New York City (Fodor's, 2012) - Fodor's [3]
MONEY SAVING TIPS
Consider buying a CityPass, a group of tickets to six top-notch attractions in New York: the Empire State Building, the Guggenheim Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (including the Cloisters), and Circle Line Cruises or admission to Liberty and Ellis islands. The $79 pass, which saves you half the cost of each individual ticket, is good for nine days from first use.
Discount coupons are available at the city’s official tourism marketing bureau, NYC & Company (www.nycvisit.com), near Times Square.
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Lower Manhattan. Heavy-duty landmarks anchor the southern tip: Wall Street and the Financial District; the breezy waterfront parks of Battery Park City and historic South Street Seaport; ferry terminals dispatching boats out to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty; and the gradually evolving construction site at Ground Zero, where thousands flock daily to pay their respects. To the north, Chinatown teems with street vendors selling knockoff handbags. Brave the crowds and explore some of the less-traveled side streets to find Chinese herb shops, exceptional noodle joints, and Hong Kong cakes. The tony streets of TriBeCa, to the west, are broader and also quieter, but it does have a busy restaurant scene.
SoHo, NoLIta, and Little Italy. The only struggling creative types in SoHo these days are sidewalk merchants hawking canvases, handmade jewelry, and T-shirts; the superluxe shops dominate here. To the east, NoLIta has more tiny boutiques and restaurants. And to the south, Little Italy is a shrinking zone of red-sauce eateries and gelaterias.
The East Village and the Lower East Side. Once an edgy neighborhood of artists and punks, now filled with a combination of artists, fashionable lawyers, and students, the East Village centers around the scruffy but beloved Tompkins Square Park. The neighborhood is one of the city’s best for eating, both in terms of variety and quality. To the south, the once seedier, now trendier Lower East Side (bounded by the Bowery, Clinton, Houston, and Delancey streets) draws hipsters with live-music clubs, independent clothing shops, wine-and-tapas bars, and health-food joints.
Greenwich Village, the West Village, Chelsea, and the Meatpacking District. Happily, artists with rent-controlled apartments, out-and-proud gays, and university students are still in the Village today, but because those town houses have become so expensive, residents also include wealthy media moguls, celebrities, and socialites. From 14th Street south to Houston and from the Hudson River east to 5th Avenue, the blocks are a jumble of jazz clubs, posh restaurants, former speakeasies, and rainbow flags. Farther west, the once blue-collar Meatpacking District has evolved into a swanky clubbing and late-night restaurant scene for the young and scantily clad. Chelsea, like its namesake London district, has a small-town personality with big-city prices. Its leafy streets (which stretch from 14th to the upper 20s) are lined with renovated brownstones and spacious art galleries; its avenues (from 6th to the Hudson) brim with restaurants, bakeries, bodegas, and men’s clothing stores. Chelsea has supplanted the Village as the center of gay life in the city.
Union Square, the Flatiron District, Gramercy Park, and Murray Hill. Bustling Union Square Park, bounded by 14th and 17th streets, Broadway, and Park Avenue, hosts the city’s best greenmarket four times a week. On the 14th Street edge are broad stone steps where break-dancers and other performers busk for onlookers. North, up Broadway, is Madison Square Park, beloved for its outdoor summer jazz concerts. Nearby are the preening mansions and town houses of Gramercy in the East 20s, and of Murray Hill in the East 30s.
Midtown. Chockablock