If there’s one thing a New Yorker’s gonna do it’s gonna be walk everywhere–NYC is, after all, one of the most walkable cities in the U.S. And while it’s safe to say many of us feel like at this point we’ve walked all of NYC, none of us have been able to prove it–until now!
According to NBC News, hiker Maya Gonzalez Berry set out in October 2018 on a mission to walk down every single street in Manhattan–a mission that she finally completed this past December (2023)!
According to the news site, Berry left her apartment each morning with a fitness tracker, a water bottle, and a snack and set out on foot–in rain, wind, snow, and sunshine–to stroll the streets of New York City. After each walk she traced her path on a map to keep track of which streets she walked.
Though Berry’s mission was put on hiatus during the pandemic, she completed it just about five years later, walking up and down every single street in Manhattan–a total of 640 miles!
Berry told NBC:
There’s always that hustle and bustle, but there’s another side of New York once you get off that beaten path. And just seeing all the faces of it — the architecture, really looking at all the details of buildings and finding little gems that you wouldn’t know.
Berry’s journey reminds us a bit of Kate Jones, NYC’s most recent champion of the NYC “Subway Challenge” in which straphangers journey along the city’s entire 665 miles of subway tracks in the fastest time possible.
Though with an early spring approaching we’d definitely rather walk the streets of the city in the sunshine than be underground in the subway.