Each year, as part of the global Jane’s Walk weekend honoring the great urban activist Jane Jacobs, the Municipal Arts Society hosts 100+ free walking tours led by New Yorkers who love their neighborhoods. The walks cover all five boroughs and this year will stretch from early Friday morning, May 5, through Sunday afternoon, May 7. Unless noted in the walk description, no registration is required. Just show up at the designated time and place. Check here for a full listing of the 2017 walks in New York City.
This year’s New York Jane’s Walks will include two northern Manhattan excursions focused on the great naturalist John James Audubon, whose final home Minnie’s Land lay just north of present-day 155th Street. Big Apple Greeter, Leigh Hallinby, a long time resident of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, will lead two walks examining the Audubon Mural Project and Audubon Park resident and historian Matthew Spady will lead four walks of the Audubon Park Historic District. On Saturday, Jane’s Walkers can combine the two excursions, beginning with the Mural Walk at 11:00 a.m., lunching in one of the local eateries near Broadway and 157th Street from about 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., and then joining the Audubon Park walk at 1:30 p.m.
The Bird Murals of John James Audubon’s Neighborhood
The Audubon Mural Project is an exciting collaboration between the National Audubon Society and the Gitler &_____ Gallery to create murals of climate threatened birds in the Northern Manhattan neighborhoods of Hamilton Heights and Washington Heights, where the great naturalist James John Audubon lived the final years of his life.
The walk will proceed along Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue between 146th Street and 155th Street and will include about 20 murals along with a visit to Audubon’s gravesite in the Trinity Church Cemetery at 155th and Broadway.
Binoculars will be an asset on this walk.
The Bird Murals of John James Audubon’s Neighborhood
Meeting Place: Hamilton Bakery, 3570 Broadway (146-7)
May 5, 2017, 11:00 AM
May 6, 2017, 11:00 AM
The walk is approximately one and a half hours.
How Audubon Park Disrupted Manhattan’s Grid
The distinctive footprint that disrupts Manhattan’s grid west of Broadway between 155th and 158th Streets—the Audubon Park Historic District—did not come about by accident or from the demands of local topography.
It unfolded from careful planning and alliances among like-minded property owners, whose social and political connections ensured that when progress swept up Manhattan’s west side, they would benefit.
On this guided walk, you’ll take a leisurely stroll through the architecture gems in today’s Audubon Park Historic district while you learn about the family who controlled the rapid evolution from suburb to city at the turn of the twentieth century.
How Audubon Park Disrupted Manhattan’s Grid
Meeting Place: Audubon Monument, 550 West 155th Street
May 5, 2017, 4:30 PM
May 6, 2017, 1:30 PM
May 7, 2017, 11:00 AM
May 7, 2017, 2:00 PM
The walk is approximately two hours
Additional walks in northern Manhattan:
Inwood: Manhattan’s North Coast
Meeting Place: NW corner Broadway & Isham Street
May 6, 2017, 2:00 PM
This walk will last approximately 2 Hours
Led by Gail Addiss, Edie Ricks
Walk with a Librarian: Kingsbridge, Bronx
Meeting Place: Kingsbridge Library, 291 West 231st, Bronx
May 6, 2017, 2:00 PM, 1 Hour
Led by Rebecca Kluberdanz
Audubon Park Perspectives 