New York City Travel Guide

If you want to know what the New York waterfront was like for all of the 20th century, just watch On the Waterfront. Regarded as one of the best American movies ever made, the crime drama paints an accurate picture of the industrial areas as crime-ridden and filled with mobsters. All that changed with the revitalization of the South Street Seaport historic district in Manhattan. In the last decade, the East River waterfront has opened up with new parks, restaurants and hotels on both the Manhattan and Brooklyn sides of the river. A brand new fleet of ferries operated by NYC Ferry is the best way to explore the city’s waterfront neighborhoods. Just hop on the ferry at Wall Street / Pier 11 landing and jet across the river to Brooklyn in mere minutes. Visit DUMBO for art galleries and river views. Or take a ride to neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Greenpoint for concept shops, inventive restaurants and acclaimed cocktail bars. During the summer, arrive by ferry to New York’s underrated city beaches like Jacob Riis Park in just 57 breezy minutes.

The Empire State Building and Top of the Rock need no introduction. But if you can, avoid tourist-packed Midtown and enjoy the sights south of Houston Street. In the ’70s, the late artist Keith Haring created an original mural for the Houston Bowery Wall, a fixture at the intersection between the East Village and Lower East Side. Decades later, established and emerging street artists continue to create murals at the high-traffic corner. Continue the public art tour at The High Line, one of New York’s favourite parks built on a historic, elevated freight line with murals and installations.

Go off the grid in Greenwich Village, where the city’s orderly, numbered streets and avenues turn into angular, cobbled roads where you’ll find charming cafes, restaurants and shops. In Washington Square Park, a 19th-century arc modeled after the Arc de Triomphe is one of the city’s most recognizable monuments. Nearby, pause in the much smaller Christopher Park (across from the legendary Stonewall Inn) for a quiet moment of reflection with George Segal’s Gay Liberation Monument. The Brooklyn Bridge (and the view from it) has always been one of the best things to see in New York.