the walker and the walk

I've long been an avid walker. As a city kid, I walked the Mission and downtown San Francisco, the Wharf, Pier 39. I grew up walking to and from school, scaling the towering hills that make up SF's signature landscape. Then I'd spend summers with my father and other family in small-town Tejas where I was convinced we could walk the whole town. Quite often we'd follow the railroad tracks like those kids in Stand by Me. Luckily we never stumbled upon a dead body. We did sneak around unpopulated corners and under bridges to smoke cigarettes though.

New York by far is my favorite walking city. The city is filled with so many attention grabbing shops, vendors, people, performers that you can walk miles and miles up and down streets and avenues and not grow very tired (at least not quickly). Today's Times features lovely meditations on the walk:

"The walk unfurls according to mood, physical endurance and visual appetite," writer Nicole Krauss tells us. Historicizing the walk, Alex Marshall reminds us, "The 19th century was the age of the flaneur and the boulevardier, figures who made strolling down Fifth Avenue or Broadway, often vividly attired, a fashionable activity worthy of their counterparts in Paris or London." Other avid walkers share their stories as well. Feel free to share yours too.