When I first rolled into New York City on a Greyhound from the Martha's Vineyard ferry terminal back in 1981, I never dreamed I would spend at least the next 26 years of my life here. I was crashing on the floor of my former college roommate's studio apartment in the far West Village and I hoped, as I meandered about those maze-like streets, that downtown Manhattan would someday be my home. After protracted periods of life on the Upper East and West sides, I finally settled in Greenwich Village with my family of five. With an office in Soho, downtown is pretty much my full-time stomping ground.
Mornings are perfect at Balthazar in Soho, where the locals meet for blazing hot coffee, bread, and pastries baked at the Balthazar Bakery next door. Farther west on 12th Street, the new Cafe Cluny has a quiet neighborhood feel and plenty of free newspapers to peruse while ... [more]
Andy Arons, Gourmet Garage
Lost?
Here's a little guide to orient you if you find yourself in Manhattan without a map.
If you're lost in Central Park: Follow a path. Almost all the paths will lead to the Loop, a 6-mile drive that has foot, bike, skating, and sometimes car traffic on it. It traces an imperfect oval inside the park boundaries: from nearly any point, you're only a short ways from the outside of the park. The lampposts, if you look closely, have small metal signs on them which tell you the cross street at your latitude: "100-2" is the 2nd lamp on the Loop above 100th Street; "67-4" is the 4th lamp above 67th.
If you're lost looking for an address: Addresses project east and west from Fifth Avenue: 20 West 43rd Street (the old home of the New Yorker magazine) is in the block between 5th and 6th Avenues. Westward, the first block is 0-99, the second is 100-199, and so on. ...