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Lullaby of Broadway
Doris Day. The 1951 film’s title number puts Broadway on an overnight schedule. Choose it for the joke of a lullaby about a neighborhood whose nightlife is getting going when someone else might turn in.
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N.Y.C. (Annie) (1977)
First released
Andrea McArdle, Reid Shelton, and Sandy Faison with the original Broadway cast. Warbucks takes Annie and Grace on a forty-five-block walk toward Times Square. A private outing swells into a full-cast portrait of the city at night.
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Give My Regards to Broadway
Al Jolson singing George M. Cohan’s song. Herald Square and Broadway come up as places the narrator is leaving behind. Try it for an early theater song where an errand for someone else is also a way to say he’ll miss home.
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Fairytale of New York
The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl. The lovers remember Broadway and a New York they once thought would hand them a future. The opening piano is almost private, which makes the full-band duet feel all the more public when it gets going.
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53rd & 3rd
Ramones. The title marks a Midtown intersection, but the song uses it for a bleak street vignette rather than a city panorama. Put it next to “Rockaway Beach” to hear how much the same clipped rhythms change when the destination changes.
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At the Zoo
Simon & Garfunkel. The song starts with a walk from the East Side toward the zoo. The animals get the city’s personalities as soon as you arrive. Choose it for a short Central Park stop with a very funny idea of who lives there.
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Autumn in New York
Billie Holiday. The song pictures Manhattan as the weather turns, with its buildings, neighborhoods, and afternoon light. Holiday’s unhurried phrasing gives the changing season time to sink in. Good for a slower stretch between stations.
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Manhattan
Ella Fitzgerald. Rodgers and Hart’s song sends a couple from the Bronx to Staten Island and takes in Delancey Street along the way. Fitzgerald keeps the old place names light and conversational. Try it as a small map of a couple’s plans around town.
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New York City Serenade
Bruce Springsteen. A late-night New York scene takes shape between a street corner and a downtown train. Let the long piano opening play before the voices and city details arrive. The arrangement takes its time getting into the street.
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Chelsea Morning
Joni Mitchell. The view is from her Chelsea apartment, where the street traffic and the sunlight are enough to start a song. The bright guitar makes it a good morning counterpart to the quieter account of another Chelsea room in Leonard Cohen’s song.
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Chelsea Hotel #2
Leonard Cohen. The address is the hotel on West 23rd Street. The spare guitar and close vocal make the best-known song about it feel like a recollection from inside a room rather than a grand story of the hotel.
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The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side
The Magnetic Fields. The singer’s advantage on the Lower East Side is that he has a car. A cheerful melody stretches that small fact into a whole set of hopes for a drive. The neighborhood name gives the joke a starting point.
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Walk on the Wild Side
Lou Reed. Think of the circle around Andy Warhol’s Factory as the neighborhood here. Reed gives each person a small story over the same elastic bass part. It’s a different way into downtown New York from songs that spend their time naming streets.
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Halloween Parade
Lou Reed. The Greenwich Village Halloween Parade goes on, but the narrator keeps noticing who is missing. The soft guitar and plain delivery leave the city’s celebration and the grief of the AIDS years on the same street.
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My My Metrocard
Le Tigre. The MetroCard lets the singer go wherever the subway takes her, while tight drums and guitar turn waiting for the next train into a dance break. Choose it to hear a transit song that sees freedom in an ordinary fare card.
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Downtown Train
Tom Waits. The narrator watches trains fill up with people from Brooklyn and wonders whether somebody he wants to see will be among them. The big chorus gives him more room to hope than the crowded setting does.
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Take the "A" train
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra. Billy Strayhorn’s tune takes the subway up to Harlem. Start here for the way a precise direction can become a big-band invitation. Listen for how briskly the horns take over once the piano has set the train in motion.
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I'm Waiting for the Man
The Velvet Underground. The address is Lexington Avenue and 125th Street. Lou Reed makes the wait feel public and uncomfortable, and the pounding piano keeps the scene tense until the man finally turns up.
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Spanish Harlem
Ben E. King. East Harlem is the setting for a song about a rose growing in the city. The light percussion and strings keep the image delicate. Play it next to the harder-edged Harlem songs to hear how differently musicians can picture uptown.
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Harlem
Bill Withers. Summer heat, Saturday night, and Sunday morning make a schedule for this Harlem song. The groove tightens as the verse moves through the neighborhood. Try it for the way ordinary routines become part of the sound.
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125th Street Congress
Weather Report. The title points you to a major Harlem street, and the instrumental lets a sustained groove do the exploring. Try it for a New York place-name that doesn’t need a sung itinerary.
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