Travelworm

My latest TravelWorm trip finds me in frenetic New York, New York. Ah… the lights, the sounds, the smells, the rats in the subway…

New York is one of those cities you either love or hate, and I happen to love it. I love the cacophony of grit and grime and flash and brilliance. I love the contrasts and contradictions. It's an amazing place. But first, a warning. This isn't going to be a typical guide to the city. Rather than discuss landmarks and whatnot - information that's rampant on the net anyway, I'm going to tell you about New York neighborhoods. New York, after all, is a city of many faces, and picking a New York hotel in an area that's perfect for you can be just the thing to make your Manhattan vacation. So buckle up ladies and gents, and let me take the wheel.

Forget Broadway and Times Square – at least for one day. Think, instead, of the grit behind the flash, the slightly sordid but infinitely intriguing experiences that make up primetime plotlines, and the continuous torrent of dreams that hold the city together. Instead of dazzling stage lights and tourist bubbles, come and crawl into the underbelly of a dark, interesting, spectacular city replete with high-powered executives, hopeful immigrants from all corners of the globe, millionaire trust-fund babies, and artists without a dime to their names.

We shall start with downtown, which, in my opinion, happens to host the best compendium of neighborhoods in Manhattan.

The Village (aka Greenwich Village, located roughly between 14th street and Houston up to Sixth Avenue) is traditionally the domain of the free-spirited, the freaks, and the artists. Traditionally. Nowadays, with the gentrification of even the skiddiest of skid rows, the village has become, well, a family friendly town. Little babies in "ironic" little onesies abound. So do prams, trolleys, and celebrity mommies in smart, well-cut A&G jeans. They do tend to rub elbows with all types though, and a Sunday dinner with the family is just as likely to mean a meal of veggie falafels from Moustache as it does a pot roast.

From the Village, the L train will take you across to the eastern section of the island (yes, Manhattan really is an island). I advise a quick stop at Union Square along the way. Union Square, depending on who you ask and what time you get there, is the hangout of organic produce vendors, hipsters and yippies, small-time drug crooks, and college kids from nearby NYU (these categories are probably interchangeable). It's a prime meeting spot for blind dates, craigslist transactions, and group nights on the town.

From there it's a short stroll to some of the landmarks of the young, hip, and smart crowd: the Strand ("18 miles of books") is just a couple of blocks away, an assortment of hip little cafes and eateries line the park, interesting boutiques and trendy retail shops dot the landscape, secondhand bookstores stand side by side with vintage clothiers, bars are aplenty for the collegiate set, and for the more commercial-minded among us, there's a Starbucks, a McDonald's and a Barnes and Noble right across the street.

Walk a little bit more, and you'll come across the East Village, at the moment still home to tattoo parlors, geek-meets-goth "graphic novel" shops, and a plethora of independent bookstores, indie publishers, indie labels, indie boutiques, and most other independent things you can imagine. Yep, you guessed it. Independence is a huge deal in this part of the city – hallmarks of hipster cred, and the harbinger of a cache of cool. Of course, how long East Village grit and grunge will last is under debate. With no more places left to gentrify, it's just a matter of time before the fast-track yuppies swarm the scene.

For a more unadulterated "alternative" experience, I suggest the Lower East Side (LES), just a few blocks south of the East Village. The current neighborhood of choice for writers, artists, musicians, actors, rent-stabilized lifers, and a growing smattering of (que horror!) young professionals, edgy LES may be the last affordable housing stop (and that includes temporary accomodations) before you get edged out to Brooklyn.

The LES scene is one of funky shops, vintage stores, and exotic and eclectic food. From the traditional cuisine of Tibet to old-time delis, the choices are vast. Holes-in-the-wall are aplenty, and the nosh is global, relatively cheap, and pretty damn good.

Next up: Lower Manhattan, including Noho, Little Italy, Soho, Battery Park and Tribeca