A walk down Thompson

After class at NYU, today, I didn't feel like heading straight home and wasn't in much of a mood for studying, so I decided to take a walk south from Washington Square park down Thompson Street and West Broadway to the World Trade Center (where I worked for 10 years) to catch the PATH train there and check out what's changed and stayed the same in the 10 years or so since Lower Manhattan was a regular part of my life.

It was a wonderful walk through neighborhoods that ranged from residential to high fashion to financial district -- the incredible mix that has always made Manhattan, and cities in general, a kind of fascinating wonderland to me. I thought of my father, of blessed memory, who taught me the joy of the "nostalgia walk" where you can marvel both in how much things can stay the same from years ago and how much they can change. [Washington Square park, itself, reminds me of my father. Back before NYU came to dominate the neighborhood so and the area became so gentrified, there were many small industrial businesses in the area, including my Grandfather's machine shop on E. 11th St. As a child, my father took me to the machine shop for visits. That, too, was a child's wonderland with all its fascinating pipes and parts to see and touch!]

My walk ended at the new PATH station -- which, unlike the one of the pre-9/11 days -- can be accessed directly from the street. That's the station in the pic below. You can click on it to see a full album of my little walk.

From A walk down Thompson