Simple hacks for navigating New York City like a local
When people in New York say, “49th and 11th,” how do you know which is the street and which one is the avenue? Navigating New York City and becoming familiar with it may seem intimidating at first, but it’s actually really simple. Here are some simple hacks for navigating the deceptively complicated streets of New York City.
Remember, Manhattan is a grid
The streets are laid out in a grid pattern and pretty much everything is numbered except at the southern tip. Streets run east to west, and avenues run north to south. Another good, quick rule of thumb is that most New Yorkers say the street first and the avenue second. Odd-numbered streets go west and even-numbered streets go east. Additionally, odd-numbered buildings are on the north side of the street and even-numbered addresses are on the south.
From First Avenue to 11th, on the major avenues in Manhattan, the traffic flows in alternating directions. Of course, with every rule, there are exceptions, in this case, those are Third and Fourth Avenue. The grid system is also of value in that you can quickly calculate how far away your desired location is and how to get there.
For addresses on the the west side, just add the first number of the address (zero if the address is only two numbers) to 5 for the lower cross street. For example, 225 W 37th St. (2+5=7) is between Seventh and Eighth Avenue. For the east side, just subtract 5 from the same number for the highest cross street. So 150 E 18th St (1–5=-4) is between Fourth and Third Avenues.
Use the NYC subway
The subway is the cheapest and most efficient way to get around New York City IF you know what you are doing. It usually gets you from one part of the city to another faster than taking a taxi or uber.
Black dots on the subway map represent local stops and white ones signify express stops. In case you wondered why more trains were always stopping at those white ones. In most of Manhattan, the uptown train platform is on the east side of the street and downtown is on the west.
The color of a station’s subway tiles can tell you if you’ve missed an express stop. Seriously, there’s a secret code hidden in the city’s subway stations. Tiles of the same color were installed in every local station between express stations. That way, it was easy to tell what zone the train was passing through. Many of the original colored tiles were lost during various renovations, but some still stand today.
Also, you will notice that most subway stations have either a green globe or a red globe. Historically, these were installed to tell riders which stations are open 24 hours (those are marked with a green globe) and which stations are closed at night (those marked with a red globe).
Lost in Central park?
There are many places in New York City where you can easily get lost, but none are quite so confusing as Central Park. The beautiful, expansive, and largely unmarked part of Manhattan can turn around even the most seasoned New Yorker. The paths curl and twist and you can’t see any landmarks for the forest. What to do?
Find a lamp post. Look carefully for its identifier tag; there is a small, rectangular plate affixed to nearly every lamp post. Those four numbers aren’t just some random designation: the first two tell you the nearest street and the second set tells you whether you’re closer to the east or west side of the park (even numbers signal east, odd signal west).