Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
New York at its most gentrified: Walk along Fifth and Park
avenues, especially between 60th and 80th streets, and you're sure
to encounter some of the wizened WASPs and Chanel-suited
socialites that make up the most rarefied of the city's population.
Madison Avenue from 60th Street well into the 80s is the mon-
eyed crowd's main shopping strip, recently vaunting ahead of
Hong Kong's Causeway Bay to become the most expensive retail
real estate
in the world
—so bring your platinum card.
The main attraction of this neighborhood is
Museum Mile,
the stretch of Fifth Avenue fronting Central Park that's home to
no fewer than 10 terrific cultural institutions, including Frank
Lloyd Wright's
Guggenheim,
and anchored by the mind-bog-
gling
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
But the elegant rows of
landmark town houses are worth a look alone: East 70th Street,
from Madison east to Lexington, is one of the world's most
charming residential streets. If you want to see where real people
live, move east to Third Avenue and beyond; that's where afford-
able restaurants and active street life start popping up.
The Upper East Side is served by the packed Lexington Avenue
line (4, 5, 6 trains), so wear walking shoes (or bring taxi fare) if
you're heading here to explore.
Harlem
Harlem has benefited from a dramatic image makeover,
and with new restaurants, clubs, and stores, is becoming a neigh-
borhood in demand. Harlem is actually several areas.
Harlem
proper
stretches from river to river, beginning at 125th Street on
the West Side, 96th Street on the East Side, and 110th Street
north of Central Park. East of Fifth Avenue,
Spanish Harlem (
El
Barrio
)
runs between East 100th and East 125th streets. The
neighborhood is benefiting greatly from the revitalization that has
swept so much of the city, with national-brand retailers moving
in, restaurants and hip nightspots opening everywhere, and visi-
tors arriving to tour historic sites related to the golden age of
African-American culture.
Washington Heights & Inwood
At the northern tip of Manhat-
tan, Washington Heights (the area from 155th St. to Dyckman St.,
with adjacent Inwood running to the tip) is home to a large seg-
ment of Manhattan's Latino community, plus an increasing number
of yuppies who don't mind trading a half-hour subway commute to
Midtown for lower rents.
Fort Tryon Park
and
the Cloisters
are
the two big reasons for visitors to come up this way. The Cloisters
houses the Metropolitan Museum of Art's stunning medieval col-
lection, in a building perched atop a hill, with excellent views across
