Neighborhood Guides & Travel Information Some people think that Manhattan
and New York City are synonymous, but they are not. 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. Click on the interactive map below to
fully explore the island of Manhattan. There are so many neighborhoods each with
its own attractions and style
Orienting Yourself
New York City has five boroughs – the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and
Staten Island – that are linked by a series of bridges, tunnels, and ferries.
Manhattan is an island; the Bronx is north of Manhattan and on the mainland;
Queens and Brooklyn are on the Western tip of Long Island, which stretches east
into the Atlantic Ocean.
Streets in Manhattan (13.4 miles long and 2.3 miles wide at its widest), run
east-west and ascend in numerical order going north from Houston Street. Below
Houston, streets have their own names.
Fifth Avenue divides Manhattan into East Side and West Side; street addresses
increase with their distance west and east from Fifth Avenue, usually by 100 per
block.
Midtown is Manhattan’s main business district. Downtown (below 14th Street)
contains Greenwich Village, SoHo, TriBeCa, and the Wall Street financial
district. Downtown can also mean south of wherever you happen to be at the
moment; uptown refers to all points north. If you’re at 14th Street and your
destination is 50th Street, you’ll be traveling uptown to get to Midtown.
Approximately 20 north-south blocks equal a mile.
As a general rule, traffic is one-way going east on even-numbered streets,
one-way going west on odd-numbered streets. Main east-west streets are two-way
and some smaller streets don't follow this rule.
Sixth Avenue is formally named Avenue of the Americas; both terms are
used.
Chinatown South of Canal Street lies bustling Chinatown, which has over
the years expanded into the Lower East Side and Little Italy. The largest Asian
community in North America can be found among the narrow streets between Worth
and Hester and East Broadway and West Broadway; its main street is Canal Street.
Within these boundaries, you'll find traditional Chinese herbal-medicine shops,
acupuncturists, food markets filled with amazing varieties of fish and exotic
vegetables, funky pagoda-style buildings, stores selling all manner of items
from beautiful jewelry and silk robes to hair accessories and plumbing parts,
and hundreds of restaurants serving every imaginable type of Chinese cuisine,
from dim sum to fried noodles to extravagant Cantonese, Hunan, Mandarin, or
Szechuan banquets.
The many signs in Chinese, the music pouring into the streets from open windows,
the delicious smells from the restaurants, noodle shops and tea houses packed
side by side, and the sound of the language swirling around you make it easy to
feel like you've flown half way around the world in the short time it took to
get downtown.
Although the neighborhood is known for its excellent Chinese cuisine, perhaps
one of its more secret highlights is the Eastern States Buddhist Temple on Mott
Street. Step inside - your spirit will be refreshed and your eyes will be
delighted by the sight of 100 golden Buddhas shimmering in the candlelight.
Frequent festivals and parades (especially during the January and February
Chinese New Year celebrations, when paper puppet dragons, firecrackers, and
beating drums rule the streets!), as well as the galleries and curio shops
create a glorious celebration of Chinese culture.
Civic Center Just to the west of the TriBeCa (Triangle Below Canal) triangle is
Manhattan's Civic Center. The mayor hangs his hat in an office in the main
government building, City Hall (not open for tours), which has classical
columns and cast-iron cupola crowned with Lady Justice, and a park on its south
side. Majestic court buildings line the streets. In fact, many visitors will
probably be familiar with Foley Square, a name that's become synonymous
with the New York court system; it's where many of the attorneys on the TV
series Law and Order often prepare for courtroom prosecuting and
posturing. Down the street is the Municipal Building, the government's
first skyscraper (built in 1914) and where you actually get married when you
have a civil ceremony "at City Hall." Just south of the building, a
pedestrian walkway leads to the Brooklyn Bridge and its world-class view. And if
you're looking for a great place for one-stop electronics, photography, and
music shopping, don't miss J&R
Music and Computer World.
NYC & Company operates a visitor information kiosk that's open seven days a
week at the southern tip of City Hall Park on the Broadway sidewalk at Park Row.
As the visitor gateway to Lower Manhattan, the City Hall Park
Visitor Information Kiosk promotes downtown tourism with a multilingual
staff distributing detailed visitor information including directions, attraction
brochures, upcoming event listings, maps, and more.
East
Village During the 19th century, millionaires like the Astors and
Vanderbilts had homes in East Village, but the waves of Irish, German, Jewish,
Polish, and Ukrainian immigrants who flooded into New York City in the 1900s
soon displaced the elite, who moved uptown.
Since then, the area has been home to the Beat generation of the 1950s, hippies
in the 1960s, and punks in the late 1970s and 1980s. Today it's still a young
person's neighborhood, with its experimental music clubs and theaters and
cutting-edge fashion. New York University is in the area, so there's no
shortage of clientele here. Foodies take note: this neighborhood reputedly
contains the most varied assortment of ethnic restaurants in New York City, from
the crush of Indian eateries on the south side of East Sixth Street (sometimes
called "Little Bombay") to McSorley's Old Ale House, a pub that
seems unchanged since it first opened in 1854. Nearby, in what was once the home
of the Astor Library, the restored Public Theater has been the opening
venue for many now-famous plays.
For more trend-setting street life, head east toward Alphabet City (named for
avenues A, B, C, and D)- still a little rough around the edges but with many
reasonably priced, fun, and gamut-running places to eat, drink, and shop…and,
if you're really getting into the scene, some very cool tattoo parlors.
A haven from the pressure of classes at New York University, students regularly
gather around the Alamo at Astor Place. The Alamo is a 15-ft (4.5m) steel
cube designed by Bernard Rosenthal that revolves when pushed. Cooper Union,
a school that holds many interesting public lectures and exhibits, was
established in 1859 just in time for Abraham Lincoln to make a campaign speech
in its auditorium. Today, Blue
Man Group performs its popular Tubes Off-Broadway
audience-participation performance art extravaganza at the Astor Place Theater.
Greenwich Village Greenwich Village - also known as the West Village or the Village - is more
upscale than the East Village and is the original corner of cool, the closest
any American neighborhood comes to a corner of Paris. This part of town has been
home to artists and writers, nonconformists, entertainers, intellectuals, and
bohemians since the turn of the 20th century. Downtown charm is personified in
lots of low-rise townhouses, thumbnail size gardens, secret courtyards, and a
wacky serpentine layout of streets.
Washington Square Park and the rows of townhouses around it with charming
alleys behind them are all frozen in time. The park, with its arch famous from
much movie exposure, is the heart of the Village. This 9 ½ -acre park at the
foot of Fifth Avenue is an oasis and circus combined, where skate boarders,
jugglers, stand-up comics, sitters, strollers, sweethearts, chess players,
fortune tellers, and daydreamers converge and commune.
Washington Mews and Mac Dougal Alley are quiet cobblestone lanes right off the
square. Legendary streets such as McDougal, Astor Place, and Bleecker (famous
Beat and hippie hangouts) are lined with super-hip boutiques, delis displaying
esoteric beers from around the globe, and cafes and restaurants of all stripes.
It makes sense that New York University is in the Village, an area that
has been home to some of the world's most famous writers and artists including
Henry James, Edith Wharton, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Eugene
O'Neill, Norman Rockwell, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and
Beat writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
At night, Greenwich Village comes alive with sounds from late-night
coffeehouses, cafés, experimental theaters, and music clubs. Bars and
restaurants ad infinitum serve everything from cranberry martinis and celestial
sushi to pita-wrapped shwarma. Searching for the soul of the Beat generation? At
fabled coffeehouses like Caffe Reggio and Café Figaro, you can order a double
espresso or cappuccino and pretend for a few minutes that you're Allen Ginsberg,
Jack Keruouac, or William Burroughs.
The Village is home to a large community of gays and lesbians. Across 7th Avenue
is Christopher Street, site of a historic clash (in front of the Stonewall bar)
in 1969 between city police and gay men, marking the beginning of the gay rights
movement.
Enjoy a weekend in Greenwich Village with Next
Stop New York(800-434-7554). The package includes 2 or 3
nights hotel accommodations in Greenwich Village, 3 hour food tasting,
walking and historical tour, $30 pre-theatre dinner certificate at one of many
wonderful Greenwich Village restaurants, tickets to a play, and continental
breakfast daily. Advance reservations required.
Harlem A Mecca for African-American culture and life for more than a
century, Harlem started out as Nieuw Haarlem, a prosperous Dutch farming
settlement. By the turn of the 20th century, black New Yorkers started moving
uptown into Harlem's apartment buildings and town houses. The neighborhood
prospered and by the 1920s, Harlem had become the most famous black community in
the United States, perhaps in the whole world. The Harlem Renaissance, generally
regarded as occuring between 1919 and 1929, was Harlem's golden era, when local
writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, and Ralph
Ellison achieved literary recognition. The Depression hit hard here, but
happily, today the neighborhood is well on the way to new glory days: Young
people and families are moving into the newly restored brownstone and limestone
buildings, and the combination of architectural treasures, crackling vitality
(even Bill Clinton chose Harlem for his post-presidential office!), great music
and culture, and honest-to-goodness, lip-smacking soul food make Harlem a
must-see destination. Harlem is safe to explore on your own but there are a
number of tour companies that will happily show you around.
Harlem Visitor Information Kiosk Adam
Clayton Powell State Office Building plaza,
163 West 125th Street, just east of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard (Seventh
Avenue)
Open seven days a week Hours: Monday-Friday 9am-6pm;
Saturday-Sunday 10am-6pm. Directions by Subway: A, B, C, D or 2,3 to 125th Street
Uptown Culture
Harlem's main thoroughfare is 125th Street. The Apollo Theatre, a concert
venue for luminaries as well as a rite of passage for rising musicians, is on
125th Street. Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Nat King Cole, Marvin Gaye, Sammy
Davis, Jr., and Aretha Franklin have all played here and past winners of its
weekly, wild and crazy amateur night include Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald,
Sarah Vaughn, and the Jackson Five.
The Studio
Museum of Harlem is one of the community's showplaces, housing a large
collection of sculpture, paintings, and photographs and specializing in African
American artists and artists of African descent. The
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (part of the New York
Public Library's Division of Negro History) on Lenox Avenue, is an eye-popping
literary treasure trove, comprising more than 5,000,000 books, documents, and
photographs recording black history and more than 400 Black newspapers and 1,000
periodicals from around the world. The
Dance Theatre of Harlem, a world-class dance company, founded by Arthur
Mitchell and Karel Shook, is celebrating 30 triumphant years. The Harlem
Week/Harlem Jazz & Music Festival is an annual summer festival
taking place each August, with food tasting, art exhibits, concerts, seminars,
music, street entertainment, sporting events, and an auto show. And don't miss
the The
Greater Harlem Historic Bike Tour in early
August. The Urban World
Film Festival takes place in August every year.
Things To Do and See
As Langston Hughes put it, "there is so much to see in Harlem," and
among other wonderful things to explore here are Hamilton Grange, the
country estate of Alexander Hamilton; Riverbank
State Park, with its wonderful carousel and a spectacular view of the
George Washington Bridge; the beautiful architecture of City College
(CUNY); the lovely row houses of Hamilton Heights (often called Sugar
Hill) that have been home to Count Basie, Chief Justice Thurgood Marshall, and
boxing great Sugar Ray Robinson; and Striver's Row (a reference to the
upward mobility of the doctors, lawyers and other middle-class professionals who
purchased homes here) on 138th and 139th Streets, an elegant row of early
20th-century town houses designed by famous period architects such as Sanford
White.
Gospel
Any day is a good one to come uptown, but Sundays are, for many, the best time
to hear gospel singing at churches like the Gothic-style Abyssinian Baptist
(where the charismatic Adam Clayton Powell once preached), Canaan Baptist, Salem
United Methodist, and Metropolitan Baptist. Visitors of all races and religions
are given a warm welcome (remember to please dress appropriately for church). The
New York Gospel Matinee is also a possibility.
Shopping and Dining Malcolm
Shabazz Harlem Market is an open-air market on west 116th Street. Green
Flea, a Saturday market on West 135th Street at Lenox Avenue, is open
10am-6pm. Since exploring is often followed by hunger pains, stop for a taste of
Southern hospitality and stomach-and-spirit satisfying soul food at a restaurant
such as Sylvia's,
Amy Ruth's, or Bayou
- barbecued ribs, black-eyed peas, and pecan pie, anyone? Hopping nightspots
include Jimmy's
Uptown and the Lenox Lounge.
Little
Italy and NoLIta Little Italy
The heart of Little Italy is Mulberry Street. In the second half of the 19th
century, NYC's Italian immigration reached its peak, with several Italian
parishes and an Italian-language newspaper. Today, there are fewer than 5,000
Italians living in Little Italy, but the heavenly aromas of the Italian bakeries
and restaurants still waft around Mulberry and Grand Streets. The filmmaker
Martin Scorsese shot the classic Mean Streets in this neighborhood, but
today it couldn't be friendlier or safer!
Landmarks include Old St. Patrick's Church and the Police Building.
It's a popular neighborhood, filled with Old World atmosphere and many excellent
eateries, among them Umberto's
Clam House, Da
Nico, Casa
Bella, and Original Vincent's. Mid-September is a great time to
visit for the most exciting annual event in the neighborhood, the ten-day Feast
of San Gennaro. During this celebration, Mulberry Street is renamed Via
San Gennaro and the shrines and relics of this saint are paraded through the
streets - don't be surprised to see the faithful pin dollar bills to the saint
as he passes by - and the tantalizing smell of fried pastry and sausages fills
the air. The crowds enjoy Italian foods of all types, rides, games,
entertainment, and audience-participation singing and dancing. Tarantella,
anyone?
NoLIta
Not so long ago, only a few noteworthy shops dotted the landscape east of
Broadway in Lower Manhattan. The neighborhood known as NoLIta, or North of
Little Italy, seemed quaint, a living postcard of narrow streets, mom-and-pop
stores, and reasonable rent. Then, during the mid 1990s, many designer refugees
from celebrity-clogged, high-rent SoHo and TriBeCa fled eastward and turned tiny
pizzerias and shoe repair shops into shops to purvey their creations. By 1999, a
number of low-attitude boutiques blossomed on Mulberry, Mott, and Elizabeth
Streets, offering gorgeous one-of-a kind, designer goodies - bejeweled and
embroidered purses, rainbow colored shawls, hand-tooled boots, and
custom-designed jewelry
The Lower East Side This is New York's landmark historic Jewish neighborhood, which was once the
world's largest Jewish community. It was here that the New York garment industry
began. Today it is one of New York's favorite bargain beats, where serious
shoppers find fantastic bargains (especially along Orchard Street on a Sunday
afternoon), cutting-edge new designers, and hot bars and music venues - and
possibly the best place to get a great pastrami sandwich, pickles out of a
barrel, and the world's best bialys. Try Katz's Delicatessen (205 East
Houston St.), the oldest and largest real NY deli, founded in 1888.
Bounded by Houston Street, Canal Street, and the FDR Drive, the neighborhood's
center is Orchard Street. Once a Jewish wholesale enclave, this street is
a true multicultural blend, with trendy boutiques, French cafés, and
velvet-roped nightspots sprinkled among dry-goods discounters, Spanish bodegas,
and mom-and-pop shops selling everything from T-shirts to designer fashions to
menorahs. Orchard is lined with small shops purveying clothing and shoes at
great prices. Grand, Orchard, and Delancey Streets are treasure troves for
linens, towels, and other housewares, and the traditional Sunday street vendors
(Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, is observed by many shopkeepers as a day of rest)
offer great opportunities to hone your bargaining skills! At Shapiro's Winery
visitors can taste one of their 32 flavors of wine, and at Streit's bakery,
matzoh mavens can sample the freshly baked unleavened bread as it rolls off the
conveyor belts behind the counter.
Timeline
Touring offers insider tours that relate to this historic period by
exploring the culture and heritage that existed then and still exists today.
Transportation provided. Tours leave from the NYC visitor center. The Lower East Side
Tenement Museum interprets the area's immigrant and migrant experiences
through tours of a landmark 19th century tenement, living history programs,
neighborhood walking tours, plays, and special programs. The first synagogue
built by Eastern European Jews in America (1887) is the Eldridge
Street Project, now a cultural center and gift shop.
More information about the Lower East Side: The Lower East Side
Business Improvement District has a visitor center at 261 Broome Street
and can provide visitors with a shopping directory and information on dining
discounts, free parking, and walking tours. The Lower East Side
Conservancy is a preservation organization that specializes in tours of
this fascinating neighborhood, visiting beautiful and historic synagogues.
Lower
Manhattan The lower tip of Manhattan (called Lower Manhattan or Downtown),
where the East and Hudson rivers meet, is where New York City began; it was also
our nation's first capital. In one of history's most famous real estate deals,
Dutch traders purportedly purchased the island of "Man-a-hatt-a" from
the Algonquin Indians in 1621 for $24 worth of beads and other trinkets.
Originally called Nieuw Amsterdam by these Dutch settlers, the 21st century
blend of old colonial churches and gleaming skyscrapers has become the financial
capital of the world. The heart of it all is the area clustered around Wall
Street - originally a walled fortress (c. 1633) built by the settlers.
Titanic edifices such as the New
York Stock Exchange and the Federal
Reserve Bank buildings line the streets here. Also see Financial
New York.
While modern day business is the focus of Lower Manhattan, many visitors come to
this area to experience the history of New York City. Nearby is Federal
Hall Memorial, the spot where George Washington took his oath as
America's first president, and Fraunces Tavern, where he celebrated the
end of the Revolutionary War. Other famous landmarks include Trinity
Church/St. Paul's Chapel, a national landmark built in 1766. At the
towering height of 284 feet, it was once the tallest structure in New York City.
George Washington attended services here.
Alliance for
Downtown New York leads a free 90-minute walking tour that includes
stops at Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange every Thursday and Saturday
at noon. Meet at the front steps of the National
Museum of the American Indian; no reservations are necessary. For
information on the tours, call 212/606-4064. Or walk the Patriot
Trail, a self-guided walking tour through America's most
partriotic neighborhood. Tour lasts approximately one hour and begins one block
east of the World Trade Center site at Broadway and Vesey Street.
The Alliance for Downtown New York operates the Downtown
Connection - a free bus service for visitors, workers and residents
to find their way around Downtown.
The route runs between South Street Seaport and northern Battery Park City and
riders can hop on and off the bus at conveniently designated stops.
Broadway, one of New York's oldest thoroughfares (it was originally a
woodland cow path) and the only avenue to cut diagonally across Manhattan, runs
in some form from Manhattan's southern tip to the state capital of Albany, 150
miles (240 km) away.
Don't miss the "Olde New York" atmosphere of South
Street Seaport, with its majestic tall ships, museums, shops, lively
restaurants, and special events. The South
Street Seaport Museum is an 11-square-block historic district
including historic ships, changing exhibits, tours, films, and harbor sails
aboard 19th-century schooners. New York Unearthed is the only
museum dedicated to New York's archaeological heritage, where visitors can
view 5000 years of New York history
17 State Street; (212) 748.8628. At the bottom of the island is Battery
Park (Manhattan's green toe), a wonderful waterside haven with 30 acres
of gardens, playgrounds, a one-mile esplanade, public art, and views of the
Hudson River. The Museum
of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust is here as is
the brand new Ritz-Carlton. Battery Park has fine views of harbor islands -
Governor's Island, Staten
Island, the Statue
of Liberty on Liberty Island, and Ellis
Island, the famous immigrant gateway to America (1892-1954) for
ancestors of one in four present-day Americans. Frequent ferry service to Staten
Island, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty departs from South Ferry &
Battery Park.
On July 16, 2002 NYC dedicated an extraordinary new memorial
devoted to raising public awareness of the events that led to the great Irish
famine and migration of 1845-1852.The Irish Hunger Memorial,
which takes its name from the Irish term for the famine, An Gorta Mór, The
Great Hunger, rises above a half-acre site near the corner of Vesey Street and
North End Avenue in Battery Park City. The memorial, which is 96' x 170', rises
above a base structure that is level with the sidewalk on its eastern end and 25
high on its western end. A passage in the western end of the memorial opens
inside a ruined fieldstone cottage imported from County Mayo. Leaving the
cottage, the visitor can wander through abandoned fields and overgrown potato
furrows that evoke the terrible desolation that famine brought to Ireland. The
memorial, which was landscaped by Gail Wittwer-Laird, is planted with some 62
species of native Irish wildflowers, plants and grasses and has stones from each
of Ireland’s 32 counties.
Midtown Midtown is the center of many visitors' trips to New York City. The
beautifully restored Grand
Central Terminal is paces away from the Chrysler Building, the United
Nations complex, Rockefeller
Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Trump Tower. There's
the fascinating Morgan
Library and the awesome New
York Public Library, both of which have changing exhibitions. Behind the
public library is the lovely Bryant
Park, which hosts Broadway
Under the Stars, free movies and music events in summer. And what
says New York better than Fifth Avenue stores? Midtown also includes the
new, revitalized Times Square and the Theater District, where
world-famous Broadway productions wow audiences nightly. The Museum
of Modern Art, a midtown attraction, is moving to Queens summer 2002
while its Manhattan building undergoes major renovations. The Museum
of Television & Radio is in midtown as is the Intrepid
Sea-Air-Space Museum, the American
Craft Museum, Carnegie
Hall, and Radio
City Music Hall. Make sure to stop by NYC's Official Visitor
Information Center (810 Seventh Avenue between 52nd and 53rd streets) to
speak with travel counselors and pick up free brochures and discount coupons.
The Diamond District is on 47th Street but if you'd rather invest in art,
explore the galleries along 57th Street where you'll also find theme restaurants
including the Hard Rock
Cafe and Jekyll
& Hyde.
SoHo and
TriBeCa Within only a quarter of a square mile, SoHo has an estimated 250 art
galleries, four museums, nearly 200 restaurants, and 100 stores.
The blocks south of Houston (pronounced HOW-ston) and north of Canal
streets are home to the city's largest concentration of the cast-iron fronted
buildings, built as warehouses and manufacturing spaces, but converted to living
spaces, called "lofts," for artists and sculptors who appreciated the
larger spaces. These huge, 19th-century architectural gems (Victorian Gothic,
Italianiate, and neo-Grecian among them) are prized by preservationists and the
well-heeled bohemians of SoHo who call the neighborhood home.
The New York Fire
Museum on Spring Street displays a nostalgic and inspirational
collection of hand-pulled and horse-drawn apparatus, engines, sliding poles,
uniforms and fireboat equipment from the 18th through the 20th centuries - a
good place to pay respects to our heroes from 9-11. Robert Lee Morris
sells jewelry that is wearable art; Canal
Jean Company sells authenic Levi's, cutting-edge shoes, and sportswear
at discount prices; Vintage
New York features only wines and food from New York State; The
Scholastic Store sells Scholastic brands including Clifford the Big Red
Dog and Harry Potter - in an interactive, multimedia environment; and the Ward-Nasse
Gallery has the largest selection of original art in SoHo.
If you work up an appetite after all the shopping, head to the Cub
Room or Zoë
for dinner, and afterwards to NV/289
Bar Lounge, S.O.B.'s
(Sounds of Brazil) for a little samba, or the SoHo
Grand Hotel for a drink in an international and sophosticated environmen
Union
Square, Flatiron District, Gramercy Park As Broadway marches north and west across Manhattan it forms a
series of squares beginning with Union Square at 14th Street. The Union
Square neighborhood is a thriving cultural, business, educational and health
care hub. Throughout Manhattan and beyond, the vibrant community is known as the
Heart of Off-Broadway and is celebrated for its top-notch restaurants, diverse
retailers, excellent universities and hospitals, and one of the city’s most
popular parks.
Union Square Park, the staging ground for numerous historic rallies,
demonstrations and gatherings hosts a popular Greenmarket
that brings fresh produce to the city’s inhabitants. During the holiday
season, the southern end of the Park becomes the Union Square Holiday Market. One
of the best places in the City to people-watch year round; you can review the
never-ending parade of people AND surf the net! Bring your computer to Union
Square and log onto the Internet (for free!) through the wireless node.
In this neighborhood are some of the city's trendiest restaurants lining Park
Avenue South up to 23rd Street. Madison Square, the site of the original
Madison Square Garden, is dominated by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower
and the Flatiron Building (20-stories and triangular). It was once the
end of "ladies mile," the city's most fashionable shopping district
along Broadway and Sixth Avenue; this area still has great shopping. To its east
is Gramercy Park, a small, fenced park acessible only to residents of its
surrounding townhouses. Theodore Roosevelt was born in this neighborhood.
New York’s fourth busiest subway stop makes this 24-hour community easily
accessible by the N, R, 4, 5, 6, and L lines.
Upper East
Side From the Plaza
Hotel (pictured left) at the edge of Central Park at 59th Street to the
top of Museum
Mile at El Museo
del Barrio at 105th Street, this is the city's Gold Coast. The
neighborhood air is perfumed with the scent of old money, conservative values,
and glamorous sophistication, with Champagne corks popping and high society
puttin' on the Ritz.
On the corner of Lexington and 59th Street is Bloomingdale's
- one of the NYC shopping icons, a beloved sanctuary for stylish
consumers. On Madison
Avenue, window shopping can be intoxicating: so many tempting boutiques,
so many famous names to flaunt on everything from socks to shoes to satin sheets
to chocolates.
Between Lexington and Madison Avenues, Park Avenue is an oasis of calm
with wide streets meant for strolling, lovely architecture, and a median strip
that sprouts tulips in season and sculptures at other times of the year.
Railroad tracks ran in this median before World War I. This grand street
stretching down to midtown is one of our city's most coveted residential
addresses.
Once Manhattan's Millionaire's Row, the stretch of Fifth Avenue between 72nd and
104th Streets has been renamed Museum
Mile because of its astonishing number of world-class cultural
institutions such as the Metropolitan
Museum of Art and the Guggenheim
Museum. This stretch is lined with the former mansions of the Upper East
Side's more illustrious industrialists and philanthropists.
Design's 19th 20th-century
collections of American Art, the Jewish
Museum's Gothic-style mansion bursting with artwork and
ceremonial objects tracing over 4,000 years of history, and the graceful Cooper-Hewitt
National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution (pictured at left).
An added attraction to strolling along Fifth and Park Avenues are the many
fascinating non-museum displays on view to the careful observer, especially in
the evenings, many apartments keep their window treatments open, so it's
possible to get a discreet peek inside the posh residences and maybe pick up a
decorating idea or two.
And speaking of neighbors, the mayor lives up here too, but not in Gracie
Mansion. Gracie Mansion, the usual mayoral abode, is a historic house on
88th Street and East End Avenue overlooking the East River and surrounded by a
waterfront park. Central Park
lines Fifth Avenue. Go into "the yard" and discover a zoo, a castle, a
reservoir, an an ice-skating rink, a boathouse where you can rent rowboats, a
gorgeous "secret" conservatory garden, and plenty of trails for
walking, jogging, bicycling, and horseback riding. It's a park for all seasons,
from ice skating in winter to free, summertime performances of Shakespeare's
plays and concerts on the Great Lawn that crescendo to dazzling displays of
fireworks. After the show, you could head over to the bar at one of the
neighborhood's tony hotels, like The
Mark or The Carlyle.
Upper West Side Broadway, brownstones, books, and some of the city's best bagels... the Upper
West Side extends north from Columbus Circle at 59th Street up to 110th
Street, and is bordered by Central Park West and Riverside Park.
The Upper West Side is separated from the Upper East Side by Central Park. This
is the traditional stronghold of the city's intellectual, creative, and moneyed
community, but the atmosphere is not as upper crust as the Upper East Side.
Elegant, pre-war buildings along the boulevards of Broadway, West End
Avenue, Riverside Drive, and Central Park West meet shady,
quiet streets lined with brownstones. Much of the area is protected by landmark
status, and the neighborhood's restored townhouses and high-priced co-op
apartments are coveted by actors, young professionals, and young families.
The Upper West Side boasts an impressive list of "firsts": The oldest
Baptist congregation in the U.S. (founded 1753; First Baptist Church, Broadway
and 79th St.); the oldest Spanish and Portuguese Jewish congregation in New York
(established 1654; Congregation Shearith Israel, Central Park West and 70th
St.); the world's largest bible collection (American Bible Society, with
37,000 items); the first fireproof building in NYC (122 West 78th St., built by
Rafael Guastavino in 1883); the oldest school in the U.S. (Collegiate School,
West End Avenue and 77th St.; founded 1628); and the world's largest carillon
(the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Carillon, in Riverside Church, and the
largest tuned bell, the "Bourdon").
Sidewalks in this neighborhood are always crowded during the day with performers
rushing to auditions and families pushing their babies in imported strollers. In
the evenings, however, the action moves inside, where singles mingle in myriad
restaurants and bars. Stroll along Columbus Avenue to investigate the
glitzy boutique-and-restaurant strip; walk along Amsterdam Avenue with
its mix of bodegas, bars, and boutiques. Along Central Park West are such
titanic habitats as the buff colored, castle-like Dakota, where John
Lennon was killed and Yoko Ono still lives (respects may be paid across the
street in Central Park's Strawberry Fields memorial). Other interesting
architectural jewels along the avenue include The Lanhgam (a 1920s
Italian Renaissance-style high rise); the twin-towered San Remo (home
sweet home over the years to such luminaries as Rita Hayworth, Dustin Hoffman,
Paul Simon, and Diane Keaton); and The Kenilworth, with its impressive
pair of ornate front columns, once the home of Michael Douglas.
Dining choices include two of the city's most beautiful restaurants - the
romantic Café
des Artistes and fantastical Tavern
on the Green, plus a mind-boggling variety of cafés and restaurants
along Columbus Avenue, serving everything from deli sandwiches to burritos to
haute cuisine.
Venturing further uptown one finds the world's largest gothic Cathedral
Church of St. John the Divine, Columbia University, Grant's
Tomb, Riverside
Church, Audubon
Terrace (home of the Hispanic Society), and the Morris-Jumel
Mansion, a colonial treasure. For greenery, Riverside
Park is a real haven. The only state park situated on Manhattan Island,
this 28-acre multi-level park rises 69 feet above the Hudson. Keep going, just
past the George Washington Bridge, to the very tip of the island, and you will
discover the Cloisters,
which houses the Metropolitan Museum of Art's medieval art collection. In Fort
Tryon Park, the Cloisters displays the famous unicorn tapestries and other
12th-16th century treasures.
The Bronx
Quick: Which is the only borough of New York City that isn't on
an island and has more park land than any of the others? Surprise! It's the
Bronx.
Manhattan and Staten Island are islands unto themselves, and Queens and Brooklyn
are part of Long Island. The Bronx is 24% parklands - that's a greater
percentage of green space than any other urban area in the country. There are
almost 6,000 acres of parks in the Bronx, and that's not including the world's
most famous ballpark, Yankee
Stadium. Garden greenery is at its most magnificent at the New
York Botanical Garden. Fragrant delights on its 250 acres include 27
specialty gardens and the prized 50-acre forest, the largest remnant of woodland
that once covered all of New York City! If fauna is more your thing, the Bronx
Zoo - the largest urban U.S. zoo - is nearby. Opened in 1899, it is home
to more than 4,000 animals representing more than 600 species, all in
naturalistic settings.
A park of a different sort is Woodlawn
Cemetery, the elegant final resting place of famous people including
musicians Duke Ellington, George M. Cohan, and Miles Davis, and merchant kings
with two first initials F. W. Woolworth, J.C. Penney, and R.H. Macy.
The Bronx was settled in 1639 and is named for the Swedish settler Jonas Bronck.
There are more than 60 landmarks and historic districts in the Bronx, including
the Edgar
Allan Poe Cottage on the Grand Concourse (the Bronx's main thoroughfare)
and the stately Van
Cortlandt House Museum in Van
Cortlandt Park, which covers nearly two square miles and has stadium
facilities, boating, horseback riding, cricket, golf, picnicking, and tennis.
The Bronx has its own Little Italy (Belmont-Arthur
Avenue Local Development Corp., 718/933-6968 or 718/295-2882) on Belmont
and Arthur avenues, just south of Fordham Road near Fordham University. A feast
for the eyes and stomach with colorful food markets and lip-smacking palaces of
pasta, this culturally vital enclave has a playhouse and cultural center in
addition to its gastronomic delights. To get here, take the 4 or D subway
or Metro-North
commuter rail to Fordham Road, then take bus
BX12 or BX22 to Arthur Avenue.
The mighty Hudson River and dramatic Palisades (cliffs on the west bank of the
Hudson River) provide the backdrop for Riverdale, a hilly enclave of
architectural treasures - early 20th century estates constructed as summer homes
for midtown moguls. Among these is Wave
Hill, an acclaimed public garden and cultural institution in a
spectacular setting.
City Island
is a marine-related community offering a wide variety of dining, fishing, and
boating. Off the borough's northeast shore, City Island looks and feels like a
New England fishing village. Across the way is Orchard Beach, a ribbon of
white sand on the shore of Long Island Sound.
So get off the beaten path and come see for yourself what the Bronx has to
offer.
The Bronx
Culture Trolley is a free program of the Bronx Council on the Arts
that runs on the first Wednesday of each month (except January) providing
Bronxites and tourists alike a fun way to travel via a replica of an early
20th-Century trolley car. Passengers are given the opportunity to sample several
of the area’s hottest cultural attractions, dining establishments and
entertainment venues.
Famous people who have lived in the Bronx: performers June Allyson, Red
Buttons, Anne Bancroft, Tony Curtis, Robert Klein, Hal Linden, Penny and Gary
Marshall, Rita Moreno, Chaz Palminteri, Roberta Peters, Regis Philbin, Carl
Reiner; athletes Lou Gehrig, Jake La Motta; authors E.L. Doctorow, Theodore
Dreiser, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Herman Wouk; statesmen John Adams, John F.
Kennedy, Colin Powell; designers Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren; and the
conductor Arturo Toscanini.
Bronx firsts: Break dancing and salsa music were born here.
Brooklyn Brooklyn visitors now have a great new place to start a
tour: The Brookyn Tourism &
Visitors Center, which opened February 2004 in
beautiful Borough Hall, showcasing all the fabulous things to do and see in this
great borough, from taking a Rollercoaster ride, sunning on the beach, and
seeing a dolphin show in Coney Island to exploring one of the world's best
Egyptian collections at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
A fun way to get to Brooklyn is to walk across the iconic Brooklyn
Bridge (take the 4, 5, or 6 subway to Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall; the bridge
will be on your left). Finished in 1883, this engineering milestone ranks among
the world's greatest suspension bridges. Day or night, the view is spectacular.
Stroll past the stately mansions of Brooklyn Heights, the city's first
designated historic district. This 50-block architectural treasure has been in
many movies including Norman Jewison's Moonstruck, with locations on
Cranberry Street, and John Huston's Prizzi's Honor, with locations on
Pierrepont Street. Scores of creative people lived around here, including
Benjamin Britten, Walt Whitman, Gypsy Rose Lee, Truman Capote, and Arthur
Miller. From here, head over to the promenade for an even better view of lower
Manhattan and the harbor.
The newly renovated Brooklyn
Historical Society serves as a modern center for
Brooklyn’s history while preserving its unique architectural design. Visitors
can enjoy four floors of exhibits and programs including performances, readings,
lectures, & activities for children.
The Brooklyn Academy of Music
presents concerts, contemporary and classical dance, performance art, theater
for young people, repertory and first run films; it's home to both the Brooklyn
Philharmonic and the Next Wave Festival. It's so hip that it's hard to believe
that it's America's oldest operating performing arts center: BAM's first
performance was in 1861.
Don't miss Prospect
Park (Eastern Parkway and Flatbush Ave., 718/965-8972), home to 526
recreational acres, including the Prospect
Park Zoo, an interactive, state-of-the-art children's zoo; a 60-acre
lake with pedal boating, electric boat tours, and ice skating; a Civil War
memorial arch; Lefferts
Homestead Children's Museum, where life on a 19th-century Brooklyn farm
is explored; and a beautiful carousel dating from 1912.
Sunset Park's Green-Wood
Cemetery (718/788-1101) is one of the world's most beautiful cemeteries.
With a spectacular harbor view and 478 acres filled with thousands of trees,
flowering shrubs and four lakes, Green-Wood is the eternal resting place of a
who's who of famous folks including Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Morse, F.A.O.
Schwarz, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Charles Tiffany, and "Boss" Tweed. Brooklyn Botanic Garden, a
52-acre urban oasis, with specialty gardens, world-class plant collections, and
one-of-a-kinds is an urban oasis, has more Japanese cherry trees than
Washington, D.C., not to mention roses, lilacs, and azaleas.
The Brooklyn Museum of
Art, one of the largest museums in the United States, showcases one of
the world's greatest Egyptian collections. One of the premier art institutions
in the world, its permanent collection includes more than one and a half million
objects, from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to contemporary art, and represents
almost every culture. It is housed in a 560,000 square foot, Beaux-Arts building
and has its own subway stop (take the 1 or 2 to Eastern Parkway). It's one block
from the Grand Army Plaza in a complex of 19th-century parks and gardens that
also contains Prospect
Park, the Brooklyn
Botanic Garden, and the Wildlife
Center.
Just beyond is Crown Heights, a neighborhood where one of New York's
biggest communities of Hasidic Jews share space with a West Indian community
whose Brooklyn West Indian Labor Day carnival, the West Indian
American Parade, is one of New York's most exciting annual
events and is the largest such event in the U.S. In 2001 approximately 4 million
people from numerous countries participated in the parade.
Nearby Brighton
Beach, the setting for Neil Simon's film Brighton Beach Memoirs,
is nicknamed "Little Odessa" for its large Russian population. Pick up
superb caviar and other Russian treats at food markets but don't fill up
noshing: stay for a meal at the fabulous local restaurants, some with Las
Vegas-style entertainment. Oh, and there's also a beach and a boardwalk.
Sheepshead Bay (Emmons Ave., between Coney Island Ave. & Knapp St.; take
the D or Q train to Sheesphead Bay) is the center of recreational fishing for
New York City. Boats are moored at ten piers, ready to sail into the deep waters
off shore for half- and whole-day excursions - no reservations necessary.
Fishing boats go out in the morning from 6:30am to 9am and again at 1pm. Many
boats leave again at 7pm for night fishing. Fishing gear is provided, and you
keep what you catch. If you come up empty (unlikely), dine at one of the many
local seafood restaurants.
Borough Park, Flatbush, and historic Williamsburg
are predominately ethnic areas that combine ancient culture with the
modern American dream. Timeline
Touring offers insider tours to these diverse areas that enable the
visitor to explore the unique culture and heritage that exists in 21st
century New York. Transportation provided. Tours leave from the NYC visitor
center.
Park Slope is a beautiful, mainly residential, neighborhood, in
northeastern Brooklyn. It was known in its heyday (late 1800s) as the Gold
Coast because of its mansions and row houses on Prospect Park. Commercial
districts lie along 7th and 5th avenues, the latter where you'll find Aaron's, a
designer fashions discounter.
Queens
Queens, across the East River from midtown Manhattan, is
becoming a top cultural destination, thanks most recently to the addition of
midtown Manhattan's MoMA
QNS Museum of Modern Art relocating to Long Island City, Queens. From
summer 2002 through 2005 while the Museum's 53rd Street, Manhattan facility
undergoes renovation, the new Queens facility provides MoMA with 160,000 square
feet of new space for exhibition galleries, study centers, workshops, storage,
offices, and a café/bookstore. MoMA operates the Queens
Artlink, a courtesy weekend shuttle bus between MoMA and four cultural
destinations in Queens: P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, the Isamu Noguchi Garden
Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, and the American Museum of the Moving Image. P.S.
1 Contemporary Art Center, housed in a former elementary school (P.S.
stands for Public School), is a hip destination, especially in the summer when
there are DJs spin on the roof. It was recently remodeled by famed architect
Frederick Fisher, and includes sculpture, a theater, and many interesting modern
installations. Socrates
Sculpture Park, an open-air park with free exhibits of large sculpture,
has a great view of Manhattan. The Noguchi
Museum has temporarily moved to Sunnyside, Queens and displays many
sculptures and works of design created by this famed Japanese-American artist.
The above cultural attractions are in Long Island City (L.I.C.), which is the
closest Queens neighborhood to Manhattan, directly across the East River from
midtown. It's the first stop out of Manhattan off the 59th Street
(Queensborough) Bridge and the E and V subways, and is also accessible via the 7
train and the G, the latter which stops in Queens and Brooklyn only, not
Manhattan. Also part of the free weekend Queens Artlink shuttle service is the American
Museum of the Moving Image, which no movie fan should miss. AMMI is in Astoria,
which has a large Greek population, as showcased by the many Greek restaurants,
coffee houses, pastry shops, lounges, and clubs. AMMI, which has the nation's
largest permanent collection of moving image artifacts, educates the public
about the art, history, technique, and technology of film, television, and
digital media, and examines their impact on culture and society. Located within
the former Paramount Pictures studio complex, the museum has more than 70,000
items in its permanent collection and has more than 300 special programs a year.
Don't be surprised if you hear someone shout "Action!" There are two
studios filiming movies and TV shows nearby: Kaufman Astoria Studio in
Astoria and Silvercup Film Studios in L.I.C.
From Ireland to India
in a Subway Stop
Queens is the most ethnically diverse 115 square miles on earth. The 7 subway
line has been dubbed The International Express and has been designated a
National Millennium Trail for its representation of the immigrant experience. In
addition to Greek Astoria, Jackson Heights has a fantastic Little
India, with great restaurants, food markets, and shopping, and Peruvians
swear this is where you can get the only decent grilled chicken outside of Lima.
Flushing has a large Chinese and Korean population and is home to the
1862 Romanesque Revival Flushing
Town Hall, where Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts organizes a
variety of art exhibits and jazz and classical music performances throughout the
year. In Sunnyside you can spend an evening at a Spanish theater or a Romanian
night club; in Woodside, rent a Thai video or hear traditional music at an Irish
pub. Italians, Japanese, Colombians, Asian Indians, Puerto Ricans, Israelis,
Maltese, and many other groups add diversity and flavor to Queens.
The Great Outdoors Flushing
Meadow-Corona Park's 1,255 acres, the site of two World's Fairs (1939
and 1964), has meadows, lakes, and athletic fields, and is home to the
Unisphere, Queens Museum of Art, the New York Hall of Science, Shea Stadium, the
Queens Theatre in the Park, the USTA National Tennis Center, the Queens Zoo, and
the Queens Botanical Garden. The Unisphere, an enormous metal globe sculpture,
is a well-known symbol of the 1964 World's Fair. Its adjacent uneven towers were
the spaceship launching pad for aliens in the first Men in Black. U.S.
Open Tennis Tournament is held at the USTA National Tennis Center
every year starting at the end of August. At one time the tennis center was
called Louis Armstrong Stadium, honoring the jazz trumpeter whose home in Corona
is a national landmark. Jazz aficionados can explore the Queens
Jazz Trail, a tour operated by Flushing Town Hall that visits the
neighborhoods, clubs, and museums of and about America's jazz legends including
Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie,
and Tony Bennett. These tours are led by historians and musicologists, and
conclude with a homemade lunch of southern cooking followed by a live concert by
leading jazz musicians at Flushing Town Hall. Also in the park, the New
York Hall of Science is a kid-friendly place with more than 225
interactive hands-on exhibits; the Queens
Museum of Art has a model of the entire city - more than 835,000 tiny
buildings; Shea
Stadium is home of the New York Mets; the Queens
Zoo has more than 400 animals of nearly 70 species; and the Queens
Botanical Garden has 39 acres of paths to enjoy. Jamaica
Bay Wildlife Refuge (718/318-4340), a 9,000-acre preserve with more than
325 species of birds, salt marsh, upland fields and woods, freshwater ponds, and
an open expanse of bay and islands, is heaven on earth for both birds and
birdwatchers. And for beach-goers longing to hang ten, the surf at Far Rockaway
is a boarder's paradise all year round. Rockaway
Beach is America's longest municipal beach, with almost ten miles for
sun worshippers and sandcastle builders. The Alley
Pond Environmental Center, in Douglaston, has the only working windmill
in New York City. With an extensive system of nature trails on the grounds, it
offers a wide range of educational programs related to the environment.
Historical Sites
Queens has many historical sites including the Queens
County Farm Museum in Floral Park. The Farm Museum is the oldest and
longest continuously farmed site in New York State, and offers educational and
recreational programs for free all year long. There are colonial houses, a
greenhouse, livestock and now a modern corporate and private event center in the
renovated barn. Bowne House (718/359-0528), in Flushing, was built in
1661. The birthplace of religious freedom in America, the Bowne House is a
National Historic Landmark. The Quaker Meeting House (718/358-9636), also
in Flushing, is New York City's oldest house of worship, and has been used
continuously since 1694. The King Manor Museum (718/206-0545) in Jamaica,
is the former home of antislavery stalwart Rufus King. The circa 1800 house is
surrounded by 11 acres of original farmland. Kingsland House
(718/939-0647), in Flushing, was built for Charles Doughty in 1785. When you fly
into John F. Kennedy or LaGuardia airport, your New York experience begins in
Queens. As you can see, this borough has much more than runways and is well
worth exploration.
Staten
Island Did You
Know?
Bet you didn't know there's a Colonial Williamsburg-like living history
restoration, complete with colonial buildings including a general store and
America's oldest elementary school called Historic
Richmond Town on Staten Island. Or that NYC has its own South Beach
here. Or that Staten Island has the biggest collection of Tibetan art outside
Tibet itself at the cliff-hanging Jacques
Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art, which is one of only two
Himalayan-style, monastery buildings in the Western world, and the only one in
the United States. Or that the Chinese Scholar's Garden at the Staten Island
Botanical Garden is the only authentic one of its kind in the country.
Staten Island Ferry The excursion from the tip of Manhattan to the edge
of Staten Island cruises through New York Harbor past the Statue of Liberty,
Ellis Island, and Governors Island (sigh-inspiring views, to be sure), and
allows an unobstructed view of lower Manhattan. The adventure doesn't cost a
thing aboard the free Staten
Island Ferry.
Snug Harbor Cultural Center A short bus ride from the ferry terminal is the Snug
Harbor Cultural Center, an 83-acre National Historic District with 28
historic buildings set among gardens and a museum performing arts complex. Once
a refuge for retired merchant seaman, Snug Harbor's unique historic buildings
are now home to art galleries, performance spaces, and museums amongst natural
wetlands, woods, and botanical gardens. Included in the complex are: The Noble
Maritime Collection, a museum focusing on the history of Snug Harbor and
Staten Island maritime artist John A. Noble; Staten
Island Botanical Garden, with numerous formal gardens including the
internationally renowned Chinese Scholars Garden and the Connie Gretz Secret
Garden, modeled after the children's classic; Staten
Island Children's Museum, a museum for young people and school groups
with interactive hands on fun for the whole family; Fort
Wadsworth, one of the oldest military installations in the United
States, now a national park.
Other Great Attractions The Staten
Island Zoo has a celebrated collections of reptiles, as well as an
aquarium, a tropical forest, an African Savannah and popular children's
farmyard. You might not have heard of her until now, but photography buffs will
thrill to the sweeping views of the harbor from native S.I. photographer Alice
Austen's Victorian cottage (now the Alice
Austen House Museum), and remember long after being moved by the
displays of her superb work documenting Staten Island life at the turn of the
20th century. Sandy
Ground Historical Society was the oldest community established by free
slaves in North America. The museum and library examines the life and history of
freed Blacks who settled in the area before the Civil War.
Take a Walk This 13.9-by-7.5 mile island feels more suburban than the other
boroughs. Among the hilly streets of the Hamilton Park neighborhood, with its
rows of gingerbread-trimmed Victorian mansions and shingle-style homes erected
during the Civil War era, are two huge Tudoresque homes that appeared on screen
as Casa Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's 1971 classic, The Godfather
(look for Longfellow Street). On the other side of the island is Todt Hill, at
409 feet, the highest point along the Atlantic seaboard south of Maine.
South Beach (718/816-6804), a beach with a beautiful view of the
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, has a 7,500-foot-long boardwalk - the fourth largest
in the world - as well as a playground, bocce courts, roller hockey rink,
shuffleboard, ballfields, and picnic areas.
Gateway National Recreation Area, part of the National Park Service,
includes several recreation areas. Great
Kills Park & Beach (718/980-6130, 718/987-6790) has a beautiful
swimming beach, nature trails, fishing, and a marina. Miller
Field (718/351-6970), once an active airfield in the early days of
aviation, is now a park that includes two post-World War I military aircraft
hangers, 64 acres of athletic fields, picnic areas, a community garden, and a
white oak forest. Fort
Wadsworth (718/354-4500) was a linchpin to the defense of New York
Harbor for nearly two centuries. Park Rangers lead walks and tours highlighting
both the history and the protected natural plant and animal communities at these
sites.
The 147-acre Blue Heron Park (718/390-8000) is home to the blue heron
bird, hiking trails, and picnic areas. The 260-plus-acre Clay Pit Ponds State
Park Preserve (718/967-1976) includes hiking paths and horse trails. The
Greenbelt (718/667-2165), a 2,800-acres nature preserve, includes High
Rock Park and the William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge.
Some people think that Manhattan
and New York City are synonymous, but they are not. 