(This neighborhood has great shopping with several malls, tons of iconic shopping, amazing food, and museums. Check out Artesano, Eataly, Century 21, Nobu, Temple Court, and one of our many great bodegas.) (WALKING TOUR INSTRUCTIONS HERE).

Stop 8 - Woolworth (The most beautiful building in NYC?)

Every stop has multiple points of interest (POI)

(POI 23) Woolworth Building (Face away from the park across Broadway) 

The Woolworth Building is one of the most beautiful buildings in NYC, and thus...America. It is hard to appreciate at ground level. The Woolworth building was created in 1913 and was the tallest building in the world until 1930. 

Frank Woolworth was fabulously wealthy and owned Woolworth's stores, which invented the “five and dime” discount shopping genre. The Woolworth Building cost nearly $500 million in today's dollars and he paid cash! He hired famed architect Cass Gilbert, who, among other things, created the US Supreme Court building. Gilbert studied the Gothic Revival style and helped bring the Woolworth Building to fruition. But instead of Christian iconography in the facade, he used indigenous imagery, nature symbols, and gargoyles. The best views of the Woolworth building are 10-30 stories up (in other buildings that get to look at it). See a beautiful shot of the building here. Frank Woolworth had his own private entrance to the main subway station under City Hall Park! It has since been closed up. If you try to walk into the GORGEOUS lobby entrance on Broadway, the staff may try to shoo you away :(. Among many amazing stories is that the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb started inside Woolworth's. 

(POI 24) Canyon of Heroes

Under your feet, without knowing it, you are standing on one of the largest monuments in NYC, the Canyon of Heroes. This stretch of Broadway has black markers on the ground commemorating every ticker tape parade that NYC ever threw...right where you are standing. It runs over half a mile and grows all the time.