Morningside Heights: the academy on the hill
Columbia's quad, the largest Gothic cathedral on earth, Grant's Tomb, and the pastry shop where the dissertations get written. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Low Library steps, Columbia
Start on the steps below the domed library, where Alma Mater sits with her book — the spot every Columbia film and protest uses. The quad behind is McKim, Mead & White's Roman dream of a campus. Walk through; the gates are open and nobody stops you.

2. Cathedral of St John the Divine
The largest Gothic cathedral in the world, begun in 1892 and still unfinished — the south tower stops mid-air, which is the most honest thing about it. The nave is two American football fields long. Go in; the scale does something no photograph manages.

3. The Hungarian Pastry Shop
Across from the cathedral, the café where half the neighbourhood's dissertations got written over a single cup, refilled all afternoon. No wifi, on purpose. Get the strudel and a table at the back; you'll be in good academic company.

4. Morningside Park
The cliff park Olmsted and Vaux laid out on the schist escarpment that drops to Harlem below — a sheer rock face with a waterfall and pond at the bottom. The view east from the upper promenade is the one to catch. Steep; you can admire it from the top and not descend.

5. Riverside Church
Rockefeller's Gothic skyscraper-church above the Hudson, with the largest carillon in the world in its tower — 74 bells, the heaviest tuned bell ever cast. King preached his anti-war sermon here in 1967. The observation deck is worth the climb if it's open.

6. General Grant National Memorial
Grant's Tomb — the granite mausoleum holding the general-president and his wife, and the answer to the oldest New York riddle. Bigger and quieter than you expect, looking out over the river. End here and walk back down to the 1 at 110th.

Morningside Heights: the academy on the hill