Chinatown and the Lower East Side: the immigrant city
Doyers Street's crook, the dumpling houses, the last block of Little Italy, and Katz's. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Doyers Street
Start on the short street that bends sharply in the middle — the crook was useful in the days of the tongs. Now it's barbershops and a painted roadway. Walk it slowly; it takes two minutes.

2. Mott Street
The spine of Chinatown. Fruit and fish stalls spill onto the pavement, the shop signs stack up the buildings, and the dumpling houses are mid-block. This is where you eat — pick a doorway with a queue of locals.

3. Mulberry Street, Little Italy
North into the one surviving block of Little Italy, red-sauce restaurants with waiters working the pavement. More souvenir than neighbourhood now, but the block holds. Keep walking through.

4. Tenement Museum
On Orchard Street, a preserved tenement that tells the story of the families who lived stacked inside it. The building can only be seen on a booked tour; check times before you arrive.

5. Orchard Street
The old pushcart-and-garment street, now a mix of leftover fabric shops and newer bars and galleries. Walk north; the layers of the neighbourhood are easiest to read here.

6. Katz's Delicatessen
The end of the walk and the point of it. Pastrami on rye, the ticket system at the door, the same room since 1888. You take a paper ticket on the way in — don't lose it. Delancey–Essex is a block on.

Chinatown and the Lower East Side: the immigrant city