The Viele Map

"No other city is so spitefully incoherent"

--James Baldwin

Welcome to Manhattan Unlocked Walking Tours

Discover the hidden-in-plain-sight history and have fun decoding the architectural assortments of New York's most iconic (and architecturally complex) neighborhoods.

About Us

Manhattan Unlocked began as a blog over a decade ago to explore and explain the complex and captivating histories behind New York's constellation of neighborhoods that stretch nearly five miles from the Battery to Central Park--what most people consider New York City. It was a journey to test the waters for a book project, and the results were promising enough to dive into discovering the single story history behind the architectural creation of New York City. Our method of research and exploration involved creating immersive walking tours for key New York neighborhoods that together tell a unifying story of the city.

Our Walking Tours

Join us on a journey through time and space and re-discover long lost geographies and bygone transit systems. Manhattan Unlocked walking tours cover neighborhoods with their own unique stories to tell, but that were all part of the "city's" move uptown from City Hall to Central Park.

What Makes Our Tours Special?

  • Historical Insights:We believe that understanding Manhattan's long lost geography is crucial to grasping how "the city" moved uptown.
  • Transit Tales:Learn how different forms of rail transit--from horsecars in the 1850s to subways in the 1900s--shaped the city's architectural diversity.
  • The Pump Uptown:Discover how the daily act of "commuting to work" played a pivotal role in the city's growth, turning it into the vibrant metropolis we know today.
  • The Book: Build: The History of New York City on the Island of Manhattan

    While our walking tours provide a taste of Manhattan's history, we're also hard at work on a book that will dive deep into the city's past and explain the logic behind the "conveyer belt" of neighborhoods running up Broadway and Fifth Avenue, along a path of modern-day "ruins" of forgotten "cities."

    Join Us on a Walking Tour

    We are relaunching our walking tours over the Fall 2023 after the challenges of covid. We hope to see you on a tour of the history behind the world's most inspiring streetscapes.

    Re-launch dates:

    Sept 18: Midtown Manhattan Art and Architecture Walking Tour

    Midtown west

    Sept 27: Holdouts! Based on the Alpern & Durst Book

    Midtown east

    Oct 10: Recreate the Most Requested Walking Tour of 1840s New York

    NoHo & SoHo to City Hall

    TBD: Explore the Ruins of a Forgotten City in the Middle of Manhattan

    Astor Place to Madison Square

    TBD: A Disastrous History of Housing the Poor

    Chinatown and The Lower East Side

    In the meantime, the old blog for "testing the waters" remains below.

    Click Here to See Tours

    Tuesday, December 7, 2010

    Inwood Park & Robert Frost

    The Tuft of Flowers, by Robert Frost, came to life today at the start of a 90 minute walk on a desolate cold day through Inwood Park.  I’ll take you just that far, we’ll save the rest for another day…

    Looking south to the George Washington Bridge, near the Dyckman Street entrance and the lower level of the park…
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    My walk already started out special.  I passed this, what appears to be a devotion, along the banks of the Hudson.  IMG_0794 IMG_0792
    Not so unusual, actually.  Inwood is a special community.

    I’ve posted this view before, but not from this perspective, at sea level, the fjords (palisades) across the Hudson.
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    Looking north towards the Tappan Zee, up the Hudson…
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    Just a little bit further to the right of the above image, a bridge for Amtrak and the entrance of the short Harlem River…
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    Here’s the bridge that takes you over RR tracks, deeper into the park. This is the first time I crossed the bridge because I’d always been on skates before...
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    I didn’t wait here more than a minute…
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    when a train came by…
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    Inwood Park is the closest you get to an expanse of “woods” in Manhattan,  and considering what most perceptions are of Manhattan, it’s pretty incredible…
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    As soon as you cross the tracks, “street” lamps from a by-gone age mark the path…
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    Can you see both lamp posts in the woods?
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    I will leave off with this.  The tunnel ahead leads the traveler under the southbound Henry Hudson Parkway.  This is where I encountered something that I realized, later when I looked closely at the pictures, was Robert Frost’s The Tuft of Flowers.  I mean that explicitly; considering the country:city thing, this is not even a metaphor, but exactly and really what Robert Frost experienced that caused him to express the beautiful sentiment in that wonderful poem (which is included at the end).  Follow closely…
    Here is the tunnel as you approach…
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    Notice the tunnel has been painted midway up, first a peach color, and another coat of white paint came later…
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    The view through the tunnel…
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    But down to the left upon entering the tunnel, in the dirt, started by someone, at some time, a mosaic of flowers.

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    The flower mosaic was installed between the two coats of paint. Look how the painter who came later was careful to avoid getting paint on it…
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    It’s literally this poem. Two workers met without meeting.  The latter appreciated what the former had done, and in so doing, came to see the world a bit differently… 

    A Tuft of Flowers, by Robert Frost

    I went to turn the grass once after one
    Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

    The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
    Before I came to view the leveled scene.

    I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
    I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

    But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
    And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

    `As all must be,' I said within my heart,
    `Whether they work together or apart.'

    But as I said it, swift there passed me by
    On noiseless wing a 'wildered butterfly,

    Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night
    Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.

    And once I marked his flight go round and round,
    As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

    And then he flew as far as eye could see,
    And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

    I thought of questions that have no reply,
    And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

    But he turned first, and led my eye to look
    At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

    A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
    Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

    I left my place to know them by their name,
    Finding them butterfly weed when I came.

    The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
    By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

    Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
    But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

    The butterfly and I had lit upon,
    Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

    That made me hear the wakening birds around,
    And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

    And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
    So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

    But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
    And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

    And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
    With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

    `Men work together,' I told him from the heart,
    `Whether they work together or apart.'

    14 comments:

    1. Thank you for the revisit to Inwood park and the train tracks. I have 3 tiles like the ones pasted to the paint. Thanks for the poem, too. I'm 'wildered by your keen eye.

      ReplyDelete
    2. and, furthermore, the view of my old apt in the dyckman swing bridge pic. i think the fruits are for the dead, possibly someone killed there. I used to come across the same on Palisade Ave. usually a cake and some coins as well.

      ReplyDelete
    3. Thanks, Rob. This blog is terrific. I've walked on the other side of the river, under the "fjords", and appreciate seeing them from the NY perspective. Inwood Park is amazing. Looking forward to reading more.

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