Early-morning walks and jogs are for insufferable nerds who lie about waking up energetically in the morning. Late-night walks are for the great thinkers of their eras: people who are emotionally intelligent and have tremendous capacity for critical thinking. People walk in the quiet hours of the night so they can brood and be more brilliant than others around them — and feel worse afterward.
That being said, Cornell is a great place for a midnight walk. With dark streets and expansive stretches of nature, you really have no choice but to get into the vibe. Having taken my fair share of these, I want to go over some of the best routes on and off campus.
The North to South route is the first to come to mind. It starts anywhere on North, goes through the Balch Arch and over Thurston Avenue Bridge. From there, the best variation is to cut to the back of the Arts Quad to pass the slope. After walking through Ho Plaza and the law school to get to Collegetown, 7-Eleven is a prime spot for a snack or drink.
The walk is a perfect 15 to 20 minutes each way, and you pass the top of the slope without walking up or down it. Stopping for a second at the slope has you question every decision you have ever made, but then you keep walking two minutes later.
Living on or starting your route from West Campus makes it harder to get that perfect walk in. The shortcut behind the law school is an efficient way to get to Collegetown, but it is just too quick, and you don’t see many people or enough of the campus. The only really great spot visually is a gorge just before Collegetown, but you get that on any walk there.
The only real option is to go up that slope. It is tiring, but rewarding at the end of your journey. So, starting from West, Baker flagpole is the first place to hit for the view from that empty middle section between Hans Bethe House and Flora Rose House. Then, you can go up the middle of the slope and through the Arts Quad to Feeney Way. I like to head toward and go through the Engineering Quad from there, since I don’t go there often, and the little bridge and mini-forest route to Collegetown is calming.
The walk is another smooth 30 to 40 minutes total, and it gets around the campus. Walking up the slope builds up that motivation for the rest of the walk. Going along the main roads of campus, you either see people you know or occasionally run into Batman.
I have never gone to East Campus at night, or really during the day either. I went to the Dairy Bar and Botanic Gardens once at 8:40 a.m. for a class. I don’t know what possessed people to be willingly all the way out there at 8:40 a.m., but I don’t want to find out who lurks there at night.
There is actually a really nice path from behind Warren Hall to the Botanic Gardens, but I’m not walking all the way to Warren or the gardens. It also seems like it would be horrendously scary at night, so I would have to go with someone — and even then maybe not.
Midnight walks are not just about where you walk, but also what you listen to when you walk. Songs that you play on late-night walks either prove they’re not elite or show why they need to stay on your playlist.
When it's late and there is not much going on outside, the music only has to compete with your thoughts. Songs are judged on a high bar, because they can’t just be the background music you play when you study. They need to step up and be the MVP of the moment. Some songs can’t live up to those expectations.
The best kind of song for a late-night walk shares some similarity with a good song for a highway car ride, but there are some nuanced differences. While a midnight car ride is great for songs that flow smoothly, songs that mix well with the beats of footsteps can truly enhance the walking experience.
In the car it always seems to be better the faster you go with these songs, but there’s many ways to walk. It could be slow, fast, straight from point A to B or take alternative side routes. Knowing the right song to get the right vibe for the walk is crucial.
A great midnight walk can come in many forms, but these were the two routes that have stood out to me the most at Cornell. Of course, I haven’t mentioned the walk from Collegetown back to West or North after a night out. That walk is usually uphill and more difficult for certain reasons, so it doesn’t always make for a good time.
If you want to be better than the people around you, go on midnight walks, and act like you are more philosophically inclined after doing so.
Yianni Metis is a sophomore in the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. He can be reached at jpm395@cornell.edu.
