When visiting New York, you probably want to come armed with one or two good, up-to-date guidebooks.
Walk! It's not only the cheapest mode of transportation, but the best way to grasp how this city of neighborhoods is stitched together. Start at Union Square, where everyone from skateboarders to suburbanites meets. Stroll down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square Park, then turn east for sooty old tenement buildings, or west for picturesque brownstones. If you're lucky, you'll get lost.
Go beyond bagels and Broadway to see what makes the world's cultural capital really tick. For every tourist trap, there's an alternate, authentic New York version. Pay $20 for art at MoMA, or go gallery hopping for free in Chelsea. See "Les Miz" in Times Square, or check out the next Rent at the New York Theater Workshop in the East Village (79 East Fourth Street, 212-460-5475; www.nytw.org). Shop for Prada in SoHo, or go farther afield into the Lower East Side for boutiques like Kaight (83 Orchard Street, 212-680-5630; www.kaightnyc.com).
Sights by Letter: (click below to find a sight by name)
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