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NYC -
Take The Tour
Destinations,
Neighborhood Maps and Sightseeing Info
Manhattan - Click
Thumbnail for the big pic
150
world-class museums, 18,000 restaurants of all types and price ranges, 37
Broadway theaters, a revitalized Times Square and Grand Central Terminal,
and an unbelievable array of shopping. And no other city has such a
diversity of people and cultures. Where else can you see Chinese dragon
dancers, Caribbean stilt dancers, and Middle Eastern belly dancers in the
same day? Where else can you hurl darts in an Irish pub and then try your
skill on a Neapolitan bocce court right down the street? Are there other
places where you can march to a reggae beat on your way to hear a German
opera? Or go from a room full of Dutch Old Master paintings to one filled
with cutting-edge fashion? And where else in the world can you lunch on
Japanese sushi and order hearty Brazilian feijoada for dinner?
Manhattan
is only one of the five boroughs that make up New York City; the others
are the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. There's much to see
and do in the other boroughs but exploring Manhattan thoroughly, could
take weeks in itself. There are many neighborhoods - including Harlem, the
Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, Midtown, TriBeCa/Civic
Center/Chinatown, SoHo/Little Italy, Union Square/Flatiron, Greenwich
Village, and the Financial District - each with its own attractions and
style. Click thumbnails below for a few places you might want to visit in
Manhattan
Here are
my favorites - Greenwich Village and Soho
The East
Village, a mecca for hippies in the 1960s, is still home to young people
attracted not only by low rents (which are rising as the area becomes
gentrified) but by experimental music clubs and theaters and cutting-edge
fashion. Alphabet City (named for avenues A, B, C, and D), as you head
east, is still a little rough around the edges but has many reasonably
priced, fun, and trendy places to eat, drink, and shop.
Washington Square and its arch and the rows of townhouses around it with
charming alleys behind them are all frozen in time. Greenwich Village --
also known as the West Village or the Village -- is more upscale than the
East Village. The East Village, a mecca for hippies in the 1960s, is still
home to young people attracted not only by low rents (which are rising as
the area becomes gentrified) but by experimental music clubs and theaters
and cutting-edge fashion. Alphabet City (named for avenues A, B, C, and
D), as you head east, is still a little rough around the edges but has
many reasonably priced, fun, and trendy places to eat, drink, and shop.
The blocks
south of Houston (pronounced HOW-ston) and north of Canal streets are the
city's largest concentration of cast-iron fronted buildings, built as
warehouses and manufacturing spaces, but converted to living spaces,
called "lofts," for artists and sculptors who appreciated the
elbow room. The area quickly filled with art galleries, restaurants, and
fashionable shops and just as quickly by people with deep pockets who
decided that if SoHo was a nice place to visit, it was a nicer place to
live. The neighborhood became too upscale for starving artists who moved
to less costly neighborhoods like DUMBO (down under the Manhattan Bridge
overpass) and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But SoHo is still a center of
creativity although now, in addition to its art galleries, people are
drawn by its trendy boutiques and restaurants. Serious shoppers also find
bargains across town on the Lower East Side (which once had the world's
largest Jewish community), especially along Orchard Street on a Sunday
afternoon. This neighborhood has had a recent surge of happening bars and
music venues, although the words "grunge" and "edgy"
still come to mind. On the way across town, Little Italy is still the best
place to get a taste of the Old World with a snack or a gigantic meal,
especially in the middle of September when the Feast of San Gennaro fills
Mulberry Street with the scent of fried pastries and sausages.
Tribeca/Civic
Center/Chinatown
The
triangle below Canal Street (TriBeCa for short) is a neighborhood that has
been recycled from a manufacturing and warehouse district into a community
of art galleries and some of the best restaurants in town. Just to the
west of the triangle is the Woolworth Building, St. Paul's Chapel, City
Hall, and the imposing Municipal Building behind it, where you go to get
married "at City Hall." On Chambers Street, the Surrogate's
Court is modeled on the Paris Opera, and around the corner is Foley
Square, dominated by the United States Courthouse and the New York County
Courthouse.Nearby in Chinatown, is the largest Asian community in North
America, where there are hundreds of restaurants ranging from dim sum
parlors to places where you can enjoy a banquet at any time of the day or
night. There are also exotic shops and food stalls to explore.
Stuff to
Do
A
double-decker bus tour of Manhattan is a good way to get a quick
orientation. Gray Line New York Tours and New York Double Decker Tours let
you get off at top attractions and reboard a later bus to continue your
exploration.
Visit the Statue of Liberty or simply view it from the water from a
World Yacht or Circle Line cruise or from the Staten Island ferry (which
is free). However you do it, seeing the city skyline from the water is
unforgettable. Ellis Island Immigration Museum, near the Statue of
Liberty, conveys the experiences of the forebears of nearly one in four
Americans.
While in the downtown area, wander through SoHo with its stylish art
galleries, boutiques, and bistros housed in historic cast iron buildings
among cobblestone streets.
Soak up the avant-garde student and artist atmosphere in Greenwich
Village. See Stanford Whites Washington Arch at the Fifth Avenue
(northern, or uptown) side of Washington Square Park. Have an espresso in
a Bleecker Street coffee shop or an ethnic meal at any number of Thai,
Indian, French, Polish, Japanese, Afghani, etc., restaurants. Listen to
jazz at the Blue Note or Sweet Basil.
For another full day, start in Central Park. Observe the locals
jogging around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, playing ball,
in-line skating, and biking (skates and bikes can be rented or join a bike
tour such as those organized by Central Park Bicycle Tours).
Walk up Fifth Avenue or Madison Avenue from 59th to 72nd Streets.
Fifth is more residential; Madison is lined with exclusive stores; both
have magnificent buildings. Walk the side streets to see rows of fine
brownstone buildings.
Among the 150 wonderful museums in New York City are two of the
world's greatest: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the largest museum in
the Western Hemisphere, covers 5,000 years of cultural history and the
Museum of Modern Art has more than 100,000 works from artists such as
Picasso, Monet, Matisse, and Warhol.
Visit Times Square, the brightest symbol of New York's revitalization.
Buy a discount ticket for a Broadway show playing that evening at the TKTS
booth at Broadway and 47th Street.
A ride to the 86th-floor outdoor observatory of the Empire State
Building is a must. If you go late in the afternoon, you'll see the city
by day and by evening, all lit up. Eat at a theater district restaurant;
many have pre-theater dinner specials.
On your third day, spend the morning in Midtown East. Admire the Art
Deco Chrysler Building and visit the United Nations. Take a free tour
(Wednesdays) of the newly restored Grand Central Terminal and lunch in one
of its new restaurants under the famous sky ceiling.
In the afternoon, walk a few crosstown blocks to Rockefeller Center.
See the Channel Gardens and Lower Plaza (especially spectacular in winter
when the giant Christmas tree is lit and the ice rink is full). Walk up
Fifth Avenue past St. Patrick's Cathedral, Trump Tower, and countless
upscale stores or stroll west to Radio City Music Hall.
End your day with a memorable performance at Lincoln Center, home of
the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, and New York City Ballet.
For a reminder of where you were a few days ago, turn around at the
fountain and look for the small-scale replica of the Statue of Liberty
across Broadway.
At Chelsea
Piers Sports & Entertainment Complex, a 30-acre sports center, you can
golf, rock-climb, box, bowl (or try Bowlmor Lanes in Greenwich Village),
swim, play basketball and volleyball, and even kayak.
There are two outdoor ice-skating rinks in Central Park and one in
Rockefeller Center; there are indoor rinks in locations including the
South Street Seaport and Chelsea Piers. In summer, see a free movie
outdoors in midtown's Bryant Park.
- There are 15 miles
of beaches within the city limits, 13 golf courses, and four zoos.
There are also two million trees in the city's parks and a botanical
garden in each of the five boroughs, including the Brooklyn Botanic
Garden and the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. The boroughs
also have wonderful parks such as Prospect Park in Brooklyn and
Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens.
- New York is on the
north-south flyway for migrating birds, and in the spring and fall
there are as many avian visitors here as the human kind. Bird-watching
is popular in Central Park and at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in
Queens.
- New York is also the
home of the World Series champions, the New York Yankees, and from
April to October you can exercise your lungs cheering them on at
Yankee Stadium. New York has many other great sports teams such as the
Knicks, Mets, Giants, Jets, Rangers, MetroStars, and New York Liberty.
Horseracing is another spectator sport that can bring you outdoors.
You can cheer for the Thoroughbreds at Belmont Park for most of the
summer, and repeat the experience even in the winter at Aqueduct
Racetrack.
Thanks to
the NYC Visitors Bureau for photos and content included in these pages
Hotel
Guides
Restaurants
- Lots of Them
Music
Places to
Visit
Cafes, Cool Watering Holes
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