Travel North America Articles

Whether you're looking for great jazz, comedy, booze, coffee or just plain wild, New York's clubs are among the best in the world. All decors, price ranges, ambiance and kinds of acts are here in abundance. Uptown, downtown, mid-town and Greenwich or East Side, West Side and even a few in Brooklyn - they dot the New York City landscape like fireflies in Central Park.

It's rare to find an oasis of calm in frenetic New York City. The lights of Broadway, the zooming taxis and the throngs of people all suggest what New York is: a bustling, modern metropolis. Even lush Central Park is a buzz with skaters, Frisbee tossers and the odd car crossing from east to west.

With all the property acquisition of famous buildings over the last thirty years there is still, thankfully, one that has retained its original name: The Chrysler Building.

Since it first opened its gates in 1899 the Bronx Zoo has been the world's premier destination for viewing animals from the world over.

Welcome to the 'city within a city' - Rockefeller Center. Begun in the 1930s, partially as an antidote to the effects of the Depression, the 19 building complex sits on 11 acres between 48th and 52nd Streets and between 5th and 6th Avenues.

Park Avenue through the 1930s was known as 'the street where the rich people lived'. To have an apartment there was 'to have arrived'. When you arrive you'll see fewer apartments and a new kind of 'rich people' - multi-national corporate headquarters.

Nearly 40 million tourists from around the world visit New York City every year. What they find is a bustling metropolis, dense with museums, parks, theaters, shops, famous buildings and inhabitants as diverse as themselves.

Manhattan, 'Capital' of New York City On a slender island crammed with taxis, buses, people and buildings a long string of innovators has managed to create both a major business center and a tourist paradise. All within easy reach by subway, bus or taxi.

Beginning the day at Madison Square Park, on Madison and 23rd is just about the most peaceful start possible in this beehive of a city. Tree-lined, two centuries old, and surrounded by a quiet neighborhood, the five-acre park makes for the perfect place to have an outdoor brunch.

Few museum buildings can justifiably claim to be works of art in their own right. Frank Lloyd Wright's Solomon R. Guggenheim museum of modern art is in that sparsely populated class.

The center of Manhattan in a dozen ways, Fifth Avenue bisects the city from below 23rd Street to the north end of Central Park and beyond.

The Empire State Building in mid-town Manhattan has justifiably been called the eighth wonder of the world. No longer the tallest building in the world, it remains one of the largest office buildings and is currently the tallest in New York at 102 stories.

Completed in 1873, Central Park is among the world's great urban innovations. Bound by 5th and 8th avenues on the east and west respectively, and from 59th Street on the south, 110th Street on the north, these 843 acres encompass a lot to see and do.

At 38 stories, the CBS building in New York isn't anywhere near the tallest. Its location at 52nd St and 6th Avenue isn't special. Even its design and construction were not - as buildings go - controversial. But, for what it offers both inside and out, CBS is a destination of choice for visitors of New York.

For over 100 years, Carnegie Hall has been the mutual destination of musicians seeking the highest level of their profession and those who want to experience their efforts.

One of the world's most famous bridges, who could think that a steel roadway could engender such controversy and passion? Yet, that's the history of the Brooklyn Bridge since before its construction began to the present day.

Along Broadway in Manhattan there are more things to do and see on one street than in many large cities. This long avenue runs north-south, mostly, and its deviations are appropriate to its role in the life of New York. For, Broadway is home to business, theater, dining, shops and a host of famous buildings.

Why is New York so famous? After all, the weather is terrible, the city is overcrowded, and even the buildings are second to many others elsewhere. The cigar-shaped strip of land called Manhattan is difficult to access with bridges crowded with cars, streets clogged with buses and taxis.

Completed in 1868, Prospect Park is Frederick Law Olmstead's second masterpiece - and easily the rival of his first, Central Park.

Kensington Palace has been home to royalty from long before Queen Victoria's birth there in 1819 to Princess Diana's residence until her death to today.