Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
Murray Hill haters are missing the neighborhood's magic
By
James Ramsay
Published Mar 19, 2026
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
mirror images/Getty Images
By
James Ramsay
Published Mar 19, 2026
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Kips Bay, Turtle Bay, Murray Hill, Midtown East. Whatever you call that general area, there’s a decent chance you think it’s boring.
Everything seems to be either a doctor’s office, a bank branch or a parking garage. Much of the architecture is made of anodyne postwar steel. (I.M. Pei’s brutalist Kips Bay Towers is a cool exception.) If you’re into culture, there’s a big AMC with IMAX. There are frozen yogurt shops. You get it.
And yet, for 15 years now, I’ve been trekking to Murray Hill for my annual physical, and every time, I leave feeling like it has some kind of special New York City magic. Maybe it’s the giddy lightheadedness that comes from fasting all day and then getting blood drawn, or maybe I just like my doctor. (Lucky me.)
But on a recent trip back to the neighborhood, I noticed something for the first time: There didn’t appear to be any tourists.
Now, I’m pro-tourist. They’re good for the local economy, and I find it fun when a family of six in Oklahoma State fan gear blithely hops on the 1 train, especially given some of the post-pandemic doomsaying about urban decline.
But I also appreciate that New York, unlike some other famous cities I don’t need to slander, isn’t just a museum of itself. It’s a vibrant city where people actually live and work. And Murray Hill, I’d argue, is a paragon of that vibrancy.
In the literal shadow of some of the most famous skyscrapers on Earth, you have a modest, busy little neighborhood full of nurses and doctors, doormen and crossing guards, serviceable diners and better-than-serviceable Indian restaurants. Then, inexplicably, there’s a Dover Street Market.
The author trying on a Rick Owens leather ensemble at Dover Street Market
Emily Nadal/Gothamist
And then you have the fratty transplants. Fine! Unlike their peers south of 14th Street, there’s no goofy pretense about living somewhere with Bohemian heritage; they’re not butchering the name; they’re not spritzing on St. Mark’s Place. Junior accountants coming from elsewhere need a place to live, work, go to the gym and drink.
During my recent neighborhood tour, I was talking with a young woman from Massachusetts wearing a “New York” T-shirt who seemed really excited to go meet a friend at a nearby coffee shop. Which one? She didn’t know the name; it was a place her friend, who lives in the area, “loves.” And that’s perfect — it’ll be their place, until it becomes something else for another generation of newcomers.
The day all this ends — when Murray Hill stops employing nurses, prices out the state school transplants, closes the last remaining diners that aren’t doing a thing — there may not be the same kind of eulogy you’d see with a sexier neighborhood.
But I’d mourn. I look forward to coming back here, at least once a year, until I’m dead.
Tagged
Existing in New York City
extra extra
manhattan
midtown
murray hill
James Ramsay
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
Dump truck driver hits and kills cyclist on 34th Street in Midtown, NYPD says
It's the latest in a string of hit-and-run deaths in the city in recent months.
By
Liam Quigley
Published Sep 28, 2026 at 4:15 p.m. ET
New ingredient mandated for Latin American kitchen, restaurant plates in NJ
The Garden State now requires that corn masa dough and flour made and sold in the state be fortified with folic acid.
By
Arya Sundaram
News
New ingredient mandated for Latin American kitchen, restaurant plates in NJ
The Garden State now requires that corn masa dough and flour made and sold in the state be fortified with folic acid.
By
Arya Sundaram
A Brooklyn jail cell filled with smoke. The emergency button failed, a lawyer said.
By
Samantha Max
Crews launch tunnel machines to dig first new Hudson River rail tunnels since 1910
By
Michael Sol Warren
NYC nor’easter dries up after weather service reports minor flooding
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .