City of 5 Boroughs

Local writer John Garry takes you to the most fascinating neighborhoods of New York

From Broadway’s bright lights and Times Square’s neon glow to Central Park’s leafy footpaths and the Financial District’s cloud-piercing towers, you’ll find them all in NYC’s epicenter. It’s where Michelin-starred chefs plate innovative meals mere blocks from immigrant-run bagel shops and where you can spend days wandering The Metropolitan Museum of Art and still not see all of its 1.5-million-piece collection. You’ll never know what surprises are in store watching the Knicks battle for basketball supremacy at Madison Square Garden. And no matter how many times you explore the West Village’s cinematic streets, its serpentine layout will make your head spin. Be it the Hudson River’s revitalization with garden-fringed Little Island or the bike paths reconfiguring city streets, this borough is perpetually “new.”

New York’s most populous borough is on the pulse of everything cool. Street art-splashed Williamsburg and Bushwick anchor the postindustrial neighborhoods of the north where hip crowds kick back at breweries. Further south is Bedford-Stuyvesant, the birthplace of rap legend Biggie Smalls, followed by restaurantstudded Fort Greene and the 19th-century brownstones of Brooklyn Heights. Spend a day outdoors at Brooklyn Bridge Park, a collection of piers with Manhattan skyline views, then hop on the NYC Ferry to cruise under bridges crossing the East River to Manhattan. As the weather gets warmer, make a beeline to Coney Island, where thrill-seekers ride seaside roller coasters and the Brooklyn Cyclones hit home runs at Maimonides Park.

An estimated 800 languages are spoken in the multicultural neighborhoods of Queens, with Flushing serving up Asian flavors within New World Mall’s food court; Athens Park in Astoria comprising Greek figures; Corona containing multiple Colombian restaurants; and Jackson Heights labeled by The New York Times as “the most culturally diverse neighborhood in New York if not on the planet.” Queens offers an exceptional collection of art museums and nightlife venues, including MoMA PS1, which celebrates contemporary creations, and Nowadays, an audiophile’s oasis in Ridgewood. The icon of this cosmopolitan utopia is the stainless-steel Unisphere, a 140-foot-tall metal globe that visitors pass en route to events such as the US Open, where international tennis stars compete inside a packed stadium.

The city’s only borough connected to the mainland United States stands apart with its roster of heavy hitters. Baseball fans flock to Yankee Stadium, and in spring see cherry blossoms bloom at New York Botanical Garden. There are more than 700 animal species at the Bronx Zoo, and you can explore 13 miles of saltwater shoreline at Pelham Bay Park. Restaurants on Arthur Avenue get doused in authentic Italian red sauce, and the sounds of hip-hop echo nearly everywhere. This is the “Boogie Down Bronx,” where the percussive musical art form was born and where breakdancing burst into life in the 1970s.

Staten Island gets called the “forgotten borough” as it’s detached from New York City’s subway system and often overlooked by locals. But blowing off this green-fringed enclave would be a blunder. Make your trip here a full-day adventure: take the free-to-ride Staten Island Ferry from Manhattan for New York Harbor views and hike along Greenbelt trails to glimpse NYC’s largest remaining forest preserve. Pizza lovers can savor a slice, then wash it down with beer from a local hop house. Voilà, you have a Staten Island affair to remember.