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Since it reopened late last year, the Museum of Modern Art has become one of New York City's choice attractions. Lineups that can stretch for half a block and the $20 admission charge attest to that.

MoMA boasts a spectacular collection, including Andy Warhol's soup tins, Jackson Pollock's drippings, Marcel Duchamp's digressions, Willem de Kooning's women, Jasper Johns's maps and targets, Robert Rauschenberg's assemblages, Philip Guston's garish cartoons, Agnes Martin's muted grids, Joseph Cornell's shadow boxes . . . the list goes on.

However, what's even more remarkable about these iconic works is that almost all of them were created within hailing distance of MoMA, which is on West 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Rather than spend the better part of a day indoors, why not take to the streets to see where the art was made?

Warhol's cans were done just around the corner on East 47th Street at the famous Factory. You won't find it now, because it was razed years ago, the space now occupied by a parking lot (what did Joni Mitchell say about paving paradise?).

Warhol relocated in early 1968, winding up at 33 Union Sq. W., also known as the Decker Building. Though that's a bit of a hike from MoMA, it's a short ride on the Lexington Avenue subway line. (Assuming the transit strike is over by then, take any of the 4-5-6 trains and get off at the 14th Street-Union Square station.)

Warhol occupied the fifth floor of the Decker, which faces Union Square, a gob of green space that was once rife with drug dealers. It has cleaned up its act considerably since his day, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi perhaps helping make that happen.

Warhol experienced the area's rough edge first-hand on June 3, 1968, when he was shot by irate screenwriter Valerie Solanis. She pumped three bullets into his chest, then fled. It got worse for him, as he had to be carried, still conscious, down the stairs, his wheeled stretcher unable to fit into the building's tiny elevator.

Things are considerably quieter at the Decker now. It is a private residence, with an attendant ready to shoo visitors away. The moon-faced lady keeping watch was happy to answer a few questions, although she was under the impression that Warhol is still with us. “Is he dead yet?” she wondered. Told of the shooting, she said, “I think I heard something about that.”

The square saw further violence in 1983, when graffiti artist Michael Stewart was beaten and strangled into a coma by transit police, who had caught him tagging walls in the 14th Street station. He died in hospital soon after.

That put a scare into another graffiti artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was on his way to becoming an art world superstar (and Warhol collaborator). Basquiat's former girlfriend was dating Stewart at the time. “It could have been me,” he said to her.

Basquiat, snubbed by MoMA but the focus of a recent show at the Brooklyn Museum, made his first contact with Warhol while still a child. He tried to sell the wigged wonder one of his baseball-card collages for the bargain-basement price of $5. The two later worked together, though to less-than-favourable reviews.

Basquiat outlived Warhol — who died in 1987 after what was supposed to have been a routine gall bladder operation — but not by much. A heavy drug user for much of his short life, he overdosed a year later in his studio at 57 Great Jones St., which is almost due south of Union Square.

To get there, go down Fourth Street, which becomes Bowery. Hang a right at Great Jones Street. There's a fire station on the north side that was hit hard during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. On the south side is Basquiat's last studio.

The two-storey brick building has undergone some changes over the past year, as the bottom floor is now occupied by a Japanese restaurant (called Hedeh, after its chef). Sushi and sake are the order of the day. (In contrast, Basquiat often joked about his fondness for ribs.) But the street still has an edge to it: During my visit, a fellow pulled a huge dead rat out from under his car's windshield wiper, then began waving it menacingly at passers-by.

Head south from there on Broadway. You can cover the nine or so blocks to Canal Street in about 10 minutes on foot. You'll find Pearl Paint at No. 308. It has long been a haven for working artists: Prices are reasonable, so you may want to stock up; and it's one-stop shopping, as there are six floors of supplies. Canvas and easels are in the basement, paint and brushes on the second floor.

If you've got some legs left (or a subway pass), proceed to the Financial District, which is farther south still. Not far from the Staten Island ferry is the intersection of Pearl Street and Coenties Slip. Saskatchewan-born Agnes Martin, as well as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, lived and worked there once, though their studios are now long gone.

The area was made to order for Rauschenberg, the subject of a major retrospective at New York's Metropolitan Museum that opened this week. Not content with the usual artists' materials, he would set off each morning to explore the neighbourhood, looking for discarded objects to incorporate into his work.

If he couldn't find anything of interest on the first block, he would do another. He was later to say that it became harder for him to work after he moved to a pristine island in Florida, as there was nothing for him to scavenge.

Heading back north, get off the subway at Eighth Street if you want to walk the streets once frequented by Pollock, de Kooning and their cronies.

De Kooning toiled on 10th, between Third and Fourth Avenues, a hotbed for artists in the 1950s, among them Philip Guston, another Canadian. Pollock and artist wife, Lee Krasner, spent their winters a couple of blocks west in a carriage house at 9 MacDougal Alley.

“Nine Mac,” as Jack called it, is not the most welcoming place. The sign on a side gate says it all: “Private. Residents and Guests Only.”

Both Pollock and de Kooning liked a drink or three, and the Cedar Tavern was then conveniently located midway between their two digs at 24 University Place (and Eighth Street). It could get hairy in there, with Pollock reportedly banned for ripping the men's room door off its hinges and beat writer Jack Kerouac for urinating into an ashtray. The Cedar relocated in the 1960s to 82 University Place (at 11th Street), and is now a favourite hangout of students.

A few blocks north and west of there was the long-time residence of the legendary Marcel Duchamp. He spent more than 20 years at 210 W. 14th St. (between Seventh and Eighth Avenues). He occupied a Spartan apartment on the top floor of the four-storey structure, even sharing a bathroom with other tenants.

You can't miss the building, with its bright-red door topped by a painted relief of a man who appears to be writing a letter by candlelight. Duchamp had finished his famed Large Glass by this time, and was working on a piece that Johns called “the strangest work of art in any museum.”

It's in Philadelphia, so we'll leave it for another time. Let's instead return to MoMA. The crowds tend to dissipate as the day goes on.

Special to The Globe and Mail