Travel Guide To Manhattan
Wall Street. Madison Avenue. 34th Street. Broadway. Manhattan is so well known that even the names of its streets have become iconic and understood the world over. This long, thin island is only one of New York City’s five boroughs, but it’s Manhattan that has the concrete canyons and the inimitable skyline; Manhattan that has the world’s brightest and most renowned theater district; Manhattan that has Central Park, Rockefeller Center, the Guggenheim Museum, and the World Trade Center site; and Manhattan that comprises iconic neighborhoods like Harlem, the Upper East Side, Times Square, and Greenwich Village.
The rest of New York City has much to see and do, but it’s Manhattan that represents the city—and sometimes the entire United States—to the world. You could spend a week on this tiny island and still not see all there is to see. Grab a yellow taxi, hop on the subway, or just start walking, and you’re sure to begin to understand just what it is that makes Manhattan, Manhattan.
Districts
Downtown / Lower Manhattan
The districts located south of 14th Street are considered part of “Downtown” (note: to go “Downtown” in Manhattan means to “go south”)
Lower Manhattan
Long the center of the American economy, the Financial District is full of impressive turn-of-the-century buildings and is a hive of activity during the day. At night it clears out considerably, though it is becoming an increasingly residential area, giving it more flavor than it has had in the past. Wall Street, the World Trade Center site, South Street Seaport, and Battery Park, a departure point for ferries to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, Staten Island, and Governors Island are all in this neighborhood.
TriBeCa
The “Triangle Below Canal Street”. Home to trendy restaurants and Robert DeNiro’s annual film festival, it is popular with the affluent trendy crowd and replete with trendy restaurants. Unlike SoHo to the north, Tribeca is not over-filled with shoppers on weekends, and Greenwich Street could be mistaken for the main street of a beautifully preserved small town.
SoHo
“South of Houston Street” flows north from Canal Street between the Hudson River and Lafayette St. The ultimate urban gentrification story, SoHo was a rundown industrial area until the 1960s, when artists began inhabiting its spacious and then-cheap lofts. After the artists came the galleries, then the celebrities, then the shoppers, and now the visitors. Filled with gorgeous cast-iron architecture (Greene Street especially), SoHo is a great shopping and dining destination, even if many of the artists have moved on.
Chinatown
Chinatown retains its scruffy, exotic atmosphere, especially around Mott and Canal Streets. The diminishing Little Italy still exists on Mulberry Street (and comes out in full force for Italian festivals such as the Feast of San Gennaro in September), but the surrounding blocks are morphing into fashionable Nolita (“North of Little Italy”) or have been annexed by Chinatown.
Lower East Side
Famous as the Jewish immigrant ghetto of the early 20th century, the neighborhood today is enjoying a renaissance, with dozens of bars and restaurants.
Greenwich Village
Coffee houses, wine bars, lowrise but high art and literary connections, located between Houston and 14th Streets. The bohemian center of yore, today’s Village is strongly upmarket but retains its diverse flavor, with its historic community around Christopher Street and thousands of students who attend NYU.
East Village
Gritty and diverse but redeveloping, this area lies east of Broadway. Pockets of Ukrainians, Japanese, Indians and young professionals make it one of the most vibrant Manhattan areas. The once-shabby area formerly known as Alphabet City, centered on Avenues A through D, is now considered part of the East Village.
Midtown Manhattan
As the name suggests, Midtown Manhattan occupies the approximate middle reach of Manhattan Island, sandwiched between Lower Manhattan (below 14th Street) and Upper Manhattan (above 59th Street / Central Park). Midtown is divided into a number of neighborhoods, often indistinct. (Considerable overlap exists between them!) They are as follows:
Chelsea Garment District
Having superseded Greenwich Village as the primary center of New York’s gay community, this district will appeal to all with its great mix of fashion, design, art, culture, bars and restaurants.
Gramercy Flatiron
A chic, stylish district of stately residential areas, gardens and squares, trendy restaurants and bars.
Theater District
34th-59th Streets, roughly west of 6th Avenue – the name says it all: Broadway, Times Square, 42nd Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Columbus Circle; often overlapping in the area between Fifth and Sixth Avenues with Midtown East. The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum is down on the Hudson River.
Midtown
Also termed “Midtown East”, this extensive area east of Sixth Avenue includes a number of New York icons: the Empire State Building, the United Nations, Grand Central Terminal and more.
Uptown / Upper Manhattan
The districts located north of 59th Street are considered part of “Uptown” (note: to go “Uptown” in Manhattan means to “go north”):
Central Park
With its lawns, trees and lakes, it is popular for recreation and concerts and is home to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Central Park Zoo.
Upper East Side
Primarily a residential neighborhood, it remains New York City’s wealthiest. Museums and restaurants abound.
Upper West Side
Often called the city’s quintessential neighborhood and made famous by TV’s Seinfeld, it includes delightful residential streets, the twin-towered facades of the old apartment hotels on Central Park West and Riverside Drive, Columbia University, large and impressive churches, two of the city’s best-known markets (Zabar’s and Fairway) and one of its major museums – the American Museum of Natural History.
Harlem and Upper Manhattan
Harlem, America’s most famous black community, is home to an increasingly diverse mix of cultures. East Harlem (aka Spanish Harlem), the traditional center of Latino culture in Manhattan, has been joined by the lively, predominantly Dominican neighborhood of West Harlem, and Washington Heights to the north. Washington Heights is notable for Fort Tryon Park, the home of The Cloisters (the Medieval annex of the Metropolitan Museum). At the northern tip of Manhattan, Inwood’s claim to fame is Inwood Park, the last remaining virgin forest on the island.