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‘New York City’

Nearly 40 million tourists from around the world visit New York City every year. What they find is a bustling metropolis, dense with museums, parks, theaters, shops, famous buildings and inhabitants as diverse as themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

Why is New York so famous? After all, the weather is terrible, the city is overcrowded, and even the buildings are second to many others elsewhere. The cigar-shaped strip of land called Manhattan is difficult to access with bridges crowded with cars, streets clogged with buses and taxis. Read the rest of this entry »

Whether you’re looking for great jazz, comedy, booze, coffee or just plain wild, New York’s clubs are among the best in the world. All decors, price ranges, ambiance and kinds of acts are here in abundance. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the world’s most famous bridges, who could think that a steel roadway could engender such controversy and passion? Yet, that’s the history of the Brooklyn Bridge since before its construction began to the present day. Read the rest of this entry »

Since it first opened its gates in 1899 the Bronx Zoo has been the world’s premier destination for viewing animals from the world over. Read the rest of this entry »

On a slender island crammed with taxis, buses, people and buildings a long string of innovators has managed to create both a major business center and a tourist paradise. All within easy reach by subway, bus or taxi. Read the rest of this entry »

With all the property acquisition of famous buildings over the last thirty years there is still, thankfully, one that has retained its original name: The Chrysler Building. Read the rest of this entry »

Along Broadway in Manhattan there are more things to do and see on one street than in many large cities. This long avenue runs north-south, mostly, and its deviations are appropriate to its role in the life of New York. Broadway is home to business, theater, dining, shops and a host of famous buildings. Read the rest of this entry »

For over 100 years, Carnegie Hall has been the mutual destination of musicians seeking the highest level of their profession and those who want to experience their efforts. Read the rest of this entry »

Park Avenue through the 1930s was known as ‘the street where the rich people lived’. To have an apartment there was ‘to have arrived’. When you arrive you’ll see fewer apartments and a new kind of ‘rich people’ – multi-national corporate headquarters. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s rare to find an oasis of calm in frenetic New York City. The lights of Broadway, the zooming taxis and the throngs of people all suggest what New York is: a bustling, modern metropolis. Even lush Central Park is a buzz with skaters, Frisbee tossers and the odd car crossing from east to west. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the ‘city within a city’ – Rockefeller Center. Begun in the 1930s, partially as an antidote to the effects of the Depression, the 19 building complex sits on 11 acres between 48th and 52nd Streets and between 5th and 6th Avenues. Read the rest of this entry »

The heart of New York City in so many ways, this neon-lit district is the Las Vegas of Manhattan. For nearly twenty years, apart from Broadway shows, the area was almost unbearable owing to the seedy inhabitants and shops. No more. Read the rest of this entry »

New Yorkers are famous for many things, not least of which is a sense of irony. One more instance of that can be found in the fact that Wall Street, by which most people really mean the New York Stock Exchange, isn’t located on the street called Wall at all. It’s actually at 20 Broad Street. Read the rest of this entry »

The center of Manhattan in a dozen ways, Fifth Avenue bisects the city from below 23rd Street to the north end of Central Park and beyond. Read the rest of this entry »

Beginning the day at Madison Square Park, on Madison and 23rd is just about the most peaceful start possible in this beehive of a city. Read the rest of this entry »

The Empire State Building in mid-town Manhattan has justifiably been called the eighth wonder of the world. No longer the tallest building in the world, it remains one of the largest office buildings and is currently the tallest in New York at 102 stories. Read the rest of this entry »

At 38 stories, the CBS building in New York isn’t anywhere near the tallest. Its location at 52nd St and 6th Avenue isn’t special. Even its design and construction were not – as buildings go – controversial. Read the rest of this entry »

Few museum buildings can justifiably claim to be works of art in their own right. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Solomon R. Guggenheim museum of modern art is in that sparsely populated class. Read the rest of this entry »

Completed in 1873, Central Park is among the world’s great urban innovations. Bound by 5th and 8th avenues on the east and west respectively, and from 59th Street on the south, 110th Street on the north, these 843 acres encompass a lot to see and do. Read the rest of this entry »

Completed in 1868, Prospect Park is Frederick Law Olmstead’s second masterpiece – and easily the rival of his first, Central Park. Read the rest of this entry »

Geographically, New York City is divided into five boroughs or districts: Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island and the Bronx. Interestingly, each houses a botanical garden and deciding which is the best is an exercise we leave to experts. Read the rest of this entry »