Hell's Kitchen: Ninth Avenue and the Hudson
A dozen countries on one avenue, the Theatre District back doors, an aircraft carrier, and the river. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Ninth Avenue (the restaurant run)
Start the long walk down Ninth from 50th. This is the eating spine of Hell's Kitchen — Thai, Ethiopian, Mexican, Greek, all stacked along a few blocks. You don't have to stop; just clock the doorways for later. The annual Ninth Avenue food festival is born here.

2. Hell's Kitchen tenement side streets
Cut west on one of the 40s — 46th, the old Restaurant Row, or quieter 47th. Five- and six-storey tenements, fire escapes, the occasional holdout low-rise between new glass towers. This is the neighbourhood's actual texture, away from the avenue's neon.

3. Theatre District back doors
The Broadway houses face east toward Times Square, but their stage doors and loading bays open onto these blocks. Walk past the backs of the theatres and you'll often catch crew hauling sets in the afternoon — the unglamorous engine room of the glamorous side.

4. Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
Out to the Hudson at Pier 86, where the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid is moored with a submarine alongside and a space shuttle on the flight deck. You don't have to buy a ticket — the hull fills the pier and reads enormous from the esplanade for free.

5. Hudson River Park / Hell's Kitchen piers
The greenway runs along the water here, the old shipping piers now lawns and bike path. Look north to the new towers and south toward the Hudson Yards stack. The breeze off the river is the reward for the avenue's heat.

6. 42nd Street to Port Authority
Walk the last stretch east along 42nd, past the Circle Line piers and back into the city's noise. Port Authority is the end — the A/C/E underneath, the least romantic and most useful building in the neighbourhood.

Hell's Kitchen: Ninth Avenue and the Hudson