I didn't fully walk the boardwalk. It is really more like "views from Liberty State Park" but I was running out of space on the camera that day and just loved the powerful view from the ferry terminal and environs.

How did you, that view, enjoy the Paulus Hook and Van Vorst Park section of the metro? Was it a surprise? Looks a lot like the BoCoCa area huh?

Thanks for the great Hoboken tour! I've been wanting to see a nice extensive tour of the city and you certainly delivered! :okay:

And of course thanks for all of the other great photos too! :) I'm definitely looking forward to all of the great photos to come. :)

Gia - Thank you so much for doing this. I can't begin to explain how wonderful it is to be able to see photo threads on all of these different places in the NY metro area. Your hard work is truly appreciated.

^^ Thank you for enjoying it.

Brace yourselves now...we enter the bottomless pit they call.........................Staten Island. Later with that.

^^ Thank you for enjoying it.

Brace yourselves now...we enter the bottomless pit they call.........................Staten Island. Later with that.

Thanks for all these, your Manhattan threads were a real inspiration and resource for my trip to new york in the summer. I plan on going back for a longer time next year so will hopefully branch out further.

Also I'll be keeping a look out for good viewing points to take pictures of the Manhattan skyline from, I figure the Staten Island and Brooklyn shorelines should be interesting.

UGHHHH I know how bland most of Staten Island is, believe me. I am happy to inform you we are more than half-way through the Island and from here on out it gets a bit more interesting. I'm sure you've heard it from me or a few others in here how the northern top 3rd of the Island has the Island's most concentrated neighborhoods and a more urban atmosphere. Not that the bottom 2/3's of SI are not concentrated but far too many pre-fabricated single family homes and tacky duplexes and condominiums. The bottom 2/3's are also mostly bedroom communities--something you seldom see throughout NYC and when you do they are hardly bedroom communities and really a continuous series of residential blocks cut off by large retail avenues.
St. George-Stapleton is pretty much the "downtown" of Staten Island and that is coming up after the next thread. The next thread will feature Snug Harbor ( SI's version of Wave Hill) and the gorgeous Japanese Garden inside. That being said, please don't stop checking in due to Staten Island...just remember Brooklyn is next where there is no shortage of cool neighborhoods to behold.
I assure you if you think these Todt Hill and Emerson Hill homes are large that you should wait around until I get to Nassau County...just wait till you see their Gold Coast.

Another thing I thought I would mention about Todt Hill and Emerson Hill is that I get the distinct feeling from just driving around there that these aren't just typical well-to-do Italian families but maybe....hmmm...perhaps the homes of some of NYC's Mafioso????

Who knows...maybe they are just well-to-do Italian families...................in track suits and tons of hair gel. I pretty much stayed in the car as this area scared me more than West Newark.

So we just finished tour 96: Park Hill- Grymes Hill. This tour features the area of Staten Island where the legendary Rap group, Wutang Clan is from(Park Hill). Staten Island gets this stereotype for being nothing but crotchity old people and Italians living in cookie cutter houses but you never think that one of the most lyrically talented rap artists IN THE GAME come from here.
To them, Staten Island is Shaolin AND areas like The Wall and Victory and Bay hold just as much water in hip hop as the boogie down Bronx and Harlem World and the truth is it does.
You'll be happy to know that we are entering the last of the Staten Island tours and as promised there wasn't much in the way of typical New York City to be seen in Staten Island. Some of you will be extra pleased to know that the next borough and region of the city we will tour in all its glory will be BROOKLYN. Stay tuned.

We hit a snafu with a corrupted disc but I futzed around on my old laptop and I still don't even know what I did right but the pictures are back. So bye bye Staten Island and hello Brooklyn.
The next tour includes Bay Ridge and Sunset Park our first for the borough. Sunset Park (the actual park) offers one of the best views of the city and has the city's 3rd Chinatown-- a mile long stretch along 8th Avenue.

Great news, nygirl! Thank you very much for your effort, you're doing a great job here and we all appreciate it. Brooklyn looks cool, can't wait to see more!

I have to ask, did the guy in the beanie say anything to you or give you any trouble?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2569/4104456977_4f2989caf7_b.jpg

Nope. They were both talking to the guy in the white van and he had his back to the van the whole time. She actually just said "hey" but it wasn't a menacing "hey". The guy in the white van by the time I reached it was now talking to the mother on the stoops in front of the Puertorican flag.

Ahh I love Park Slope, don't you? It is agreed by many here in NY to be one of the most cozy and coolest neighborhoods. Great for young couples, young families, the Bohemians, the Gay and Lesbian community, old and young alike. This has to be one of the most socially diverse neighborhoods in the city. I absolutely love it there.

Up next is the up and coming Red Hook and Gowanus. Long being left in the shadows of the BoCoCa section and Park Slope I think it's this area's time to shine.

I just caught wind of this whole thing Nygirl, I absolutely love it!

I loved seeing a piece of my old childhood neighborhood in dtwn white plains in there. keep up the good work, i'll be watching. I don't get the chance to post as much as I used to but I pay attention to the forums, please let me know if you decide to make a book out of this. I will support :)

Love all the pictures. What about Queens?

Well I mean...they kinda go in order. So right now it's Brooklyn and the next borough after this will be Queens.

Well everyone, next tour up is Prospect Park and I used to go there often when I was younger but not too much lately. I was very surprised by the presense of dogs in the park. I asked a few dog owners what the deal was and they said that it's pretty typical as Prospect Park is a very dog-friendly park. There must have been hundreds upon hundreds of dogs in the park and it was almost surreal. I guess Brooklyn is the borough of the dog.

If Borough Park seems like a ghost town in some of the shots it is because I went there on Yom Kippur like the idiot I am. I returned later to get some better shots at a better time of the day.

114 is missing "Brooklyn:" in the title.

If you can also take videos maybe there could be a separate thread updated with videos and what neighbourhoods are featured in them, and stuck at the top of course for easy finding.

Can't wait for Astoria, my favorite neighborhood! :cheers:

Yeah...I dunno. I'm not too happy with my Astoria pics. I should have gotten better ones and taken more but here goes...

I realize how badly I slept on Queens. Not all of it but most of it. I dunno why I did. I only took 30 shots of Corona and some of them really suck (summer haze)...I'll go back for some extras in the spring but until then I got a little something.

It even seems like I paid more attention to some Nassau hoods than Queens.

Flushing, Forrest Hills, Jamaica got plenty of deserved attention but my Jackson Heights, Astoria, Corona tours need some work.

The camera I started out with was some dinky Olympus point and click and in the hazy summers it would fog up at the corners and sometimes the focus was delayed but the snap was taken so it comes out blurry.

I'll go back to Queens in the Spring to grab a few good shots in each of these neighborhoods: Jackson Heights, Astoria, Corona, and maybe the Rockaways.

The Rockaways kinda stink anyway so I care less about that than the other 3

In thread #126 You'll see the neighborhood of Woodside. Under the tracks in that tour is known as Little Manila. It has a very large Filipino population.

So far a list of neighborhoods to recover in the spring: Astoria, Corona, Jackson Heights, Maspeth, Middle Village, Glendale...maybe Rego Park. Shouldn't take long. I really rushed the next tour and it was too sunny out for good pictures. I tended to take shots against the sun which is a no-no as you all know--should've taken them away from the sun. I'm going to try to limit it to these few neighborhoods and do it in 2 days but I'll have to wait until at least May to get back out there. So if the tours end up sucking...have no fear I know it as well and I want to make them better.

Some of the Rego shots are laughable at best. I can't believe how badly I did Queens. Queens deserves better. I think other than some of the northern Queens neighborhoods and the Rockaways the rest are better quality and more extensive. When I started doing the tours Queens was among my first objectives and I had less space on the olympus crap I used to shoot with.

awwww, don't be so hard on yourself. The work you have done is amazing and I am grateful that you have made this, because I cannot find pictures of all the neighborhoods in our city on the internet.

Wow, Forrest Hills is absolutely gorgeous! I didn't know there are neighborhoods in Queens that could compete with Astoria. Forrest Hills is my second favorite! Beautiful place!

I can't believe we're already up to Nassau County. Well it's a big one. The first tour is going to be Great Neck and all of it's sattelite neighborhoods. Great Neck has lovely shopping streets and all of it's sattelite neighborhoods have gigantic homes. I always find someone to ask more about the neighborhood when I tour and I found this one to be interesting. I probably engaged in conversation with over 20 people when I went to Great Neck just to find out more information should I need it (I did that everywhere I went) and I got the most sneers and rude answers in this neighborhood. So many nasty people up there. I don't know what it was...maybe I didn't wear my most expensive outfits and ppl knew I wasn't a local but...sheesh...really rude.

Anyway out of the 7 people that did know more than a thing or two about the neighborhood told me it is dominated mostly by Iranian and Iraqi jews. I thought that was interesting and something you won't find too often outside of north nassau, Michigan and Los Angeles but what I found odd...and maybe someone can help me out here is that 1 out of 7 said the ppl were Iranian jews, 1 said just jewish and 5 referred to the people up there as Persian.

Is that common? To use the word Persian instead of Iranian?

You're Jamaica tour really brought back memories of when I use to shop with my friends at what we called "the Ave", around Sutphin, years ago. Typical NY clothing stores in those shots, Jimmy Jazz, Hyperactive, DR. Jays, SnD's underground. My style has long since changed but it was nice to remember. Jamaica and Flushing are so alive and bustling, i love it. Can't wait for Nassau! thanks again girl.

BTW, it is common for Iranians to be called Persians. Some iranian americans call themselves that but I understand that many don't prefer that way? Or something along those lines...

well here it comes. I hope I can get 2 tours out tonight. We'll see.

Eh...I am only going to do one tonight. Next up is the Herricks, Williston Park area. This one is going to be kinda blah. I din't even feel like walking these neighborhoods even though, for the most part, I did. It's a pretty even combination of white collar/working class neighborhoods--primarily a bedroom community but not exactly to the extent that eastern Nassau county is.
The people here are mostly W.A.S.P, Irish Catholic. They are either north shore Long Island corporate slaves or union workers (electrical, carpenter, etc., etc.) anyway I hope you enjoyed the first batch. I wanted to zig zag through Queens so that I could start you off with the "Gold Coast" so to speak, that is Kings Point-Great Neck. It could have gone well either way if I started there or coming out of the Rockaways and into the Five Towns but I am happy with my first choice.
I'll try to give a short synopsis before each tour with Nassau since it's a real monster of a county and hardly known here on SSC or to most of us New Yorkers. So hopefully I am as accurate as I can be and as I have been informed by those encountered in these areas.

Those homes in the suburbs are so beautiful.

Thank you for posting these. It's going to take so long to view them all. :)

I love finding out about these little urban towns througout the country. I enjoy "exploring" them on google maps street view. Though of course I'd rather just do it on foot, I don't have the means.

Great photos NY Girl , I was wondering if you had a Flickr or Photobucket? Becuz , sometimes your threads are too big for my laptop to handle:ohno:

~Corey

Hey Nexis. Yeah I had to take the fact that the threads would be large into consideration. The thing is...there are about 20,000 photos in this tour + or - and I didn't want to go and split it all into 500-1,000 threads. This was enough for me believe me it was too much...

I do have flickr. I used flickr for this project but the thing is I have no real interest in organizing my flickr account so it is all discombobulated and you won't be able to tell what is what because there is no real layout.

The Atlantic Beach thread is strange, I know this. The day I went out there I took a chance. The whole day was pretty nice. It was mid week and all day the sun was out. This was July or late June I think and I knew that a hurricane was rolling around the east coast. About an hour after I got home we had terrential down pour. I was too lazy to go back to Atlantic Beach to get better shots of the beach clubs.
Anyway I kinda like the fact that I got the beach before the storm. I got other beaches. Some are good and some are not that great but this one was interesting, for me at least.

I hope you all enjoyed it, those of you that can. This is a real 56 killer BUT I would not have had the time to break it up into thousands of threads and I hope you can understand how much time this consumed and literally swallowed up. I'm glad it is over for the most part. I'll bump up the threads in a couple weeks or so and create little promotional threads in other sections to hopefully boost up the audience. I see I average about 80 viewers but only 4 or 5 of you comment, which is cool.
If you have any questions like Nexis or want to quote a picture or a thread go for it. I got the answer. Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42854913@N07/

- NYGIRL

Thank you so much for this, it's by far the greatest NYC tour I've ever seen. You've inspired me, once I finally manage to move out there I'm going to visit every neighborhood. Though I'll skip Newark, once was enough. ;)

^^I've been waiting for you to post. Glad you liked it.

Thank you once again nygirl for your tour of New York City. You brought this wonderful city closer to us and we can't thank you enough!

Huge thank you for this amazing thread. I adore NY, and I am going to savour going through these pics over the next few weeks. Hope to do a bit more exploring when I return, next July.

Heres an Idea for you , Use the Rail network , to find cities and towns. like NJT , LIRR , Metro North , CT rail. That might help you find hidden towns and unique towns. Since the Network is big here theres many opportunities. Fares are cheap to medium , cheapest on the Weekends. The Longest line in the NYC metro is the Port Jervis Line owned by NJT & Metro north , heads up to near Newburgh Area , then dips south Middletown and Port Jervis , lots of Senic towns and views along the way. Theres a Famous Viaduct along the Route. Another Route is the North Jersey Coastal line , brings you down to Point Pleasant,NJ , with stops at some interesting towns & Cities. Woodbridge , South Amboy , Red Bank , Long Branch. Another Route is Danbury Branch of Metro North , great line brings past Rich Areas and some historic Areas of western CT.
If you want anymore info on Routes just ask me. I know most of the routes by heart , even though i haven't taken them , ive been to the towns that they go to ,and i'm a Rail buff.

~Corey

^^Awesome, great to have your help. My very first idea for this was to create a site with a giant panorama map of the metropolitan area and use adobe to make any location clickable and here's what you would have loved, Nexis--I was going to include all rail lines and bus lines in the map.
This, however, costs a great deal of money and I figured it wasn't really worth it.

Heres an Idea for you , Use the Rail network , to find cities and towns. like NJT , LIRR , Metro North , CT rail. That might help you find hidden towns and unique towns. Since the Network is big here theres many opportunities. Fares are cheap to medium , cheapest on the Weekends. The Longest line in the NYC metro is the Port Jervis Line owned by NJT & Metro north , heads up to near Newburgh Area , then dips south Middletown and Port Jervis , lots of Senic towns and views along the way. Theres a Famous Viaduct along the Route. Another Route is the North Jersey Coastal line , brings you down to Point Pleasant,NJ , with stops at some interesting towns & Cities. Woodbridge , South Amboy , Red Bank , Long Branch. Another Route is Danbury Branch of Metro North , great line brings past Rich Areas and some historic Areas of western CT.
If you want anymore info on Routes just ask me. I know most of the routes by heart , even though i haven't taken them , ive been to the towns that they go to ,and i'm a Rail buff.

~Corey

Excellent advice, much appreciated. :)

Yep if you are visiting Connecticut you might want to take the metro up to New Haven and take a look at many historic seashore towns like mystic... I do really recommend you visit Mystic and the shipyard.

You covered quite a lot NYgirl, very hard working. You get an accolade from me! Keep up the good work. Not only you covered the numerous NYC nabes, but you also got in the periphery. And in a very organized fashion. Keep it up!

lol thanks Storm. We're all done. All I gotta do is put it in order and provide one last detailed map for each. I really hope the maps were a plus for those of you not from New York and I really hope the soundtracks were a plus in providing a means to elicit an emotion you would have otherwise not felt without one.

Just found this awesome thread, Great work nygirl (and team?). I would think this would be the most comprehensive photo tour of NYC ever undertaken. Much appreciated by all us fans of this great city...

And to think that I was surprised that woman is a moderator... Silly me:P
God, that's AWESOME! It's probably the biggest photo thread about one city at all SSC. I have never been to USA, but New York is my favourite city, it has some sort of... soul.

Ahh WOW!

I have never been to New York, let alone America but on viewing some of your pics I feel as if you've taken me there.

Many, many thanks ... right, I'm going to look at the rest now. :)

Very, very welcome. Enjoy.

I just have to say that I regularly immerse myself in your amazing photo threads. They evoke an everyday New York feeling and I almost feel like I'm walking the streets. Thank you so much for providing such an incredible virtual experience, nygirl!

^^ Ohhhh I am so happy you like it. I was beginning to think no one looked at them. The replys are greatly appreciated.

ok, i'm completely through! took me long enough lol... but it was worth it, definitely! just great work there nygirl, very much appreciated. :)

Thank you!! Thanks so much for checking it all out..wow that is so awesome. Glad you enjoyed it! Come back anytime.

Thank you!! Thanks so much for checking it all out..wow that is so awesome. Glad you enjoyed it! Come back anytime.

well i'll be there, cu this summer (i had enough of the cold lol)! :D or at least i'll try to... depends on how many days i'll get free.

Wow, nice threads of NYC metropolitan area.
Manhattan and Brooklyn are wonderfull.. very impressive. I went to NYC two times in 2008 and 2009 and I met the capital of the world.
I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge in winter, and I took a lot of photos of the NYC skyline. Very cold in winter, of course :D

Thanks for the photos!

I watched many of your awesome threads with your fine pictures and excellent music choise! I liked the suburban parts somehow more. Perhaps because I know Manhattan too well.
thank you so much for your efforts.

thankssssssss best web www.waymoney.tk

I am literally in love with New York now! Thanks for all the effort you put in to showcase this amazing city :D

How did you manage to pull it off?!?!?!

I'm doing the same thing in Puerto Rico, with the 78 municipalities, but it's hard... :o

The threads are really impressive, congrats on the effort. We now have an organized archive of every part of New York.

was a lot of work. Glad it is over actually.

I've watched for hours and will do so again this weekend. Thanks for all the effort you put in to it. NY is so huge and beautiful I cannot wait to go there some day. It's a shame I haven't been there allready but when I go I want to stay for a longer period so I can really feel what it's like.

And I really want to see a completed Freedom Tower and memorial site, so I'll have to wait. Looking at the speed of the construction, although I know it's a complex site, it's gonna take at least two or three years.:(

Is there a Greenwich Village thread?

Is there a Greenwich Village thread?

Order the #7 ;)

Wonderful photos. Thank you.

All threads are now opened.

nygirl,

I wanted to thank you for uploading and posting your pictures to share with everyone.

you're welcome.

Not only did you snap pictures, but you really did this in an artistic way and I got an authentic view of every neighborhood. Because of your postings, I've actually been planning trips to various places I've never even heard of. I've finally finished viewing the five boroughs and I have recomended this site to a lot of people already.

If anyone is interested to really see NYC, you should try the 5 Boro Bike Tour next may (Not A Race). It's not that bad and they close down major streets and highways for the bicyclists to ride on. The tour finishes with a relaxing ride back to Manhattan on the Staten Island Ferry....What an experience

Is that a yearly event? Sure is a great way to experience NY as a tourist.:)

Thank You so much NYGirl!!! I never would of guessed new york was that great I mean its obvious for the boroughs but to see NJ and outlying areas that urban too... Damn! Its completely official I'm moving to NYC no if ands or buts!!! (I couldn't even imagine the long tedious process of putting this gallery together) I was contemplating on doing something like this for Chicago but I wouldn't be doing any justice anymore lol. WOW thats all I can say, Every Page is Great!!! Thank You!!!

NYGirl, you rock. Thank you for doing this..I wanted to leave comments on all the sets about how much I love all of your photos and recall an experience in one of the areas or whatever, but I didn't want to pop any comment cherries. I'll just say it hear, thanks again!

Wou NYGirl, I am very excited about the photos of NYCity. Thank you very much for your hard and excellent work.
:bow:

I really LOVE these pics, visiting in Maarch 2011, and these pics have really helped with seeing where I would like to go and planning outings and such. Sheer brilliance. Thank you ever so much for all your effort, you've done an amazing job x

Really enjoying your threads. I have seen some of them before but I am slowly going through them all. Thanks.

Awesome awesome series. That a lot of dedicated work. Nicely executed. I would accept nothing less from a city of this caliber.

Here you will see just how diverse this city is from Albanians to Hasidic Jews, Guyanese, Portuguese and Vietnamese. We will enter the cities two Little Italy’s, 3 Chinatowns and the unofficially named communities like little Odessa in Brooklyn and Little Poland up in Greenpoint.

:D


We can't help but come to NY.

Nice job by the way.

Phenomenal job! Thank you so much.

you rock guys....!!!

Hi Guys
Its my very first post on side of the globe. I need some information about your city and thats gonna be a little off topic. Hope that you don't mind and help me. I come from Gdynia, Poland where since 2008 we started development of highrisers and entire waterfront from the scratch. My question is: How does URBAN PLANNING in your city practicly influence development. In my city - which i consider sick - when you have a private land in downtown you have to follow city's restricitions concerning hight (set number of floors), type of services or trades, and I don't mean production. In practice the city council sets what kind of building (cinema, hotel, club, shoppping centre) can stand on a particular property. The owner in practice can practicly give the money out for a kind of project and not always choose it's shape or form -there are cases where a public contest is being held were jury is set of city council etc + investor. How is ot in your place?

Thank you so much for any answers.

it really a good stuff discussion of interest and you can got the subject of interest .:cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers:

NYgirl I can't tell you how amazing and wonderful is the work you've done. I just can congratulate you for doing this.
I like very much and it is very special that you showed not only Manhattan, not ever only the 5 boroughs, but a great part of the metropolitan area.
Most people are used to think of New York only as Manhattan, and as it is its heart, but New York is much more than only Manhattan. For example not much people think of New York as a beach town, but the truth is that it has dozens of miles of beaches within the metropolitan area, maybe as much as Los Angeles or Miami, but obviusly the weather is not that favorable. Anyway besides the beaches it also has hundreds of miles of the most diverse coastline (rivers, lakes, ocean, harbours, marshes, etc) definitely New York is a water town.
So far I've only seen a few threads, I began with some suburbans ones. New York has to have the most beautiful suburbs of any U.S. city. Since they're older and built around rail, they have all those small and charming downtowns areas, and not just built around a shopping mall. They're also very diverse.
The areas of Sea Cliffs, Glen Cove and Cold Spring Harbour are very nice, and a contrast with the very urban Manhattan. I also found that area of Long Beach with the canals very charming.

NYGIRL-

Firstly, I would like to say that I immensely enjoyed all of the photos. Thank you so much for devoting the time and energy to this project!

I couldn't help wondering a couple things while viewing the threads:

1) After devoting so much time to exploring the boroughs and outer areas, what borough and/or specific neighborhood would you now say is your "favorite", and for what reason(s)?

2) Are you a NY native, or a transplant?

3) If it's not asking to much, I would be curious to know of what ethnicity you are?

Again, thanks so much for sharing the photos. You can see that this is my first post, I actually just joined the site to be able to leave you this message. I hope you post back, and happy new year!!