Kiel Mead’s Brooklyn Navy Yard walk with his basset hound, George
“I have a design studio in the Navy Yard, and George and I walk there at 7 a.m. We pass the Sweet ’N Low sign—the sun hits it in this amazing way—and Admiral’s Row, this beautiful stretch of abandoned buildings, with ivy everywhere and an overgrown tennis court in the back, where the officers used to stay while their ships were in the yard. When we get to Bicycle Station on Park Avenue, there’s a free air pump out front, and it’s hilarious to blow the air in George’s face. On Flushing, there’s this food-distribution company with a slotted metal door covered in graffiti: It blew off during Hurricane Sandy, and when the guys who own the building put the door back together, all of the slots were connected in the wrong order, breaking up the graffiti. Once we hit the Navy Yard, we walk way out on the pier to look at the big cranes sliding along train tracks, almost like moving houses.”
Caroline Ventura’s West Village walk with her wirehaired pointing griffon, Darryl
“Bleecker Street is always pretty dead at 8 a.m., which is hours before the shops open, so I get this weird transportive feeling walking down it at that time, almost like I’m in West London. I love this trio of buildings on West 11th, a tiny brick building sandwiched between two taller ones. Sometimes I get lucky and the front door is open; I’ll walk a little bit slower so I can see what they’ve got going on in there. And then there’s what I call the Shrek House: a little one-story house with a slanted glass roof that’s covered in ivy; it makes me feel like I’m on a fake street in the Warner Bros. back lot. I always stop at Tartine for good, cheap coffee; the guy knows how I take mine, so I don’t even have to place an order, and there are small Formica tables outside where I sit when it’s warm. Darryl is too strong for them—I tie him to the apartment stoop next door.”
John Gilliland’s Bushwick walk with his weimaraner, Granger
“There’s a really sweet old lady who always hangs out of her window on the corner of Stockholm and Irving, and she calls my dog by a different name every day when we pass at 6:30. We head through Maria Hernandez Park and point at the red-tailed hawk that perches on the swing set. Then, walking down Knickerbocker Street is like being in Puerto Rico; so many of the shops are Puerto Rican, except for Circo’s, an old-school Italian bakery with the most amazing almond cookies. For a cup of coffee, I stop in Verde Coal Oven Pizza—it’s not open at that hour, but the owners know me.”
Jessi Hempel’s Central Park walk with her collie–German shepherd–and–husky mix, Zoe
“We enter the park at 86th Street and Central Park West, where a bunch of the Upper West Side dogs hang out off leash. It’s about 6:45 a.m. when we reach the edge of the Great Lawn, and that’s when, at least this time of year, the solar-powered lights that illuminate Central Park all shut off at once. It’s really magical. We run into the tiny, sweater-wearing Upper East Side dogs before heading under the footbridge and hearing our echo. We hike up the big hill between 82nd and 85th Streets, and Zoe spends time looking up at her favorite squirrel-filled tree. By then it’s already light out.”