New York Travel
Strawberry Fields
At 72nd St and Central Park West, Strawberry Fields is a peaceful region of the park dedicated to the memory of John Lennon, who in 1980 was murdered in front of his home at the Dakota Building , across the street on Central Park West. Strawberry Fields draws people here to remember Lennon, as well as picnickers and seniors resting on the park benches. Near the W 72nd Street entrance to the area is a round Italian mosaic with the word "Imagine" at its center, donated by Yoko Ono and invariably covered with flowers. Every year without fail on December 8th, the anniversary of Lennon's murder, Strawberry Fields is packed with his fans, singing Beatles songs and sharing their grief, even after all these years.
Central Park (South)
Entering at Grand Army Plaza (Fifth Ave and 59th St), to your left lies the Pond and a little further north you'll find the Wollman Memorial Rink . Sit or stand above the rink to watch skaters and contemplate the view of Central Park South's skyline emerging above the trees. Or rent skates of your own: rollerblades, the most popular mode of park transportation, and ice skates are each available here in season.
Northeast of the skating rink lies the small zoo, or Central Park Wildlife Center at 64th Street and Fifth Avenue (MonFri 10am5pm, Sat, Sun & holidays 10am5.30pm; $3.50, 312 50, under 3 free; tel 212/439-6500). Its collection is based on three climatic regions the Tropic Zone, the Temperate Territory and the Polar Circle, and the complex also boasts the Tisch Children's Zoo , with interactive displays and a petting zoo.
The next point to head for is the Dairy (65th Street at mid-park), a kind of Gothic toy ranch building built in 1870 and originally stocked with cows (and milkmaids) for the purpose of selling milk and other dairy products to mothers with young children. It now houses one of the park's Visitor Centers (TuesSun 10am5pm; tel 212/794-6564), which distributes free leaflets and organizes weekend walking tours.
Just west of the Dairy stands the Carousel at 64th Street at mid-park (MonFri 10am6pm, Sat & Sun 10am7pm; $1). Built in 1903 and moved from Coney Island to the park in 1951, this is one of fewer than 150 left in the country (one of the others is at Coney Island). The Carousel offers a ride on hand-carved jumping horses accompanied by the music of a military band organ.
Straight ahead and north past the Dairy, you'll come to the Mall , the park's most formal stretch, where you'll witness every manner of street performer. To the west lies the Sheep Meadow (66th69th sts, West Side), fifteen acres of commons where sheep grazed until 1934; today the area is usually crowded with picnic blankets, sunbathers and Frisbee players.
On warm weekends, an area between the Sheep Meadow and the north end of the mall is filled with colorfully attired rollerbladers dancing to loud funk, disco and hip-hop music one of the best free shows around. Just west of the Sheep Meadow is the once-exclusive, still-expensive, but now rather tacky landmark restaurant and finishing point of the annual New York City Marathon, Tavern on the Green (67th St and Central Park W).
At the northernmost point of the Mall lie the Bandshell, Rumsey Playfield , site of the free SummerStage performance series, and the Bethesda Terrace and Fountain (72nd St at mid-park). Bethesda Terrace overlooks the lake; beneath it is an Arcade whose tiled floors are currently being restored.
Take a break from your wanderings on the lake's eastern bank at the Loeb Boathouse . Here, you can go for a gondola ride or rent a rowboat (MarchNov daily 10am6pm, weather permitting; rowboats $10 for the first hour, $2.50 each 15min after, with a $30 refundable deposit; gondola rides available 510pm for $30 per 30min per group and require reservations; tel 212/517-2233).
Metropolitan Museum of Art
A massive slab of a building on the eastern edge of Central Park between 80th and 84th Streets, the Met , as the museum's usually called, is the foremost museum in America and one of the great museums of the world. The Met's collection takes in over two million works of art. Any overview of the museum is out of the question: the Met demands many and specific visits or, at least, self-imposed limits.
Broadly, the museum breaks down into seven major collections : European Arts-Painting and Sculpture; Asian Art; American Painting and Decorative Arts; Egyptian Antiquities; Medieval Art; Ancient Greek and Roman Art; and the Art of Africa, the Pacific and the Americas.
Among the less famous Met collections are its Islamic Art (possibly the largest display anywhere in the world); European Decorative Arts; Greek and Roman Art; Arms and Armor Galleries (the largest and most important in the Western Hemisphere); a Musical Instrument Collection (containing the world's oldest piano); and the spectacular Costume Institute.
Despite the museum's size, initial orientation is not too difficult. There is just one main entrance, and once you've passed through it you find yourself in the Great Hall , a deftly lit Neoclassical cavern where you can consult plans, check tours and pick up info on the Met's excellent lecture listings.
Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
The tip of Manhattan Island and the enclosing shores of New Jersey, Staten Island and Brooklyn form the broad expanse of New York Harbor, one of the finest natural harbors in the world and one of the things that persuaded the first immigrants to settle here several centuries ago. Take to the water most easily aboard the Staten Island ferry to get the best views of the classic downtown skyline, or to get out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island two high-priority targets for a trip to the city.
At the time of writing, service on the #1 and #9 trains to South Ferry, the closest stop to the ferries, has been discontinued owing to the cleanup following the World Trade Center's collapse. The best way to reach the ferries is to take the #4 or #5 trains to Bowling Green.
Central Park (North)
There are fewer attractions, but more open space, above the Great Lawn. Much of it is taken up by the Reservoir (86th87th streets at mid-park, main entrance at 90th St and Fifth Ave), around which disciplined New Yorkers faithfully jog. The raised track is a great place to get breathtaking 360-degree views of the midtown skyline just don't block any jogger's path or there will be hell to pay. If you see nothing else above 86th Street in the park, don't miss the Conservatory Garden , between E 103rd and 106th streets along fifth Avenue, a pleasing, six-acre space made up of three formal, terraced gardens filled with flowering trees and shrubs, planted flower beds, fanciful fountains, and shaded benches. The main iron-gated entrance at 104th Street and Fifth Avenue is a favorite spot for weekend wedding party photographs.
The Conservatory Garden is a terrific place to pause for a picnic .
At the northeast corner of the park is the Charles A. Dana Discovery Center (TuesSun 10am5pm, 4pm in winter; tel 212/860-1370), an environmental education and Visitor Center, with free literature, changing visual exhibits, bird walks every Saturday at 11am in July and August, and multicultural performances. Crowds of locals fish in the adjacent Harlem Meer . The center provides free bamboo poles and bait, though you'll have to release your catch of the day.
Central Park
"All radiant in the magic atmosphere of art and taste." So raved Harper's magazine on the opening of Central Park in 1876, and though that was a slight overstatement, today few New Yorkers could imagine life without it. At various times and places, the park functions as a beach, theater, singles' scene, athletic activity center, and animal behavior lab, both human and canine. In bad times and good New Yorkers still treasure it more than any other city institution.
In spite of the advent of motorized traffic, the sense of disorderly nature the park's nineteenth-century designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, intended largely survives, with cars and buses cutting through the park in the sheltered, sunken transverses originally meant for horse-drawn carriages, mostly unseen from the park itself. The midtown skyline, of course, has changed, and buildings thrust their way into view, sometimes detracting from the park's original pastoral intention, but at the same time adding to the sense of being on a green island in the center of a magnificent city.
Statue of Liberty
9.30am5pm; free; tel 212/363-7770, www.nps.gov/stli
The Statue of Liberty has for a century been a monument to the American Dream, a potent reminder that the USA is a land of immigrants. It was New York Harbor where the first big waves of European immigrants arrived, their ships entering through the Verrazano Narrows to round the bend of the bay and catch a first glimpse of "Liberty Enlightening the World."
Leave as early as possible to avoid the lines, which can be long in the summer months (especially on weekends), and allow a couple of hours for the islands .
The statue, which depicts Liberty throwing off her shackles and holding a beacon to light the world, was built by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi in Paris between 1874 and 1884. Bartholdi started with a terra-cotta model and enlarged it through four successive versions to its present size, a construction of thin copper sheets bolted together and supported by an iron framework designed by Gustave Eiffel. The arm carrying the torch was exhibited in Madison Square Park for seven years, but the whole statue wasn't officially accepted on behalf of the American people until 1884, after which it was taken apart, crated up and shipped to New York. The statue was unveiled by President Grover Cleveland in 1886 in a flag-waving shindig that has never really stopped. Today you can climb 192 steps to the top of the pedestal or the entire 354 steps up to the crown (unfortunately, the cramped stairway up through the torch is closed to the public). Don't be surprised if there's an hour-long wait to get up.
Great Lawn
North of the Loeb Boathouse is the backyard of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the east at 81st Street and the Obelisk to the west, an 1881 gift from Egypt that dates back to 1450 BC. Also nearby is the Great Lawn , recently reopened after a massive two-year, $18.5 million renewal program. Now reseeded, it hosts free New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera concerts. The lawn features eight softball fields and, at its northern end, new basketball and volleyball courts, and a 1/8-mile running track.
Southwest of the Great Lawn is the Delacorte Theater , site of the annual free Shakespeare in the Park festivals. Next door, the tranquil Shakespeare Garden claims to hold every species of plant mentioned in the Bard's plays. East of the garden is Belvedere Castle , a mock medieval citadel first erected in 1869 as a lookout, but now the home of the Urban Park Rangers (who provide walking tours and educational programs). The highest point in the park, and a wonderful viewpoint, the castle also houses the NY Meteorological Observatory's weather center, which provides the "official" Central Park temperature of the day, and makes for a lovely backdrop for the Delacorte's performances.
New York City
The most beguiling city in the world, New York is an adrenaline-charged, history-laden place that holds immense romantic appeal for visitors. Wandering the streets here, you'll cut between buildings that are icons to the modern age and whether gazing at the flickering lights of the midtown skyscrapers as you speed across the Queensboro bridge, experiencing the 4am half-life downtown, or just wasting the morning on the Staten Island ferry, you really would have to be made of stone not to be moved by it all. There's no place quite like it.
While the events of September 11, 2001, which demolished the World Trade Center, shook New York to its core, the populace responded resiliently under the composed aegis of then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Until the attacks, many New Yorkers loved to hate Giuliani, partly because they saw him as committed to making their city too much like everyone else's. To some extent he succeeded, and during the late Nineties New York seemed cleaner, safer, and more liveable, as the city took on a truly international allure and shook off the more notorious aspects to its reputation. However, the maverick quality of New York and its people still shines as brightly as it ever did. Even in the aftermath of the World Trade Center's collapse, New York remains a unique and fascinating city and one you'll want to return to again and again.
You could spend weeks in New York and still barely scratch the surface, but there are some key attractions and some pleasures that you won't want to miss. There are the different ethnic neighborhoods , like lower Manhattan's Chinatown and the traditionally Jewish Lower East Side ; and the more artsy concentrations of SoHo, TriBeCa, and the East and West Villages. Of course, there is the celebrated architecture of corporate Manhattan, with the skyscrapers in downtown and midtown forming the most indelible images. There are the museums , not just the Metropolitan and MoMA, but countless other smaller collections that afford weeks of happy wandering. In between sights, you can eat just about anything, at any time, cooked in any style; you can drink in any kind of company; and sit through any number of obscure movies . The more established arts dance, theater, music are superbly catered for; and New York's clubs are as varied and exciting as you might expect. And for the avid consumer, the choice of shops is vast, almost numbingly exhaustive in this heartland of the great capitalist dream.
Ellis Island
Just across the water from the Statue of Liberty, and just fifteen minutes on by ferry, sits Ellis Island , the first stop for over twelve million immigrants hoping to settle in the USA. The island became an immigration station in 1892, a processing point for the massive influx of mostly southern and eastern European immigrants. The station closed in 1954, and in 1990 the Ellis Island Museum of Immigration (daily 9.30am5pm; free; tel 212/363-3200, www.ellisisland.org ) was opened in an ambitious attempt to recapture the spirit of the place, with films, exhibits and tapes documenting the celebration of America as the immigrant nation.
Some 100 million Americans can trace their roots back through Ellis Island and, for them especially, the museum is an engaging display. On the first floor, in the old railroad ticket office, is the excellent " Peopling of America ," which chronicles four centuries of American immigration, offering a statistical portrait of who the arrivals were and where they came from.
The huge, vaulted Registry Room on the second floor, scene of so much trepidation, elation and despair, has been left bare, with just a couple of inspectors' desks and American flags. In the side hall interview rooms recordings of those who passed through Ellis Island recall the experience, along with photographs, thoughtful and informative explanatory text, and small artifacts train timetables and familiar items brought from home.
The museum's American Family Immigration History Center ( www.ellisislandrecords.org ) is of great use to genealogical researchers, offering an interactive research database that contains information from ship manifests and passenger lists concerning over 22 million immigrants who passed through the Port of New York between 1892 and 1924.
On the fortified spurs of the island, names of immigrant families who passed through the building over the years are engraved in copper; paid for by a minimum donation of $100 from their descendants. This " American Immigrant Wall of Honor ," launched in 1990, helped fund the restoration and features the names of over 600,000 individuals and families.