Off the avenues

Cutting through parking lots, hotels, and department stores, Tad Friend one-ups John Updike by walking all the way from 33rd Street to Central Park without walking on 5th or 6th Avenues.

It was after 5 P.M., so I ducked in for a drink a few doors down at the Whiskey Trader bar, where the weekend was noisily under way. Downstairs, by the rest rooms, was a door with a sign warning “Siren Will Sound.” But siren didn’t sound. In the adjacent basement were a mop and a bucket, odds and dead ends-and a stairwell, leading up. On the landing I eased open a fire door… into a gleaming lobby off Fifty-sixth. Ha!

Updike only made it to Rockefeller Center. You may remember a similar effort from last year. Who will take up Friend’s mantle and stretch this down to 14th Street? And would Broadway be allowed? (I think not.)

• John Updike
• NYC
• Tad Friend

The true New Yorker

The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.

That’s John Updike. (via swissmiss)

• John Updike
• NYC