New York City Walks with an IPump Twist

On an overcast Saturday, I joined author and blogger Alissa Walker in Manhattan for a walking tour of the Highline. The walk began at the Gansevoort/Washington Street entrance to this a reclaimed 1.5-mile elevated railway that has been reopened as a park and a greenway. As the group traveled north, Alissa explained the history of the Highline while pointing out some the park's more unusual features like the tapered concrete paws below one's feet that help create the illusion of an urban wilderness. Also, she highlighted the sustainable developments going up in the meatpacking district of Manhattan like the latest creation by Frank Gehry, as well as the whimsy evident in The Maritime Hotel on W. 16^th Street and other structures. We departed at W. 20^th Street, where the Highline current ends, though eventually the park will extend to W. 34^th Street.

Afterwards we were treated to gelato at the historic Chelsea Market, a site that used to be the Nabisco factory. While the rest of the tour went their own ways, I chose to continue my exploration of the area by checking out some nearby Chelsea Galleries located at 21^st and 22^nd Second Street between 10^th and 11^th Avenues.

This walk represented one of 25 walks that Alissa outlines in her new book City Walks Architecture: New York. Each card contains a snippet of history, architectural tidbits and other fun facts about a particular walk. Instead of lugging around an entire guidebook, one only has to pull out the walks that one intends to take for that given day.

The walks included in this deck of cards are as follows:

Brooklyn Bridge
Temple of Wall Street
Brooklyn's Skyscraper Race
World Trade Center Site
SoHo's Cast-Iron Beauties
The Rising Lower East Side
It Takes a Village
The High Line
Gramercy, Flatiron, and Empire State
One Train station, Two Libraries
Sustainable Skyscrapers
Hip Hotels in Times Square
Diplomatic design at the United Nations
Midtown Manhattan
Art Deco at Rockefeller Center
Window Shopping on Fifth Avenue
Upper East Side Palaces of Art and Design
Luxury Living on the Upper East Side
Central Park
Harlem Revival
Art Moderne in the Bronx
A Land of Tomorrow in Queens
Brooklyn's Brownstones
Staten Island Victorian

Each journey last about an hour or two (longer if you like to dawdle) complete with a selection of a place to grab a bit during the trip. Adventurous walkers can combine many of the walks by picking up where the last walk left off, thus spending a full day exploring the sidewalks of Manhattan.

Alissa noted her goal was to give everyone a taste of history, which explains the absence of some historical sites such as St. Mark's Church in the Bowery and the Coney Island Boardwalk. While one cannot combine all that NYC has to offer in a deck of cards though she did manage to capture many of the highlights.

While these walks afford one the opportunity to get in some exercise, those who want to take this walk up a notch might want to check out the iPump. This application available for the iPhone or iTouch provides access to over 400 complete workouts and over 4,000 exercise images and videos that one can combine to make their own customized workout. Also, one can download images for the Palm and Blackberry. By picking out a card from City Walks Architecture: New York and then downloading a workout courtesy of PumpOne, one has the perfect plan to keep fit in this urban jungle without weighing oneself down with the added weight and hassle of lugging around an guidebook and a printed exercise regime.