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Downtown

Battery Park | Battery Park City & Ground Zero | Wall Street | South Street Seaport
Civic Center & City Hall | Tribeca & Soho | Little Italy & Nolita | Chinatown | Lower East Side
East Village | Greenwich Village | West Village & Meatpacking District

Once you get below 14th Street, the small, amorphously shaped neighborhoods start to bump against each other, and in some cases overlap like jigsaw pieces, the product of the city’s early, unplanned and somewhat disorganized growth and the ungridded street layout that went with that. These streets are alive with the city’s history, as well as its future.

Battery Park

If the weather is warm , the Battery Park promenade is the perfect place for a stroll. The promenade is a bench-lined location, great for catching rays and gazing out to the harbor. Here you can hop on boats to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
Nearby, the Stone Street Historic District is built around one of Manhattan’s oldest roads. The once-derelict bit of Stone Street between Coenties Alley and Hanover Square is charming; office workers and visitors now frequent its numerous restaurants and bars, including popular watering hole Ulysses (95 Pearl Street, at Stone Street, 1-212 482 0400) and Financier Patisserie (62 Stone Street, between Hanover Square & Mill Lane, 1-212 344 5600).

Fraunces Tavern Museum
54 Pearl Street, at Broad Street (1-212 425 1778/www.frauncestavernmuseum.org). Subway: J, M, Z to Broad Street; 4, 5 to Bowling Green. Open noon-5pm Mon- Sat. Admission $4; $3 seniors, 6-18s; free under-6s. No credit cards.
This 18th-century tavern used to be George Washington’s watering hole and the site of his famous farewell to the troops at the Revolution’s close. During the mid to late 1780s, the building housed the fledgling nation’s departments of war, foreign affairs and treasury. In 1904, Fraunces became a repository for artifacts collected by the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York. Ongoing exhibits include ‘George Washington: Down the Stream of Life’, which examines America’s first President. The tavern and restaurant (1-212 968 1776) serve hearty fare at lunch and dinner, from Monday to Saturday.

National Museum of the American Indian

National Museum of the American Indian
George Gustav Heye Center, Alexander Hamilton Custom House, 1 Bowling Green, between State & Whitehall Streets (1-212 514 3700/). Subway: R, W to Whitehall Street; 1 to South Ferry; 4, 5 to Bowling Green. Open 10am-5pm Mon-Wed, Fri-Sun; 10am-8pm Thur. Admission free.
This branch of the Smithsonian Institution displays its collection around the grand rotunda of the 1907 Custom House, at the bottom of Broadway (which, many moons ago, began as an Indian trail). The life and culture of Native Americans is presented in rotating exhibitions—from intricately woven fibre Pomo baskets to beaded buckskin shirts—along with contemporary artwork. The Diker Pavilion for Native Arts & Culture, opened in 2006, has already made its mark on the cultural life of the city by offering the only dedicated showcase for Native American visual and performing arts.

Sports Museum of America
26 Broadway, entrance on Beaver Street (1-212 747 0900/www.sportsmuseum.com). Subway: R, W to Whitehall Street; 4,5 to Bowling Green. Open 9am-7pm Mon-Fri; 9am-9pm Sat, Sun. Admission $27; $24 seniors, students; $20 4-14s; free under-4s. Credit AmEx, MC, V.
For a nation obsessed with sports, it’s odd that there’s never been a major museum dedicated to America’s various athletic pastimes. That changed in May 2008 when the Sports Museum of America opened across from Bowling Green, the city’s first sports park. With more than 28,000 square feet of exhibit space, the three-story building has room for some 600-plus bats, balls, skates, uniforms and other memorabilia, as well as more than 1,000 iconic photos. (It’s also the new site of the Heisman Trophy ceremony and the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.) Among museum co-founder Philip Schwalb’s favorite displays are Jesse Owens’s diary from the 1936 Berlin Olympics; ‘Goalie’s Nightmare’, a virtual simulator that sends a 120mph slap shot racing toward your face; and ‘Dreaming Big’, which glimpses sports stars when they were young through such items as Jeff Gordon’s go-kart trophy (won at age nine), and Billie Jean King’s report card.

Staten Island Ferry
Battery Park, South Street, at Whitehall Street (1-718 727 2508/www.siferry.com). Subway: 1 to South Ferry; 4, 5 to Bowling Green. Open 24hrs daily. Tickets free.
During this commuter barge’s 25-minute crossing, you get superb panoramas of lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. Boats leave South Ferry at Battery Park. Call or see the website for schedules.

Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island Immigration Museum
Statue of Liberty (1-212 363 3200/www.nps.gov/stli). Travel: R, W to Whitehall Street; 1 to South Ferry; 4, 5 to Bowling Green; then take the Statue of Liberty ferry (1-866 782 8834), departing every 25 mins from gangway 4 or 5 in southernmost Battery Park. Open ferry runs 9:30am-4:30pm daily. Purchase tickets at Castle Clinton in Battery Park. Admission $12; $10 seniors; $5 4-12s; free under-4s. Credit AmEx, MC, V.
Trust us, even if your blood doesn’t run red, white and blue you will not be underwhelmed or disappointed by either of these two major New York landmarks. Note that, contrary to some mistaken notions, the mother of all American statues is not actually on Ellis Island, although they can both be reached by the same ferry.

Liberty Enlightening the World, sculpted by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi and a gift from the people of France, was unveiled in 1886. Although security concerns placed the statue off-limits after 9/11, Lady Liberty’s insides were reopened for guided tours (reservations required; call 1 866-782 8834) in 2004. However, you still can’t climb up to the crown, and backpacks and other luggage items are not permitted on the island. Still, you can take in the carving on the pedestal, which features the 1883 Emma Lazarus poem that includes the renowned lines ‘Give me your tired, your poor/your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’.

On the way back to Manhattan, the ferry will stop at the popular Immigration Museum, on Ellis Island, through which more than 12 million people entered the country between 1892 and 1954. The exhibitions are a moving tribute to the immigrants from so many different countries who made the journey to America, dreaming of a better life. The $6 audio tour, narrated by Tom Brokaw, is informative and inspiring.

Battery Park

Battery Park City & Ground Zero

Battery Park City Authority
1-212 417 2000/www.batteryparkcity.org.
The official website of the Battery Park neighborhood lists events taking place and has a very useful map of the area.

Ground Zero

Ground Zero
Subway: 1, 2, 3 to Chambers Street; R, W to Cortlandt Street.
People come in droves to pay their respects to the nearly 2,800 people who lost their lives on 9/11. There’s not much to see, but construction on the site is moving forward. Completion of the entire project, including the much-debated and redesigned 1,776-foot Freedom Tower and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, is unlikely to make the 2011 target date.

Museum of Jewish Heritage
Robert F Wagner Jr Park, 36 Battery Place, at First Place (1-646 437 4200/www.mjhnyc.org). Subway: 1, 9 to South Ferry; 4, 5 to Bowling Green. Open 10am-5:45pm Mon-Tue, Thur, Sun; 10am-8pm Wed; 10am-3pm Fri, eve of Jewish holidays (until 5pm in the summer). Admission $10; $7 seniors; $5 students; free under-12s. Free 4-8pm Wed. Credit AmEx, MC, V.
Opened in 1997 and expanded in 2003, this museum offers one of the most moving cultural experiences in the city. Detailing the horrific attacks on (and inherent joys of) Jewish life during the past century, the collection consists of 24 documentary films, 2,000 photographs and 800 cultural artifacts, many of which have been donated by Holocaust survivors and their families. The Memorial Garden features English artist Andy Goldsworthy’s permanent installation Garden of Stones: 18 fire-hollowed boulders, each planted with a dwarf oak sapling.

Skyscraper Museum
39 Battery Place, between Little West Street & 1st Place (1-212 968 1961/www.skyscraper.org). Subway: 4, 5 to Bowling Green. Open noon-6pm Wed-Sun. Admission $5; $2.50 seniors, students.
In just 5,000sq ft—very modest by institutional standards—this space manages to evoke the scale and aspirations of the Skyscraper Museum’s subject matter.

World Financial Center & Winter Garden
From Albany to Vesey Streets, between the Hudson River & West Street (1-212 945 2600/www.worldfinancialcenter.com). Subway: A, C to Broadway-Nassau Street; E to World Trade Center; J, M, Z, 2, 3, 4, 5 to Fulton Street.
Go online to download a calendar of free events, ranging from folk concerts to silent-film festivals.

Wall Street

Federal Reserve Bank
33 Liberty Street, between Nassau & William Streets (1-212 720 6130/www.newyorkfed.org). Subway: 2, 3, 4, 5 to Wall Street. Open 9:30am-4pm Mon-Fri. Tours every hour on the half-hour, last tour 2:30pm. Tours must be arranged at least 1 week in advance; tickets are sent by mail. Call for reservations. Admission free.
Here’s your chance to descend 80ft below street level and commune with the planet’s most precious metal. Roughly a quarter of the world’s gold (more than $200 billion dollars) is stored here in a gigantic vault that rests on the bedrock of Manhattan Island.

Museum of American Finance

Museum of American Finance
48 Wall Street, at William Street (1-212 908 4110/www.financialhistory.org). Subway: 2, 3, 4, 5 to Wall Street; 1 to Rector Street. Open 10am-4pm Tue-Sat. Admission $8; $5 seniors, students; free under-6s. Credit AmEx, MC, V.
In January 2008, the Museum of American Finance moved its loot into the old Bank of New York HQ. Its collection, which traces the history of Wall Street and the U.S. financial markets, includes the ticker tape from the morning of the 1929 crash, and a bond that belonged to George Washington.

New York City Police Museum
100 Old Slip, between South & Water Streets (1-212 480 3100/www.nycpolicemuseum.org). Subway: 2, 3 to Wall Street; 4, 5 to Bowling Green. Open 10am-5pm Mon-Sat. Admission suggested donation $7; $5 seniors; $5 6-18s; free under-6s. No credit cards.
The NYPD’s self-tribute features exhibits on its history and the tools and transportation of the trade. You can also buy officially licensed NYPD paraphernalia.

St Paul’s Chapel
209 Broadway, between Fulton & Vesey Streets (1-212 233 4164/www.saintpaulschapel.org). Subway: A, C to Broadway-Nassau Street; J, M, Z, 2, 3, 4, 5 to Fulton Street. Open 10am-6pm Mon-Sat; 9am-4pm Sun.
The chapel is the city’s only extant pre-Revolutionary building (it dates from 1766) and one of the finest Georgian structures in the country. Miraculously, both the landmarked St. Paul’s and Trinity churches survived the World Trade Center attack; although mortar fell from their façades, the steeples remained intact.

Trinity Church
89 Broadway, at Wall Street (1-212 602 0872/www.trinitywallstreet.org). Subway: R, W to Rector Street; 2, 3, 4, 5 to Wall Street. Open 7am-6pm Mon-Fri; 8am-4pm Sat; 7am-4pm Sun. Closed during concerts. Admission free.
This Episcopalian house of worship was the island’s tallest structure when it was completed in 1846 (the original burned down in 1776; a second was demolished in 1839). A set of gates north of the church on Broadway allows access to the adjacent cemetery, where cracked and faded tombstones mark the final resting places of dozens of past city dwellers, including signatories of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The church is also home to the Trinity Church Museum, which displays an assortment of historic diaries, photographs, sermons and burial records.

South Street Seaport

The South Street Seaport, which was redeveloped in the mid 1980s, is lined with reclaimed and renovated buildings that have been converted to shops, restaurants, bars and a museum. Until recently, it wasn’t an area that New Yorkers tended to visit, despite its rich history, but it’s becoming hipper, with the arrival of cool cafés and bars on formerly derelict Front Street, and a free summer concert series is luring locals. The Seaport’s public spaces, including blocks of both Fulton and Front Streets, where cars are barred, are a favorite of street performers. At 11 Fulton Street, the Fulton Market (open daily), with its gourmet food stalls and seafood restaurants, is a great place for people-watching and oyster-slurping.

South Street Seaport Museum
Visitors’ Center, 12 Fulton Street, at South Street (1-212 748 8600/www.southstseaport.org). Subway: A, C to Broadway-Nassau Street; J, M, Z, 2, 3, 4, 5 to Fulton Street. Open Apr-Oct 10am-6pm Tue-Sun. Nov-Mar 10am-5pm Mon, Fri-Sun. Admission $10; $8 seniors, students; $5 5-12s; free under-5s. Credit AmEx, MC, V.
Set in 11 blocks along the East River, this museum is an amalgam of galleries, historic ships, 19th-century buildings and a visitors’ center. Wander around the rebuilt streets and pop in to see an exhibition on marine life and history before climbing aboard the four-masted 1911 Peking. The seaport is generally thick with tourists, but it’s still a lively place to spend an afternoon, especially for families with children, who will enjoy the atmosphere and intriguing seafaring memorabilia. Don’t miss the gift shop—Bowne & Co (211 Water Street, at Fulton Street) is a working recreation of an 1870s-style letterpress printers.

Civic Center & City Hall

The business of running New York takes place in the many grand buildings that comprise the Civic Center, an area that formed the budding city’s northern boundary in the 1700s. City Hall Park was treated to an extensive renovation just before the millennium, and the pretty landscaping and abundant benches make it a popular weekday lunching spot for local office workers. At the south end you’ll find a granite ‘time wheel’ tracking the park’s history. Nearby, you’ll spy the Brooklyn Bridge.

African Burial Ground
Duane Street, between Broadway & Centre Streets, behind 290 Broadway (www.africanburialground.gov). Subway: W, R, N, Q to Canal Street; J, M, Z to Chambers Street; 4, 5, 6 to Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall. Open 9am-5pm Mon-Fri. Admission free.
A major archaeological discovery, the African Burial Ground is a small remnant of a five-and-a-half-acre cemetery where between 10,000 and 20,000 African men, women and children were buried centuries ago. The cemetery, which closed in 1794, was unearthed during construction of a federal office building in 1991 and designated a National Historic Landmark.

Brooklyn Bridge
Subway: A, C to High Street; J, M, Z to Chambers Street; 4, 5, 6 to Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall.
The stunning views and awe-inspiring web of steel cables will take your breath away. As you walk, bike or blade along its wide wood-planked promenade, keep an eye out for plaques detailing the bridge’s construction.

City Hall

City Hall
City Hall Park, from Vesey to Chambers Streets, between Broadway & Park Row (1-212 639 9675/www.nyc.gov/designcommission). Subway: J, M, Z to Chambers Street; 2, 3 to Park Place; 4, 5, 6 to Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall.
City Hall, at the northern end of the park, houses the mayor’s office and the legislative chambers of the City Council, and is therefore usually buzzing with preparations for VIP comings and goings. When City Hall was completed in 1812, its architects were so confident the city would grow no further north that they didn’t bother to put any marble on its northern side. The building, a beautiful blend of Federalist form and French Renaissance detail, is open for tours; check the website for information.

Tribeca & Soho

Tribeca

Many of the buildings in Tribeca (the Triangle Below Canal Street) are large, hulking former warehouses; those near the river, in particular, are rapidly being converted into modern condos, but fine small-scale cast-iron architecture still stands along White Street and the parallel thoroughfares. You’ll find galleries, salons, furniture stores, spas and other businesses here that cater to the neighborhood’s stylish residents along Hudson and Greenwich Streets.
In the 1960s Soho was earmarked for destruction, but its signature cast-iron warehouses were saved by the many artists who inhabited them. (Urban-planning theorist Chester A Rapkin coined the name Soho, for South of Houston Street, in a 1962 study of the neighborhood.) The most noteworthy buildings in the area (72-76 Greene Street, between Broome & Spring Streets, and 28-30 Greene Street, between Canal & Grand Streets) are prime examples of the area’s beloved architectural landmarks.

New York City Fire Museum
278 Spring Street, between Hudson & Varick Streets (1-212 691 1303/www.nycfiremuseum.org). Subway: C, E to Spring Street; 1 to Houston Street. Open 10am-5pm Tue-Sat; 10am-4pm Sun. Admission suggested donation $5; $2 seniors, students; $1 under-12s. Credit AmEx, DC, Disc, MC, V.
An active firehouse from 1904 to 1959, this museum is filled with gadgetry and pageantry, from late 18th-century hand-pumped fire engines to present-day equipment. The museum also houses a permanent exhibit commemorating firefighters’ heroism after the attack on the World Trade Center.

Little Italy & Nolita

Little Italy's San Gennaro Festival

Little Italy, which once ran from Canal to Houston Streets, between Lafayette Street and the Bowery, hardly resembles the insular community famously portrayed in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets. Italian-Americans flood in from the outer boroughs to show their love for the old neighborhood during the Feast of San Gennaro every September. Tourist-oriented Italian cafés and restaurants line Mulberry Street between Canal and Houston Streets, but nearby pockets of the past still linger. Elderly locals (and in-the-know young ones) buy olive oil and fresh pasta from venerable shops such as DiPalo’s Fine Foods (200 Grand Street, at Mott Street, 1-212 226 1033) and sandwiches packed with salami and cheeses at the Italian Food Center (186 Grand Street, at Mulberry Street, 1-212 925 2954).

Chi-chi restaurants and boutiques have taken over Nolita (North of Little Italy). Elizabeth, Mott and Mulberry Streets, between Houston and Spring Streets in particular, are now the source of everything from perfectly cut jeans to hand-blown glass. The young, the insouciant and the vaguely European still congregate outside hip eateries like Bread (20 Spring Street, between Elizabeth & Mott Streets, 1-212 334 1015) and Café Habana (17 Prince Street, at Elizabeth Street, 1-212 625 2001). Even before the Nolita boom, the grand Police Headquarters Building (240 Centre Street, between Broome & Grand Streets) had been converted into pricey apartments.

Chinatown

Chinatown

Take a walk in the area south of Broome Street and east of Broadway, and you’ll feel as if you’ve entered a different continent. You won’t hear much English spoken along the crowded streets of Chinatown, lined by fish, fruit and vegetable stands. Manhattan’s Chinatown is one the largest Chinese communities outside Asia. Chinatown’s busy streets get even wilder during the Chinese New Year festivities, in February.

Canal Street, a bargain hunter’s paradise, is infamous as a source of (illegal) knock-off designer handbags, perfumes and other goods. The area’s many gift shops are stocked with fun, inexpensive Chinese products.

Eastern States Buddhist Temple of America
64 Mott Street, between Bayard & Canal Streets (1-212 966 6229). Subway: J, M, N, Q, R, W, Z, 6 to Canal Street. Open 9am-6pm daily.
You’ll be dazzled here by the glitter of hundreds of Buddhas and the aroma of wafting incense. Donate $1 and you’ll receive a fortune slip.

Museum of Chinese in America
From early 2009: 211-215 Centre Street, between Grand & Howard Streets (1-212 619 4785/mocanyc.org). Subway: J, M, N, Q, R, W, Z, 6 to Canal Street. Open noon-5pm Mon, Thur, Fri; noon-9pm Tue; 10am-5pm Sat, Sun. Admission call for details. No credit cards.
New York’s Chinese population has nearly doubled since 1990, so it’s not surprising that MOCA has outgrown its now-shuttered 2,000-square-foot Mulberry Street space and is moving to a larger home. Designed by Vietnam Veterans Memorial architect Maya Lin, it incorporates organic elements like bronze walls, floors made of reclaimed wood, and a giant skylight that illuminates the museum’s two-floor atrium. The roomier 14,000-foot structure has allowed curators to develop new shows, including ‘Archaeology of Change’, which tracks gentrification in Chinatown by spotlighting five erstwhile landmarks (including the building the museum is housed in, the former Grand Machinery Exchange).

Lower East Side

Today, the Lower East Side is less and less dominated by Asian, Jewish and Latino families, who originally populated the tenements, and more and more by chic boutiques, restaurants and the stylish types who frequent them. But the biggest draw, at least for culture lovers, is art: in December 2007, New York’s only museum devoted entirely to contemporary art, the New Museum of Contemporary Art opened its $50 million, 60,000-square-foot home, sparking a gallery boom.

Despite the trendy shops that have cropped up along Orchard Street, below Stanton Street it remains the heart of the Orchard Street Bargain District, a row of stores selling utilitarian goods. This is the place for cheap hats, luggage, sportswear and T-shirts. Another vestige of the neighborhood’s Jewish roots is Katz’s Delicatessen (205 E Houston Street, at Ludlow Street, 1-212 254 2246), which sells some of the best pastrami in New York (FYI, Meg Ryan’s famous ‘orgasm’ scene in When Harry Met Sally… was filmed here).

First Shearith Israel Graveyard
55-57 St James Place, between James & Oliver Streets. Subway: J, M, Z to Bowery.
This is the burial ground of the country’s first Jewish community. Some gravestones date from 1683, including those of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who fled the Inquisition.

Lower East Side Tenement Museum
108 Orchard Street, at Broome Street (1-212 431 0233/www.tenement.org). Subway: F to Delancey Street; J, M, Z to Delancey-Essex Streets. Open Visitors’ center 11am-5:30pm Mon; 11am-6pm Tue-Fri; 10:45am-6pm Sat, Sun. Admission $17; $13 seniors, students. Credit AmEx, Disc, MC, V. Housed in an 1863 tenement building along with a gallery, shop and video room, this fascinating museum is accessible only by guided tour. The tours, which regularly sell out (definitely book ahead), explain the daily life of typical tenement-dwelling immigrant families. From April to December, the museum also leads walking tours of the Lower East Side on the weekends.

New Museum of Contemporary Art

New Museum of Contemporary Art
235 Bowery, between Prince & Stanton Streets (1-212 219 1222/www.newmuseum.org). Subway: F, V Second Avenue-Lower East Side. Open noon-6pm Wed, Sat, Sun; noon-10pm Thur, Fri. Admission $12; $8 seniors; $6 students; free under-18s. Credit MC, V.
The first new art museum ever constructed from the ground up below 14th Street, the aptly named New Museum marks a major contribution to the continuing revitalization of downtown Manhattan. The bold seven-storey building, designed by the cutting-edge Tokyo architectural firm Sejima + Nishizawa/SANAA, opened in December 2007, housing three main gallery levels, a theater, a café and roof terraces. The focus here is on emerging media and surveys of important but under-recognized artists—further evidence of its pioneering spirit.

East Village

Tompkins Square Park

This neighborhood has a long history as a countercultural hotbed and is the perfect place to kick around for an afternoon. St Marks Place (8th Street, between Lafayette Street & Avenue A) is the East Village’s main drag. Below Astor Place, Third Avenue (one block east of Lafayette Street) becomes the Bowery, the city’s long-ago flophouse strip and the home of missionary organizations catering to the down-and-out. Today, it’s largely been sanitized and invaded by swank restaurants and clubs. Even the hallowed CBGB club, the birthplace of American punk, closed its doors in autumn 2006—its pedigree couldn’t protect it from rising rents. Further east lies Tompkins Square Park (from 7th to 10th Streets, between Avenues A & B), where locals enjoy gathering.

Merchant’s House Museum
29 E 4th Street, between Lafayette Street & Bowery (1-212 777 1089/www.merchantshouse.com). Subway: B, D, F, V to Broadway-Lafayette Street; 6 to Bleecker Street. Open noon-5pm Mon, Thur-Sun. Admission $8; $5 seniors, students. Credit AmEx, MC, V.
New York City’s only preserved 19th-century family home is an elegant, late Federal-Greek Revival house stocked with the same furnishings and decorations that filled its rooms when it was inhabited from 1835 to 1933 by hardware tycoon Seabury Treadwell and his descendants.

Greenwich Village

Stretching from Houston Street to 14th Street, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue, Greenwich Village’s leafy streets have inspired bohemians for almost a century. It’s a place for idle wandering, candlelit dining in out-of-the-way restaurants, and for hopping between bars and cabaret venues.

The Village has been fashionable since the 1830s, when the wealthy built handsome townhouses around Washington Square. A few of these properties are still privately owned and occupied; many others have become part of the ever-expanding New York University campus.

Once the dingy but colorful stomping ground of Beat poets and folk and jazz musicians, the well-trafficked strip of Bleecker Street between La Guardia Place and Sixth Avenue is now simply an overcrowded stretch of poster shops, cheap restaurants and music venues for the college crowd. Bob Dylan lived at and owned 94 MacDougal Street (on a row of historic brownstones near Bleecker Street) through much of the 1960s, performing in Washington Square Park and at clubs such as Cafe Wha? on MacDougal Street, between Bleecker and West 3rd Streets.

AIA Center for Architecture
536 La Guardia Place, between Bleecker & W 3rd Streets (1-212 683 0023/www.aiany.org). Subway: A, B, C, D, E, F, V to W 4th Street. Open 9am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-5pm Sat. Admission free.
After five years of planning, the Center for Architecture opened to acclaim in autumn 2003. Founded in 1867, the organization languished for years on the sixth floor of a Lexington Avenue edifice, far out of sight (and mind) of all but the most devoted architecture aficionados. After a design competition, Andrew Berman Architect was chosen to transform the space into a fitting home for architectural debate. Berman cut away large slabs of flooring at the street and basement levels, converting underground spaces into bright, museum-quality galleries. The building was New York’s first public space to use an energy-efficient geothermal system. Water from two 1,260ft wells is piped through the building to help heat and cool it.

Washington Square Park

Washington Square Park
Subway: A, B, C, D, E, F, V to W 4th Street-Washington Square.
The hippies who famously turned up and tuned out in Washington Square Park are still there in spirit, and indeed often in person. In warmer months the park—which was once a potter’s field—is one of the best people-watching spots in the city, humming with musicians and street artists, while skateboarders clatter near the base of the iconic 1895 Washington Arch (a modest replica of Paris’s Arc de Triomphe). The NYC Parks Department’s plans for a $16 million redesign is causing uproar among community activists; phase one, with a tentative completion date of spring 2009, involves restoration of the 1870s fountain that would turn it into an ornamental showpiece—but, according to protestors, one with sprays so strong no one could sit in or around it.

West Village & Meatpacking District

The area west of Sixth Avenue to the Hudson River, from 14th Street to Houston Street, still possesses the features that molded the Village’s character. Only in this neighborhood could West 10th Street cross West 4th Street, and Waverly Place cross… Waverly Place.

Locals and visitors fill bistros along Seventh Avenue and Hudson Street, the neighborhood’s main streets, and patronize the increasingly high-rent shops, including three Marc Jacobs boutiques and three Ralph Lauren outposts, at this newly hot end of Bleecker Street.

The northwest corner of this area is known as the Meatpacking District. Beginning in the 1930s, it was primarily a wholesale meat market. Today, however, it has become home to a chic scene that includes some swinging watering holes, hip restaurants and more designer flagships and exclusive boutiques, including Diane von Furstenberg and new generation Brits Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney.

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