The Upper West Side: brownstones, the Hudson, and the blue whale
Lincoln Center, the Dakota, Zabar's, the Hudson, and the whale hanging over the Museum of Natural History. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Lincoln Center plaza
Start at the fountain in the middle of the travertine plaza — the one that comes on at full height after dark. The Met Opera's Chagall murals are visible through the glass front even when the house is dark. Free to wander; nobody checks for a ticket on the plaza.

2. The Dakota
The gabled apartment fortress on 72nd Street, built in 1884 when this far up was considered as remote as Dakota territory. Lennon lived here and was shot at the gate; the doormen have heard every question and will not answer them. Look up at the dormers and move on.

3. Central Park West
Walk the avenue north past the great apartment houses — the twin-towered San Remo, the Beresford, the Art Deco set pieces that gave the West Side its skyline. These are the buildings the East Side never built. The park's on your right the whole way.

4. Zabar's
Eighty-odd years of smoked fish, coffee and kitchenware at Broadway and 80th — the closest thing the neighbourhood has to a town square. Go in for the lox counter even if you buy nothing; the chaos at the registers is the show. Get a knish from the appetising side.

5. The brownstone side streets
Cut west on any of the 70s or 80s cross streets toward Riverside — block after block of stoops and parlour-floor windows, the residential grain the avenues hide. West 76th between Columbus and Amsterdam is a fair sample. No single address; the street itself is the stop.

6. Riverside Park
Down the slope to the Hudson, where Olmsted's other Manhattan park runs along the water. The promenade is wider and emptier than anything in Central Park. Walk the riverside path north as far as you like; the New Jersey palisades are the view across the water.

7. American Museum of Natural History
Come back east to the museum's new face — the Gilder Center, all poured curves, opened 2023. Inside, the 94-foot blue whale still hangs over the ocean hall as it has since 1969. End at the 81st Street station, which lets straight out into the museum.

The Upper West Side: brownstones, the Hudson, and the blue whale