"As soon as I was old enough (1964), I got myself to New York. I learned the subway, went to (now long gone) little movie theaters, sketched in the Bleecker St. Café, and saw everything at the Museum of Modern Art. I was going to college in Brooklyn and found the best free thing to do in New York was to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, and it still is, although now I usually do it from Manhattan and then stroll along the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. The two best movie theaters in NY are now the Film Forum on West Houston St. and the Paris on 58th St. just west of 5th Ave. (You'll understand why when you go.) If you're walking around Midtown, you'll appreciate the bathrooms at the fabulous Japanese department store, Takashimaya, on 5th Ave. between 54th & 55th. The best place for breakfast is the Dining Room at the Neue Gallery, 5th Ave. & 86th, home to the world's most ... [more]
Lloyd Ziff, Photographer
Stuyvesant Town
Stuyvesant Town, large brick buildings that run from 14th to 20th Streets, from First Avenue to Avenue C, are a mess of functional residences that were originally built in 1943 to house returning veterans of the Second World War and their families. They have gone on to house middle-income New Yorkers in 8,757 apartments. Stuyvesant Town and its sibling Peter Cooper comprise eighty acres that house more than 25,000 residents--and were sold on October 18, 2006 to Tishman Speyer for $5.4 billion dollars. New Yorkers are aghast that one of the last bastions of affordable housing will soon be converted to yet more luxury rentals. One might read a brief history of Stuyvesant Town on Wikipedia and note that in its creation in 1943, the project displaced 11,000 residents along with their business, schools and churches.