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Off the Beaten Track in NYCNYC Tourists -- Head Downtown for the Real NYCWhen visiting New York City, it's easy to stay in the Midtown area. But if you venture off the beaten track, you will find the real jewel of NYC - the downtown area.
Traveling to New York City this summer? Venture out of the midtown tourist district! Go a little bit north, past the entrance of Central Park, to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim Museum. But If you want to see the real New York City, explore downtown (below 14th Street)! Getting AroundGetting around is cheap! Don’t hail a cab -- take the subway, the way the locals do. Meet real people. Yes the subway--it’s cleaner, safer, and more comfortable than ever. Avoid the crush--- from 7 to 9:30 am, and from 4:30 - 7 pm-- and you will get a seat, and plenty of room. Subway travel is the quickest way to get around –So get a subway map and an unlimited one-week Metrocard pass (which is good on the buses too) and you are on your way to the real New York City. You’re not a tourist anymore, and officially off the beaten track. The VillageGet off at West Fourth Street. You are in legendaryGreenwich Village – birthplace of liberalism and bohemian culture. The Beat Poets, feminists, socialists, anarchists -- they all lived, orated, and wrote here. Look at the colonial architecture, and visit the arch at Washington Square Park, which has heard great speeches. Beatniks, hippies, and radicals wrote manifestoes here. Walk east and pass Astor Place, where Lincoln made a famous campaign speech at Cooper Union, and the site of the famous Astor Place Riots. Go through St. Mark’s Placeto the Bowery, and the site of legendary rock club CBGB’s (the Ramones started there). Meet the real people of New York City-- working people, NYU students, old men playing chess in the park. These are the real people of New York. Chinatown, SoHo, Lower East Side. Tribeca, and Ground Zero Go to Canal Street and Broadway-- Chinatown. Have tea and dim sum (appetizers), at coffee shops, where you point to what you want, and the ladies calculate the bill by counting plates. At Prince or Spring St, you are in SoHo, once an art district, now a place to shop designer labels, For funkier styles, go south to the Lower East Side, around Delancey Street (star of the movie “Crossing Delancey”). Once bustling with recent immigrants, the Lower East Side is now full of trendy boutiques and hip restaurants. West of here, down Mott and Mulberry, is Little Italy, star of many movies and, in September, home of the Feast of San Gennaro. Stop at a café and drink an espresso while eating a cannoli. Head south to Tribeca, home of the renowned film festival. Further south, catch a glimpse of Ground Zero, former site of theWorldTrade Center, now hallowed ground, and future site of the Freedom Tower. So step off the tourist route. Take the subway south and live some history Walk the streets of “huddled masses” of immigrants, or the 20th century’s great thinkers, poets, and artists. Wander off the beaten track when you travel to New York City this summer.
The copyright of the article Off the Beaten Track in NYC in New York Travel is owned by Fern Cohen. Permission to republish Off the Beaten Track in NYC in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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