"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
The Financial District
At New York City's southern tip is the Financial District: home to City Hall, the New York Stock Exchange, and Wall Street. Here day traders, financiers, and the city government and legal system hum throughout the day. The blocks emptied of the World Trade Center are no longer silent: Daniel Libeskind’s Freedom Tower is going up. If business doesn’t bring you to Wall Street, bring yourself for pleasure. Wonderful old mercantile offices look south onto Battery Park and Governer’s Island beyond it. Battery Park City offers a newly refurbished greenway--lovely in itself--with spectacular views of the Statue of Liberty. Heading east and north bypass South Street Seaport (pure tourist trap), and linger on neighboring Water Street for a reminder of the great fishing port that New York City once was.