Places to Explore

• The Bronx

  The Bronx is the city's most maligned and misunderstood borough. Its reputation as a gritty, down-and-out place is a little outdated, and more than a little incorrect. There's lots of beauty this far north... (more)

• Brooklyn

  To put it mildly, Brooklyn is exploding. Hardly Manhattan's wimpy sidekick, this is the largest and most populous of all the boroughs, with more than 2.5 million residents. If it were an independent city... (more)

• Chelsea

• Chinatown

• East Village

  The high concept of "La Bohème meets hipsters in vintage clothing," better known as the musical Rent, pegged the East Village as a community of artists, activists, and other social dissenters. More... (more)

• Flatiron District

  Higher-end chain stores mixed with local boutiques, and some of the city's coolest hotels and trendiest restaurants, grace the Flatiron District, the neighborhood that spreads out around one of New York's... (more)

• Gramercy

  Dignified Gramercy Park, named for its 1831 gated garden square ringed by historic buildings and private clubs, is an early example of the city's creative urban planning.... Even though you can't unpack your... (more)

• Greenwich Village

  Fertile doesn't even begin to describe Greenwich Village's yield of creative genius. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, abstract expressionist painters Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem... (more)

• Harlem

  Harlem is known throughout the world as a center of African-American culture, music, and life. Today many renovated and new buildings join such historic jewels as the Apollo Theatre, architecturally splendid... (more)

• Lower East Side

  Often referred to as simply as LES, the Lower East Side was the historic "Gateway to America," after waves of Irish, German, Jewish, Hispanic, and Chinese immigrants pulled up stakes elsewhere and moved... (more)

• Lower Manhattan

  Pirates, rogue politicians, upwardly mobile go-getters, robber barons, scrappy entrepreneurs, and roaming packs of pigs scouring the streets for garbage: what does this motley crew have in common? They're... (more)

• Meatpacking District

  The Meatpacking District's atmospheric cobblestone streets were once lined with meatpacking warehouses. They now host some of the city's most exclusive clubs, trendy restaurants, and of-the-moment designer... (more)

• Midtown East

• Midtown West

• NoLIta

  NoLITa, shorthand for "North of Little Italy," covers a neighborhood that has taken the commercial baton from SoHo and run with it. It's largely gone from a locals-only, understated area to a crowded weekend... (more)

• Queens

  Just for the museums and restaurants alone, a short 15-minute trip on the 7 train from Grand Central or Times Square to Long Island City and Astoria is truly worth it. In Long Island City, major must-sees... (more)

• SoHo

  SoHo is a shopper's paradise: super-trendy, painfully overcrowded on weekends, often overpriced, and undeniably glamorous. A few decades ago, though, SoHo was the epicenter of New York's art scene, and... (more)

• Staten Island

  Staten Island is legally a part of New York City, but in many ways it's a world apart. The "Forgotten Borough," as some locals refer to it, is geographically more separate, less populous, politically more... (more)

• TriBeCa

  The city's downtown neighborhoods give you a close-up of the many cultures of Manhattan. Tucked on the west side, south of Canal Street, residential TriBeCa has a quieter vibe and owes some of its cred... (more)

• Union Square

  The neighborhood defined as Union Square refers to the few blocks that surround Union Square Park (which is actually more of a square than a park), located between 14th and 17th streets, and Broadway and... (more)

• Upper East Side

  To many New Yorkers the Upper East Side connotes old money and high society. Alongside Central Park, between 5th and Lexington avenues, up to East 96th Street, the trappings of wealth are everywhere apparent:... (more)

• Upper West Side

  Residents of the Upper West Side will proudly tell you that they live in one of the last real neighborhoods in the city. That's highly debatable, but people actually do know their neighbors in this primarily... (more)

• West Village

  Long the home of writers, artists, bohemians, and bon vivants, the West Village is a singular section of the city. High-rises and office towers have no business among the small curving streets, peculiar... (more)