New York City is renowned for its busy streets and congested sidewalks; walking is as essential to the metropolis as the skyscrapers of its dramatic and ever-evolving skyline. Here, projects are executed on a grand scale, and designing spaces to walk, rest, work, and play centres the human experience. The selected projects from Midtown and Lower Manhattan in this issue offer but a small cross-section of the varying typologies of differing scales currently enhancing the city’s architecture. This includes works by Kohn Pederson Fox Associates, Snøhetta, Heatherwick Studio, Diller + Scofidio + Renfro, and SOM, among others, alongside insightful essays on the city’s evolution.