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New York City
Nearly 40 million tourists from around the world visit New York City every year. What they find is a bustling metropolis, dense with museums, parks, theaters, shops, famous buildings and extrovert inhabitants as quirky and diverse as the tourists themselves. Contrary to most peoples’ expectation, New York is one of the safest large cities for visitors anywhere on the globe. It has the lowest crime rate of any major American city. For a city with over 8 million inhabitants and a population density over 26,000 per square mile (Manhattan is nearly 67,000 per square mile), that's quite an achievement.

New York City is composed of five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx.

New York weather encompasses a wide spectrum of conditions. Depending on what time of year you visit, it's a must to check the temperatures and pack accordingly. New York plays host to cold, snowy, north-easterly winters which can stretch beyond Easter, then turns up the thermostat for hot humid summers which are sometimes punctuated by raging thunder storms. In between you’ll find bright, crisp spring days, and in some years a long Indian summer leading into a mellow fall before the cold sets in. Weather-wise, spring and fall are the best times of year to plan your New York sight-seeing trip.

But to everything there is a season as the saying goes, and it doesn't mean you won't have a fantastic vacation in the Big Apple any time you come. Visit Brooklyn and Long Island in summer for long lazy days on their their wonderful beaches. Mild fall days are great for exploring Central Park, or the Lower Manhattan neighborhoods… Little Italy, Chinatown, Greenwich Village, Tribeca, and SoHo. Head upstate in winter for some great skiing… New England resorts are also easily accessible by car or train.

Many people assume that the Bronx, Staten Island and Queens generally offer fewer attractions for tourists. While it's true that Manhattan has the lion's share of famous sight-seeing venues, the Bronx has Yankee Stadium, The Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Gardens; Queens has the American Museum of the Moving Image, MoMA Queens, The Isamu Noguchi Sculpture Garden, and the Thalia Spanish Theater; and the ferry ride from Manhattan to Staten Island is a great treat in its own right.

Brooklyn has several justly-famous parks and museums and is easily accessible via subway. It is also still home to the east coast’s oldest amusement park, that most famous conglomeration of boardwalk, rides, side shows and beach, the new and improved Coney Island. Though its rollicking glory days may be a distant echo, with both the beach and the boardwalk refurbished in the last dozen years, Coney Island is enjoying a grand renaissance. If you’re lucky enough to be there around the first Saturday after the summer solstice (approx. third week of June) you’ll see mermaids and merrymakers by the thousand descend upon Coney Island to celebrate the beginning of Summer and the official opening of the Atlantic swimming season. Part Mardi Gras, part art parade, the Mermaid Parade is an afternoon of raucous good fun, and oh yes, Nathan’s on the boardwalk is still serving New York’s most famous hotdogs.

Most of the major attractions are in Manhattan, that famous cigar-shaped island about three miles wide by 22 miles long. Thankfully, the Big Apple is easy to navigate even for the first time visitor as almost all the streets run either North-South or East-West. Though New York City’s mass transit is everywhere… take the subway for speed, the bus to sightsee… Manhattan is a city made for walking, so bring your Rockports. Let’s begin our walking tour at the southern end of the city.

Wall Street
New Yorkers are famous for many things, not least of which is a sense of irony. One more instance of that can be found in the fact that Wall Street, by which most people really mean the New York Stock Exchange, isn't located on the street called Wall at all. It's actually at 20 Broad Street... a minor quibble that most Manhattanites would rightly dismiss with a characteristic wave of the hand.

Though the stock exchange tour has been closed since 9/11, the building is still a sight to behold and the surrounding streets make a great field trip for the study of the history of architecture. George Washington was inaugurated in Federal Hall and important events have been occurring here ever since.

Books About New York Visit MoMA in New York

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The World Trade Center
Though destroyed on 9/11, the World Trade Center is scheduled to rise again in the form of The Freedom Tower. At 1,776 feet it will be one of the world's tallest buildings. The famous Windows of the World restaurant and a 360 degree viewing platform will be part of the new tower.

SoHo
Ten minutes north on the subway is SoHo, (SOuth of HOuston) the renowned art gallery nexus of New York's artist colony. Here you can find everything from Old Dutch Masters to the latest experiments with paint, metal, stone and who-knows-what artistic medium next.

Greenwhich Village
Just a short walk north from SoHo is Greenwich Village, home to jazz, comedy clubs and small theaters, restaurants and, some say, the most interesting assortment of eccentrics the city possesses. Don't miss the breakfast at MacDougal's (at the corner of MacDougal and Bleeker). On the north edge of Greenwich Village is New York University and Washington Square Park, with a famous miniature 'Arch d'Triomphe' and a group of 'maybe someday famous' chess players. These guys are good. Enjoy a cup of coffee and watch a lightening-fast game.

From the Empire State Building, take the short walk north and east to Broadway and 42nd Street... Times Square, heartbeat of the American theater.

© photographer Rachael Arnott; agency Dreamstime.com

Times Square
Recognized the world over as the spot from whence America annually welcomes the New Year, New York's Times Square has been immortalized in songs, movies, poetry and literature as the city's pulsing center. It is a plaza formed by converging avenues, bounded by skyscrapers decked in neon billboards, and it is one of New York's most recognizable icons. By day it is the beating heart of a busy Metropolis... thronged with traffic and visitors and the hordes who work in and run the economic behemoth that is New York City. By night, the lights sparkle and Times Square becomes the soul of New York's night life.

A clean-up campaign in the 1990s initiated by then mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, brought about a renaissance of Times Square and the surrounding areas. The once-seedy district is now safe and family friendly with a Disney store, Virgin Megastore, comedy clubs and much more.

Check out the Discount TKTS booth where big discounts can be had on tickets to Broadway shows still available for that evening's performance.
 

Broadway

Broadway
Broadway is the big, wide avenue that runs diagonally, the entire length of Manhattan. The name 'Broadway' no longer refers to just the physical boulevard but has taken on a larger meaning, and is now synonymous with world class live theater… an experience not to be missed by travelers, especially if your visits to the Big Apple are rare. Although Broadway passes through New York’s theater district, there are actually only four theaters located on Broadway: the Marquis at 46th Street, the Palace at 47th Street, the Winter Garden at 50th Street and the Broadway at 53rd.

In the last thirty years, the presence of an ever-growing population of artistic, creative talent has led to a proliferation of theater productions in New York. They can't all afford, nor do they all warrant, a high priced Broadway venue. Happily for the theater going public, they have given rise to Off Broadway, and Off Off Broadway.

You will find Off Broadway shows performed usually by top rate talent, just waiting for their big break, in about fifty smaller theaters around the city. Production values are simpler and less costly, so tickets are about half the price of a Broadway show. Many mega-hit shows have begun their New York runs Off Broadway, like 'A Chorus Line' which originally opened at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater in the Village before a wave of excited buzz swept it uptown to the Shubert.

Off Off Broadway shows are to be found scattered over 200 or so small theaters, community centers, studios, lofts and church halls. The productions can be minimalist, avant-garde affairs, the talent variable, but the good news is the tickets are cheap, sometimes no more than ten or fifteen dollars.
 

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Central Park
Completed in 1873, New York's Central Park is among the world's great urban innovations and one of the city's most visited sites. Its boundaries lie on 5th and 8th Avenues on the east and west respectively, 59th Street (Central Park South) and 110th Street on the north end.

Designed by Olmsted and Vaux, New York's Central Park encompasses 843 acres of lawns, meadows, forested walks, bicycle trails, horseback trails, formal gardens, and water features, where you can stroll, jog, enjoy the sculptures and scenery, watch the skaters on Wollman Rink, or visit the Central Park Zoo.

Currently the zoo is home to over a hundred species including Tamarin monkeys, some big cats, polar bears, penguins, red pandas and Gila monsters.

During the summer months, residents and visitors alike can enjoy free concert events in Central Park, as well as other parks throughout the five boroughs, often featuring famous musicians, conductors, singers, and groups who are currently performing in the city. If by chance your vacation coincides with any of the New York Summerstage events you might catch a rock concert, a performance by the New York Philharmonic, opera by the New York Met, or Shakespeare in the Park.

There are two of the world’s great museums on Central Park’s east and west perimeters. You’ll find the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art on the east side at Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street. Its collection now contains more than two million works of art from all points of the compass… Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian through modern times.

The American Museum of Natural History is on the west side of the park at 79th Street and Central Park West. Here the fossil collections tell the story of our planet's infancy and the dawning of life, beginning in the Devonian Period 360 million years ago.
 
Time to take a break from the city?
Fire Island
Travel guide to Fire Island
 
Saratoga
Travel guide for Saratoga Springs, NY.
 

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