To get a sense of New York’s scale you can sail around the island by ferry, but to really celebrate it you need to go up high amongst its dizzying towers and get the hit of that extraordinary, skyscraper perspective. We are not big on tourist attractions but since our last visit, 30 Rockefeller Plaza had opened up the sky by giving an amazing 1933, three-tier observation deck back to the city. I avoid crowds, but architect Michael Gabellini used state of the art engineering so his layout can take thousands a day and never bottleneck - he wanted this to be “New York’s public living room.” This exhibit is pure eye candy. There is memorabilia (Gregory Peck was an employee when young) and plenty of razzle dazzle: like massive photos and unique footage of the famous Rockettes and a Swarovski crystal waterfall chandelier that floats like suspended sparkling raindrops through the three flights of stairs that spiral around it.
The glass ceiling elevator or “summit shuttle” takes one minute to zoom to the top - with a cool elevator shaft with lights up like a disco floor - and the decks on the 67th, 69th and 70th floors are astonishing. Fringed with scalloped deco ornamental stone, the only thing between you and 360 degree views of the entire city are giant panels of non-reflective glass. It’s a dramatic introduction to the jutting gothic spires and modernist columns of the urban jungle.
Out in the open air you can take in the whole scope of the Hudson River, way past the Statue of Liberty; Central Park becomes a green blanket fringed by the most exclusive apartment co-ops on the planet. It’s also the best view you’ll get of the Empire State Building which, ever since New York’s darkest hour, reigns over of the downtown vista once more.
Online ticketing means you can book the date and time of your visit in advance and jump the queue. (8 am to midnight)
This amazing complex was built by John D Rockefeller to give jobs to the city during the Great Depression. Construction began in 1930, and was completed 9 years later. The Rockefeller Centre is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering 22 acres, from 48th Steet to 51st Street. It is right in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. This attraction really gives visitors a huge variety in one stop - luxury shops, high-end restaurants that look onto the ice rink, a backstage tour at the famous NBC TV STUDIOS, an ART AND ARCHITECTURE TOUR and one of the world’s most stunning deco theatres, RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL - where the famous “Rockettes” showgirls have legs as long as Fifth Avenue! Although “The Rock” creates a great sense of nostalgia for New York’s jazz-era glory days, the city is always updating the centre with cutting edge new attractions and exhibits (see TOP OF THE ROCK). Contact the Rockefeller Centre in advance and book a private guide for an amazing walk through the underground pedestrian concourse, a visit above ground to the 200 flags that represent The United States & Territories, along with member countries of the U.N. The 70 floor G.E Building is the centre piece of the Rockefeller Centre. Allow a good half day to cover this area properly.
Central Park occupies over a square mile in the heart of the island, so there are still plenty of hidden pockets to discover. STRAWBERRY FIELDS (West access 71st - West 74th Street) is the charming playground that John Lennon donated to his new hometown. And if you are willing to take the walking tracks all the way up to the Northeast Harlem end (at 106 - 110 Streets) there is a beautiful, lesser-known ornamental lake called HARLEM MEER. It is hard to believe the magical, miniature CONSERVATORY GARDEN (at 105th street) is only a step away from 5th Avenue.
This being New York, as well as finding a secluded oasis, you can enjoy fantastic cultural events all year - from SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK to the SUMMER JAZZ FESTIVAL (Next up: Al Pacino is appearing as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice this US Summer). There is an excellent year-round events calendar and schedule of WALKING TOURS available on the park’s website.
Even though it is the last place you expected to find it, Mother Nature is alive and well in the biggest city of them all!
After two years in a staple factory in Queens the new MoMA came back to Manhattan. Even those like me who love architecture but aren’t that into stuffy, high brow cultural experiences will get a huge kick out of seeing the 20th century’s most famous paintings.
The architectural expansion of cathedral height white spaces is incredible in itself, with 6 new floors of exhibition space and restaurants. Large scale environments are needed for the huge installation pieces of today’s art world - at some point you’ll have the fun of uttering the non-art expert’s signature phrase, a three-year old could do that! The galleries wind around, with glass walls and windows that bring in glimpses of the city and refer you back to the outside, which gives it a nice, light airiness that makes you want to stay longer.
The painting galleries dominate - it’s all here. You get a real sense of how modern art developed. The sensual haze of the Impressionists; Klimt’s sexual frank strawberry nudes - which were originally as shockingly as Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans. I think Warhol has really cone into his own with our generation because all his predictions of linking commerce and art have come true. I’m no art buff but it’s pretty amazing to take in so much famous, influential, iconic imagery, from Salvador Dali’s iconic melting clocks to Roy Lichtenstein’s pop art.
As I have already said, rather than the sensory overload that comes with tackling major collections, it can be more rewarding to let one era envelop you at a time. The Neue Gallery is a small jewel in the museum mile entirely devoted to that explosive period in German and Austrian Art from the late nineteenth century to the 1920s. Long-term collector Ronald Lauder, son of Estee and legendary dealer Serge Sabarsky launched it as a labour of love. It’s also a great chance to get a peek inside one of the really glorious Beaux Arts mansions that line Fifth Avenue - this one belongs to Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt the Third.
All the fine and decorative arts, furniture and objects represent great artistic movements of the period such as the Bauhaus. I relate more to the overpowering boldness that all the work seems to share; I’m not into fussy, chintzy periods and this art looks bold and modern even now, like the free wheeling graphics of Kandinsky’s paintings.
It’s easy to see why painters like Austrian, Egon Shiele attract young people here: they love the emotional intensity. The green face and spiked hair staring back from one of Shiele’s portraits look more like Sid Vicious or the rock stars on my son’s bedroom walls than any of the old lords in wigs over at The Met.
Of course the big, neo classical marble façade of the Metropolitan Museum is hugely impressive - it’s one of the world’s great museums with far more in its coffers than will ever see the light of day. But with art from so many clashing civilisations I take Sheira’s advice - find one special exhibition or era that tickles your fancy, whether Greek statues, medieval armour or French art nouveau, and just see that. It sticks with you far longer than trying to take in the cultural kaleidoscope of the whole collection.
Better yet, come on Friday nights when there are no study groups and less crowds in the museum and have a cocktail on the marble mezzanine café where a string quartet and a piano play. The music and chatter reverberate around the marble halls; it’s just magical and most non-locals don’t know about this nocturnal ritual. If it’s summer, you can sip martinis under the stars up on the roof garden amongst the sculpture. It’s amazing that even in a crowded city amongst the honking taxi horns and steaming manholes you can find idyllic spots like these.
This is an iconic museum that is almost as famous for its extraordinary shape as the international art inside! Manhattanites regard the Guggenheim, with its spiral architecture, as a modernist masterpiece and a landmark amongst the otherwise 19th century mansions and apartments alongside Fifth Avenue.
Sometimes intimidated by the thought of a massive museum that spans many city blocks, this is the mid-size that I prefer to visit - big enough to have the world-class works worth queuing for but small enough to see in an afternoon. I appreciate and am drawn to the Impressionist artwork here, but as I collect contemporary art myself I am also open to the current work that is on show and like the mix of the two.
There is a freshness to the way these exhibits are crated, from the giant installations of today’s sculptors, like Anish Kapoor to the abstract triangles and circles of Russian modernist painter Kandinsky and Picasso’s first work from the early 1900s, which is unrecognizable (because the faces are actually recognizable!)
As you wind around the sloped, “corkscrew” interior ramp you have to admire Frank Lloyd Wright’s ingenious design: no confusing corridors or boxy rooms - just light pouring into the vast space in the middle, and walls with curves and soft edges.
Museums this prestigious are always a magnet to tourists of course. Sometimes when I am in New York I just want to mingle with the locals and enjoy slipping into the slipstream of street life. But if you are a culture vulture on a mission to see great art on this trip then this is an unmissable museum on the list…
Even if you have visited before, there are always new, traveling exhibits to draw you back. There is also a brilliant design store with a massive range of prints, coffee table books, mobiles and replicas of the artwork inside. Visitors are usually so inspired by the visual impact of the art that they can’t resist leaving with a ‘fabulous fake.’
I always get a jolt driving past the UN building; we passed it when returning from Brooklyn Heights on the way to 10th Avenue. Unlike so many modern towers, which are monstrosities - at best dull or uniform and at worst ugly - the retro futurist curves and glittering glass look dramatic, and somehow optimistic, standing the test of time. I guess this is what modernism was meant to be.
Of course, the UN is much more than a building; brushing up against the headquarters of such a high level of international politics is thrilling, like something out of a spy movie. There is something moving about a place so central to human rights, where great historical figures like Nelson Mandela have stood and addressed the assembly. You can book a lecture tour that delves into all the wider significance of the work done here (I’d advise pre-booking as it sells out fast and it can close down fast for special assemblies). As soon as you enter the building you are leaving the US for 18 acres of international territory and the rarified air of high diplomacy.
New York is really a series of neighborhoods and it is a fantastic place to walk around. Streets remarkably change character if you walk far enough along them, as if an invisible force field existed between each section as it morphs from residential to mid-rise business district to exclusive boutiques to harbour side waterfront storehouses.
The cobblestone streets of Greenwich Village are probably one of the most amazing places to explore, lined with gorgeous old brownstones and surprises on every corner. There is a bohemian history that you’ll only get here. “The Village” has a century’s long tradition as an artists and writers quarter that gave it an international cultural cutting edge - from the boozy literary scene of the 1920s to 1950s beat poetry and the birthplace of the gay liberation movement, led by figures like Harvey Milk (now made famous again by Sean Penn’s Oscar winning performance).
Starving artists could never afford today’s skyrocketing rents and the Mohawks or body piercings of later day counter culture moved over to the East Village decades ago. We found it humming now with bars, restaurants, specialty bookshops and unique shopping. The charm of its Federation and Georgian architecture and low rise, village scale also attracts filmmakers, foodies and movie stars too cool to live in L.A. like Liv Tyler and Hillary Swank, mixed in with NYU teachers and families that have been here for generations.
Sarah Jessica Parker has a whole house (the ultimate city luxury) on Charles Street that attracts Sex and the City fans but you don’t need a tour to take it all in - just a good pair of walking shoes. It’s the one place on the Manhattan grid where old streets with names as well as numbers collide on angles and you can weave in and out.
The neighborhood changes at all different paces. McNulty’s at 109 Christopher Street are old-fashioned ‘Purveyors of rare teas and choice coffees’ since 1895. You walk into a dimly lit world of freshly ground roasts and bins of every conceivable tea from around the globe; the fragrant air is punchy with vanilla, blackcurrant and hazelnuts. The shop window right next door displays a mannequin in fetish latex, cocooned like an S & M mummy. Classic New York.
We loved the narrow houses (Cary Grant lived in one) - like the 1924 Cherrylane theatre in Commerce Street that first showed the plays of Harold Pinter and Sam Shepard - and old school pubs like The Four Faced Liar. Insider tip: visitors in late May can go to the Greenwich Village street parties where three quaint cobblestone streets meet - Bedford, Barrow and Commerce.
It’s also a great nocturnal spot. There are lots of bars, from old speakeasies where big dogs flop on wooden benches under crammed portraits of former patrons like Hemingway and Simone de Bouvoir, to the ultra exclusive Waverly Inn on Bank Street, owned by Vanity Fair’s editor. Don’t let the warmly lit old tavern/restaurant feel fool you. The world’s biggest celebrities and writers pass through the old wooden door to hob nob; you pretty much need your own sitcom to get in. But if you don’t, there are plenty of options around the corner. Only in New York can you get a drink in a library at Bar and Books then play “Bitch Bingo” down the road with drag queens every Tuesday at Lips Cabaret. And that’s just one neighbourhood!
The Book Store is nestled in the original wood paneled library and you can mingle with the pale and interesting art crowd over sticky cake at the old world Café Sabarsky. I love this space - it’s a homage to the great Viennese cafés which were a hub of artistic life there but it’s also a little bit of secret old grandeur, out of the way in New York.
We decided to try one big thing that we had never done before in all our visits to New York, so we set aside one full day’s touring to visit the Boroughs - the neighbourhoods where the millions of people who pour into Manhattan everyday to keep the city ticking over actually live.
Just over the Williamsburg bridge out of Manhattan are the low rise, immigrant family neighborhoods of Brooklyn. The parks, brownstones and warehouses now attract all the young people who would have moved to the cheap, arty part of the island before skyrocketing rents wiped that option out. So now you have galleries, boutiques and trendy coffee shops alongside old school Brooklyn favourites like bagel stores and old memorabilia stores.
Our custom private guide, Cliff Strome is a genial local who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the subtleties between not only each neighbourhood, but each district. He was able to show us a whole other world outside the Manhattan parameters, from Coney Island, which has a seedy, rundown seaside feel, to Prospect Park and DUMBO (“down under the Manhattan-Brooklyn Overpass”). Artists loved the giant spaces and abandoned waterfront feel of the Dumbo warehouses but the condos have started going up. Underground cool has a short shelf life with land this valuable!
The great thing about Cliff’s company, Custom and Private, is that he doesn’t pre-package tours. He totally customises the day around you, from gospel choirs or helicopters, to mafia-themed tours and little known pockets of Central Park (we got a kick out of visiting Strawberry Fields, the playground that John Lennon donated to the city). What I usually say about taking that extra 20 minutes to invite your guide for morning coffee so that he really knows what you want (see 10 commandments) goes double for Cliff. He has an intimate knowledge of all the boroughs at his fingertips and can mix and match whatever you want to see.
It was interesting to understand more about the suburban context and flavour that surrounds Manhattan, but I wanted the Bronx and Queens to be more old-school like in the world of my imagination - with old men in vests, panama hats and cigars playing cards while kids frolick in the spray of fire hydrants.
Visiting the boroughs was not that exciting: the reality of the world today is that chainstore commercialism extends everywhere, flattening everything in its wake, all the way to the ‘burbs. I’m sure if we had stayed longer in one neighborhood, getting to know the locals, going to a poker game in someone’s home amongst the thick Queens accents, the sense of place would come… But there’s nothing like the glamour, attitude and energy waiting for you back on the island.
We were interested in visiting Harlem for the first time. I had images in my mind of this neighborhood as a centre of African American life with its own golden age of jazz and live music. I had also heard that is undergoing an exciting economic rebirth due to the drift uptown in the late nineties by those fleeing high rents. Clinton asserted his love of the neighborhood when he moved his office there after his presidency ended; the first brownstone to ever hit a million dollars was sold. Now the restoration going on was attracting more families.
We didn’t really know what to expect but we were slightly disappointed. There is a vibrancy and friendliness on the streets, and we certainly didn’t feel any outsider sense of danger, but there were enough chain stores everywhere to give it a sameness with other parts of town. I did enjoy some sights along the main thoroughfare on West 125th Street. We passed an African Hair Braiding store where scores of local girls relaxed on the floor while a massive row of French speaking, African girls manipulated their hair into elaborate dos like the Senegalese twist, the corkscrew, fish corn braids or the “boofruto”.
Further along you’ll find the legendary Apollo Theatre where singers from Billie Holiday to Aretha have poured their heart out on stage. Wednesday is still the famous amateur night for those brave enough to face the music. The façade has been renovated, with a new high-tech electronic marquee announcing R & B and soul performers. A mural of old era publicity shots in the lobby hint at the many ghosts of singers past, an amazing cross section of great black music. Doo-wop crooners in skinny ties pose; 60s girl groups with hair teased into a bouffant like fairy floss smile foxily. It’s worth stepping into this theatre to get a jolt of its amazing pop culture past.
There are endless bars for jazz fans - a genre of music I like for the atmosphere but don’t know too well. Vintage jazz bar, Showman’s has been around since the 40s and tap dancers join in on Thursdays. We heard about an insider tip: you can experience the gospel power of a Hammond B3 organ and let loose on Sunday afternoons at the lesser known, Veterans of Foreign War Clubhouse on 134th St. Apparently the house band jams with old jazz legends dressed in Sunday best who file in after church and 70s rock icons just show up to play with hot young sax players – you never know who’ll be there.
I am a very good boy when at home - lots of tuna salads and carb-free denial. But when I travel I don’t hold back from the local experience. You can cast the diet aside and try legendary soul food at Sylvia’s on 328 Lenox Avenue. You get lots of sass and “true southern hospitality” all the way from Hemingway, South Carolina where even the bar-b-que ribs come with fried chicken.
Sylvia is the powerhouse matriarch who grew the thriving restaurant from a 60s diner with a menu full of home cooking: grits, down home smothered chicken, farm raised fried catfish, candied yams and sautéed chicken livers in gravy. The Cocktails sound like they were made for Southern belles, after a “devil in a blue dress”, “perfect alibi”, “peach tree mimosa” or “grey goose martini” even I would be calling everybody ‘sugar’.
The razzle dazzle of a night at a Broadway show is part of the ritual of visiting New York for most visitors and something we always do when in town. There is something exciting about joining the people filing into all the theatres along the ‘Great White Way.’ You feel part of showbiz Mecca - the few city blocks around 42nd street that have drawn so many decades worth of talent. These days Broadway has the extra high wattage of movie stars-in-residence as well, happy to sprinkle their careers with the credibility of a little onstage fairy dust. Where else could you see Al Pacino, Edward Norton or Julia Roberts act live?
Even getting to your Broadway show has a real sense of occasion because you get a jolt of Times Square, which sums up the energy and pulse of a city that never turns off. This time we raced to Jersey Boys at the Orvus Wilson Theatre with minutes to spare (after getting caught up negotiating in the nearby electronics district). It’s a fantastic show that will have you leaping out of your seat. Concierges in this city have theatre tickets sewn up. They will always find you a good show with prime, middle front row seats. Since we left, Broadway has taken an even more surreal twist: the streets have turned pedestrian as a civic experiment. The city of New York has even provided lawn chairs slap bang in the middle of the world’s most famous square!
There are two TKTS booths selling tickets to most same-day Broadway shows - with discounts up to a whopping 50%. It all depends on which theatres still have seats to offload on that given day. A lot of Manhattanites and theatre buffs get hooked on the TKTS booths as students but many visitors take a gamble and buy this way as well - some even enjoy the spontaneity of not knowing what they’ll be seeing that night. One of the booths is way downtown near Wall Street but it’s the Times Square queue where all the fun is - that’s where street musicians who haven’t made it onstage yet traditionally make a buck by entertaining the queues.
We have heard many friends say that they would love to see New York one day but are putting family holidays first. I say bring the kids along! Firstly, I believe in exposing children to a wide variety of cultural experiences. It is stimulating for them to see so many different atmospheres around this wide world of ours.
Also, people whose ideas of New York are based on the dark, mugging-filled days of films like Taxi Driver need to move on - New York City certainly has! The city’s famous mayor, Rudy Guiliani made a huge effort to turn the edgy but dangerous city into a more family and business-friendly place. Times Square may have been filled with potholes and R-rated theatres in the 70s but big money has poured in since then. It is now an entertainment mecca full of theme restaurants, movie-based musicals like Lion King and Mary Poppins - and stores full of Disney and Warner Bros character toys. The dazzling neon lights and clanging bells from the games arcades will have any kid’s eyes as big as saucers. Also, as glamorous as Manhattan sounds for singletons, the city and surrounding boroughs have millions of families with their own culture that you can plug into, from ice-skating in Central Park to sports.
Three years ago we bought our 3 children, then 15, 12 and 4 and they had a ball. We ticked a lot more of the tourism boxes than we normally do, like a horse-drawn trip through Central Park, a visit to Grand Central station and of course we zoomed up to the top of Empire State. These outings are almost mythical to kids because they have seen them in so many movies.
My boys are also potty about basketball so we spent hours at the NBA store and I took them to go see the NY Knicks play the Boston Celtics at gigantic stadium, Madison Square Garden. It was a huge rush to join in this ritual at such an iconic arena and see all the big players in the flesh.
A brilliant tip for tickets to sporting events all over the US is a website called www.razorgator.com. You can nail seats to unbelievable games before you even leave home. I didn’t want to let the boys down so I was able to grab good seats, relax about it and not spend valuable time hunting them down while I was away.
The pavements of New York constantly change character and switching hotel location gave my runs even more variety. When we were staying in the Meatpacker District we were right out on the Western edge of the island, where you can see down to the Statue of Liberty and over to Hoboken, New Jersey. I really enjoyed being able to run along the Hudson River (a lot of New Yorkers spend most of their time jammed into the middle). The air was cool and I was passing the Monday morning rush hour people driving to work on 11th Avenue, which eventually turns into Joe DiMaggio Highway. I ran all along the boardwalk of Chelsea Pier, the old cruise ship terminal that has been converted into a huge sport complex. Of course everyone is always on the run here so like a true New Yorker I found a little place with coffee and pastries and got my breakfast “to go.”
Luckily our stay in Gramercy Park made it equally easy for me to start the day all the way over on the East River while Sheira slept. I had a perfect morning along the walkway with the sun shining, looking across the silvery water to the chimneystacks, warehouses and office blocks of Brooklyn. As long as you find the island’s edges you can get great runs with water views...
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