Just out of curiosity, has anyone recently done far much more walking through Manhattan and Brooklyn than taking public transportation? I will be in the area next week and was wondering how long it would take to walk from 57th and 7th ave. right by Central Park down to lower Manhattan and such? Would it be about 4 miles? I love to walk and capture great photographic images and would like to get a good idea of how much distance I can cover in 1 day as well as throughout my 4 day trip.
Also, would anyone know.......if I wanted to take thr trip to Ellis Island, what time would be the ideal time to get there so as to not be stuck in long lines and waste a lot of time? I will be there Monday thru Thursday afternoon?

Thanks in advance for your help!

hopstop will show you distances and walking times as well as subway directions.

no clue about ellis island.

For information about Ellis Island, look at this webpage:

http://statueofliberty.org/PlanningVisit.html

Note the following quote: Due to security procedures, visitors should allow 1-1/2 hours to stand in line before boarding the ferry, which picks up visitors both in Battery Park in New York City and Liberty State Park in Jersey City.

That is a substantial walk. We live in the East Village and it takes 45 minutes-one hour to walk to Wall Street. That is without stopping for photos, snacks, and taking in the scenery.

Add to that traffic lights and pedestrian traffic and I would venture at least three hours.

See if you can borrow an AIA Guide from the library to ascertain which neigborhoods would be interesting to you. You can buy one but they are expensive. To me the most interesting areas are the West Village, East Village, Lower East Side, and Chinatown.

Walking is certainly doable, especially this time of year, in nice weather. We regularly walk from Penn Sta to Chinatown (30-40 minutes.) Longest walk we've done was Museum of Natural History back to Penn Station.

I take this route every time I visit NYC, where I once lived for 30 years: Central Park, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, Herald Square, Chelsea, Meat Packing District, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown, Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street.

How long it takes depends on how much you dawdle. I make a day of it.

First of all - Central Park is north of 57th and 7th avenue. It runs from 59th St to 110th St - and would take at least a whole day to explore on foot. (That is 2.5 miles long and about 3/4 of a mile wide).

To go from 57th St down to south ferry is certainly walkable - but is about 5 miles walking in a straight line - and again would take days to see everything.

The way to avoid being stuck in long lines for the Ellis Island ferry is to buy timed tickets in advance - the first boat of the day is best - lines get longer throughout the day.

It would be do-able but as others say it would take a long time if you want to stop and see things along the way. the last time I took a really long walk in NYC north to south was during the blackout of July 1977 when I walked down from 72nd street to my apartment in the west Village.

20 north/south blocks = 1 mile which takes about 20 minutes at a decent pace. East/west block are longer, maybe = to about 1.5 n/s blocks.

Well, we do walk exactly the same route.

Two years ago we were in NYC a day after Thanksgiving. One day we walked from 54th up to 90th along 5th Avenue. Then we walked down 5th Avenue to 34th and back up to 54th.

Of course we made several museum, store and dinner stops, but still walked in the same day.

57th & 7th is "right by" Central Park, just two blocks south of its edge.

No matter how fast I walk, I've never been able to beat the 1-min-per-block timeframe - because of other pedestrians and traffic lights. BarryK must have much longer legs than I to make it all the way down and across town from Penn Sta to Chinatown in 30-40 minutes! (And I'm not short.)

As for Ellis Island, definitely the earlier the better; try reserving tix for as early as 8am...