Go far enough north in Manhattan, and Broadway abruptly swallows West End Avenue. But in its final 10 or 20 blocks, West End takes on an almost out-of-time quality. The buildings are all midrise, wrapped in brick and limestone, and attended by doormen uniformed much as they would have been in the 1940s. On one corner, so much ivy crawls up a façade it looks as though the city is being overrun by jungle. On another, a 1980s telephone booth is somehow maintained in pristine condition. One block east and it’s a din of delivery trucks and cabs and college students; one to the west and it’s a park thronged with bikes and runners; but the crowds on either side seem to have forgotten the little stretch of the city in between.

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