Multidimensional scaling with city-block distances is considered in this paper. The technique requires optimization of an objective function which has many local minima and can be non-differentiable at minimum points. This study is aimed at developing a fast and effective global optimization algorithm spanning the whole search domain and providing good solutions. A multimodal evolutionary algorithm is used for global optimization to prevent stagnation at bad local optima. Piecewise quadratic structure of the least squares objective function with city-block distances has been exploited for local improvement. The proposed algorithm has been compared with other algorithms described in literature. Through a comprehensive computational study, it is shown that the proposed algorithm provides the best results. The algorithm with fine-tuned parameters finds the global minimum with a high probability.