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The most beguiling city in the world, New York is an adrenaline-charged,
history-laden place that holds immense romantic appeal for visitors.
Wandering the streets here, you'll cut between buildings that are
icons to the modern age - and whether gazing at the flickering lights
of the midtown skyscrapers as you speed across the Queensboro bridge,
experiencing the 4am half-life downtown, or just wasting the morning
on the Staten Island ferry, you really would have to be made of
stone not to be moved by it all. There's no place quite like it.
While the events of September 11, 2001, which demolished the World
Trade Center, shook New York to its core, the populace responded
resiliently under the composed aegis of then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Until the attacks, many New Yorkers loved to hate Giuliani, partly
because they saw him as committed to making their city too much
like everyone else's. To some extent he succeeded, and during the
late Nineties New York seemed cleaner, safer, and more liveable,
as the city took on a truly international allure and shook off the
more notorious aspects to its reputation. However, the maverick
quality of New York and its people still shines as brightly as it
ever did. Even in the aftermath of the World Trade Center's collapse,
New York remains a unique and fascinating city - and one you'll
want to return to again and again.
You could spend weeks in New York and still barely scratch the
surface, but there are some key attractions - and some pleasures
- that you won't want to miss. There are the different ethnic neighborhoods
, like lower Manhattan's Chinatown and the traditionally Jewish
Lower East Side (not so much anymore); and the more artsy concentrations
of SoHo, TriBeCa, and the East and West Villages. Of course, there
is the celebrated architecture of corporate Manhattan, with the
skyscrapers in downtown and midtown forming the most indelible images.
There are the museums , not just the Metropolitan and MoMA, but
countless other smaller collections that afford weeks of happy wandering.
In between sights, you can eat just about anything, at any time,
cooked in any style; you can drink in any kind of company; and sit
through any number of obscure movies . The more established arts
- dance, theater, music - are superbly catered for; and New York's
clubs are as varied and exciting as you might expect. And for the
avid consumer, the choice of shops is vast, almost numbingly exhaustive
in this heartland of the great capitalist dream.
New York City comprises the central island of Manhattan along with
four outer boroughs - Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx , and Staten Island
. Manhattan, to many, is New York - whatever your interests, it's
here that you'll spend the most time and are likely to stay. New
York is very much a city of neighborhoods and is best explored on
foot.
Offshore, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island comprise the first
section of New York (and America) that most nineteenth-century immigrants
would have seen. The Financial District takes in the skyscrapers
and historic buildings of Manhattan's southern reaches and was hardest
hit by the destruction of perhaps its most famous landmarks, the
Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Just northeast is the area
around City Hall , New York's well-appointed municipal center, which
adjoins TriBeCa , known for its swanky restaurants, galleries, and
nightlife. Moving east, Chinatown is Manhattan's most populous ethnic
neighborhood, a vibrant locale that's great for food and shopping.
Nearby, Little Italy bears few traces of the once-strong immigrant
presence, while the Lower East Side , the city's traditional gateway
neighborhood for new immigrants, is nowadays scattered with trendy
bars and clubs. To the west, SoHo is one of the premier districts
for galleries and the commercial art scene, not to mention designer
shopping. Continuing north, the West and East Villages form a focus
of bars, restaurants, and shops catering to students and would-be
bohemians - and of course tourists. Chelsea is a largely residential
neighborhood that is now mostly known for its gay scene and art
galleries that borders on Manhattan's old Garment District . Murray
Hill contains the city's largest skyscraper and most enduring symbol,
the Empire State Building .
Beyond 42nd Street , the main east-west artery of midtown, the
character of the city changes quite radically, and the skyline becomes
more high-rise and home to some of New York's most awe-inspiring,
neck-cricking architecture. There are also some superb museums and
the city's best shopping as you work your way north up Fifth Avenue
as far as 59th Street. Here, the classic Manhattan vistas are broken
by the broad expanse of Central Park , a supreme piece of nineteenth-century
landscaping, without which life in Manhattan would be unthinkable.
Flanking the park, the mostly residential and fairly affluent Upper
West Side boasts Lincoln Center, Manhattan's temple to the performing
arts, the American Museum of Natural History, and Riverside Park
along the Hudson River. On the other side of the park, the Upper
East Side is wealthier and more grandiose, with its nineteenth-century
millionaires' mansions now transformed into a string of magnificent
museums known as the "Museum Mile," the most prominent
being the vast Metropolitan Museum of Art . Alongside is a patrician
residential neighborhood that boasts some of the swankiest addresses
in Manhattan, and a nest of designer shopping along Madison Avenue
in the seventies. Immediately above Central Park, Harlem , the historic
black city-within-a-city, has a healthy sense of an improving go-ahead
community; a jaunt further north is most likely required only to
see the unusual Cloisters, a nineteenth-century mock-up of a medieval
monastery, packed with great European Romanesque and Gothic art
and (transplanted) architecture.
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