Shopping is the main draw to SoHo (South of Houston Street) these days, although gallery hopping, people-watching at a sidewalk café, and nighttime foraging for hip hangouts are not far behind. A quieter version of SoHo, TriBeCa (the Triangle Below Canal Street) lies south of Canal Street and owes much of its fame to Robert De Niro, who has invested substantial resources in the community, including the nonprofit TriBeCa Film Center. Unlike the similarly trendy SoHo district, which became a mecca of designer boutiques, TriBeCa keeps more to itself, with relatively quiet streets even at peak hours. The money is hidden away here behind the grand industrial facades, but you can get a taste of it at one of the posh "neighborhood" restaurants.

East of Broadway, busloads of tourists eat, shop, and explore their way through the tangle of streets that make up Little Italy and Chinatown, New York's most famous immigrant neighborhoods. A few nostalgic blocks of Mulberry Street nestled between chic NoLIta and Canal Street are all that remains of the vast Italian community that once dominated the area -- which makes the few old-time grocers and shops still in business all the more special. Chinatown, by contrast, is more than a tourist attraction: a quarter of the city's 400,000 Chinese residents live here above storefronts crammed with souvenir shops and restaurants serving every imaginable regional Chinese cuisine, from modest dumplings to sumptuous Hong Kong feasts. Restaurants proudly display their wares: if America's motto is "A chicken in every pot," then Chinatown's must be "A roast duck in every window."