Here’s something I’ve long wondered about: the old trade districts. My companions were a generous bunch, reflecting a panorama of backgrounds and expertise: architects, landscape architects, urban planners, an ecologist and naturalist, a lawyer, a community organizer and cartographer, various writers, some New York natives, a relative newcomer.

I was on the lookout for stories that gave some sense of the breadth and history of the city and that I thought seasoned, savvy observers of New York City might find surprising-tidbits of history, law, technology, or gossip I hadn’t heard myself, or that revealed something about the people who were telling the stories. So I composed a series of walks, which have now turned into my new book, The Intimate City: Walking New York (Penguin Press, publication date November 29, 2022). Like all crises, it presented an opportunity. The pandemic opened a window through which to see New York, if only briefly, in a new light. The “Covid” pause laid bare a city whose layers and nuances were typically obscured by the maelstrom of daily routines. I still had my day job, as architecture critic for the New York Times, although I clearly couldn’t do it as I had before. In March 2020, as New York and the rest of the world scrambled to make sense of an emerging pandemic, I felt fortunate and grateful that my situation was not, suddenly, as dire as that of so many millions of others.

The Intimate City by Michael Kimmelman