Manhattan: High Style on Low Bucks

Walk around Manhattan's diverse neighborhoods and savor the sights and sounds.

Eat oysters at Grand Central Station's Oyster Bar Restaurant.

For a completely different perspective on Manhattan, take the A train way, way uptown to Fort Tryon Park and the Cloisters Museum.

Work your way back down the island and take a free ride on the Staten Island Ferry.

Quick Tips:

Walk as much as you can to experience the sights, sounds, and even the smells of Manhattan. Talk to people--they are much friendlier than non-New Yorkers might think!

Best Way To Get Around:

Many popular Manhattan sights are within easy walking distance of one another. If it's too far to walk, public transportation is the only way to go. A /day (/week) Metro pass gets you unlimited rides on buses and subways.

We really enjoyed the Royalton. An acknowledged masterpiece of French designer Philippe Starck, it manages to be cutting-edge modern, stylish, whimsical, and very comfortable.

We had a "suite", which consisted of a large room with a working fireplace and a huge bathroom with a large circular tub/shower. The room decor is elegant, featuring grey slate and stark white upholstery and linens. The candles and fresh orchids in the bathroom were a nice touch.

The in-house restaurant is called "The 44". We had breakfast there one morning, and although the menu seemed quite pricey ($12 for poached eggs on spinach and toast, $4 for a cup of coffee) the food was well prepared and the service professional. The 44 has an unusual dinner strategy -- every month they bring in a different chef from a three star restaurant in Paris to create a "prix fixe" menu.

The Royalton lobby bar is clearly a nightime hot spot. Like the rooms, it has stark white upholstered furniture and brushed stainless steel accent tables. Colorful accents and whimsical accessories (like fishbowls with live fish) keep the decor from being cold and intimidating. Drinks and an appealing and imaginative appetizer menu are available. We would have tried it had it not been so crowded.

The Royalton is conveniently located just off of Fifth Avenue and a couple of blocks from Times Square. The staff is energetic, friendly, and accommodating. We would love to go back.

The Oyster Bar has the look of an institution. Tucked underneath Grand Central Station, it has a full-service restaurant area, plus a section of counter seating and a Raw Bar.

We stopped in for a late afternoon snack of raw oysters. The selections are hand-written on a large menu board and are priced per piece. Oysters and clams from all over North America are available--we elected to go with a dozen local Bluepoints from Long Island. The oysters came with three different dipping sauces plus lemon wedges and oyster crackers. They seemed exquisitely fresh. Washed down with a glass of locally-brewed Brooklyn Lager, they made a perfect snack.

For those who prefer their food cooked, Oyster Bar chefs prepare stews and chowders to order while you wait. There is also a full menu of fish and shellfish dishes available in the restaurant. A large selection of desserts is on display--although we did not try them, everything looked delicious.

Manhattan's Chinatown is just a mile north of the World Trade Center site, and is suffering a serious business slowdown as a result. On a Saturday night, most restaurants appeared to have empty tables. It's hard to see why. Chinatown restaurants offer a great dining experience for an unbelievable price.

Lin's Dumpling House specializes in little dumplings filled with ground meat and/or seafood, then steamed or fried. Although we tried the "house special" dumplings (a mixture of pork and scallops in a steamed dumpling), I thought their other dishes were superior.

As a main course, we split a whole sea bass, which was fried until crisp, then covered with a ginger/scallion/mushroom sauce. We also had a plate of dry-sauteed green beans and some streamed rice. We would have ordered more food, but our helpful waiter pointed out that one order of sea bass was enough to feed two. We had a great meal including a couple of beers apiece for the almost-laughable price of $40.

The line at the more famous Carnegie Deli stretched out the door, so we went looking for an alternative. We peered in the windows and checked out menus for several, until we were finally roped in by the description of the Giant Smoked Fish Platter at the Ben Ash Deli.

The Deli itself was crowded but comfortable. The mosaic tiled floors and decorative tin ceiling appear to be original; the soundtrack was 70's soft rock. As in any deli worth the name, the portions were enormous.

The Giant Smoked Fish Platter ($33.00 for two--probably actually feeds 6) was a huge pile of lettuce, sliced tomatoes, green peppers, red onions, and 5 kinds of smoked fish served with two enormous bagels each spread with about half a pound of cream cheese. Along with the traditional lox were smoked sturgeon, whitefish, sable, and trout. Each variety was unique; all were delicious. Even so, we couldn't finish it.

Every order comes with a big bowl of dill pickles and a bowl of coleslaw. Part of the fun was watching other peoples' food go by. The sandwiches ($10.95) were also enormous, as were the desserts.

The Cloisters Musuem houses the Metropolitan Museum of Art's medieval collection. It has a wonderful location in Fort Tryon Park at the upper tip of Manhattan. If you're weary of the crowds and commotion of downtown, this is an ideal place to spend an afternoon.

The park is full of old trees, wonderful gardens, and walking paths. There is a great view of the Hudson River cliffs. On a sunny day in early November, the fall colors were still stunning.

The Cloisters Museum itself is built to look like an ancient monastery. Portions of true medieval structures are incorporated into the building, and exhibits are organized by timeline. You start in the very early middle ages and work your way towards the early Renaissance, which makes it easy to see the remarkable evolution of painting and sculpture techniques over a 400 year period.

The Cloisters also has a great collection of textiles, including the famous tapestry series "The Capture of the Unicorn".

To get to the Cloisters, take the A express subway train (about 30 minutes) or the M4 bus (about an hour).

The Staten Island ferry ranks as one of the best free tourist experiences in America. We'd ridden it before to marvel at the Statue of Liberty, the fantastic skyline view, and the diversity of the shipping traffic in New York harbor. On November 4th, 2001, the ferry trip was an uneasy reminder of how much America has changed since September 11.

As the ferry left the dock, the usual tourists jockeyed for position with their cameras. This day, the cameras were all competing to document the skyline that is no longer there. I saw very few cameras trained on the Statue of Liberty, instead, everyone seemed to be pointing and gesturing at the empty space where the World Trade Center used to be.

The New York City Marathon was taking place on that day. Due to concerns about security, all shipping traffic was halted and several helicopters patrolled the sky over the harbor. The normally-busy harbor was quiet.

If you visit the Guggenheim between now and March 3, 2002, you'll have a great opportunity to compare and contrast the work of two American masters. The Guggenheim building itself, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright is an icon of 20th century architecture. The Norman Rockwell exhibit is full of icons of a different nature. This is a rare opportunity to see Rockwell's original paintings for the hundreds of magazine covers and calendar illustrations that are so familiar.

While Wright is revered as the single most important American architect, Rockwell is often reviled as an mere illustrator; not a serious artist. His work has been so often reproduced that much of it seems cliched.

During our walk through the Guggenheim, however, I wondered which icon had stood the test of time. The Guggenheim building looks old and tired. The facade is peeling and chipping in places, and the radical contours look dated. On a crowded Saturday afternoon, it became clear that the traffic patterns an gallery layouts are poorly designed. The central spiral gallery is easy enough to navigate going up, but the side galleries are hard to find and confusing to navigate.

The Rockwell paintings, on the other hand, were fresh, crisply executed, and often poignant and moving. Although many of the images are well-known, like all paintings they have been much diminished by reproduction. Seeing the full-size originals was a revelation. I've never been a Rockwell fan, but I do have a new appreciation for his artistry and his astute visual commentary. After viewing his famous 1964 illustration "The Problem We All Live With", which pictures a little African American girl walking to school escorted by deputy marshalls, I wondered what Rockwell would have painted in the aftermath of September 11.

A first-class opera production is an amazing spectacle. Anything less than a first class opera is hardly worth seeing at all. America's premier opera company takes criticism for being somewhat stodgy and tradition-bound, but it does know how to produce a quality performance.

We booked the cheapest tickets possible ($30/ticket) through the Met's website (www.metopera.org), assuming that we'd have partial view seats. Although we were in the nosebleed section at the very top of Lincoln Center, our seats were front and center and we had a great view. The production was La Boheme, with art direction by Franco Zefferelli. While the music was undeniably wonderful, the best thing about this production was the sets. The second scene, which takes place in the streets of Paris, featured a very realistic multi-level set with real horses and ponies and a marching band.

The Met's season runs from September through May. Although rush tickets are available on the day of the performance, it's wise to reserve early. Judging from the limited availability through the web site booking service, most shows seem to sell out.

Inevitably, the World Trade Center disaster site has become an attraction in itself--a pilgrimage site, a mecca for the curious and the grieving.

As of early November 2001, pedestrians can get no closer than about a block away from the wreckage. The best views are from Broadway, where streets leading to the site are blocked with chain link barriers that have become informal memorials. Every square inch of the barriers are stuffed with flowers, cards, banners, pictures, and flags from all over the world.

Viewers can glimpse the twisted and blackened wreckage beyond the barriers, and hear the heavy equipment that was working even early on Sunday morning. Massive dump trucks are lined up to haul away the debris.

Nearly two months after the disaster, the smell of the wreckage and decay is still heavy. An acrid, smoky odor pervades, and we saw many people wearing respirator masks.

As tourists have returned to the scene, so have the souvenir vendors. Hundreds of street sellers have set up seling NYPD and FDNY hats and t-shirts, flags and patriotic paraphenalia of all kinds.

Viewing ground zero is an uneasy and unsettling experience. It's hard to reconcile the television images of the burning and collapsing towers with the emptiness. I understand much more clearly now why we memorialize sites like this. One has the feeling there should be "more" there to mark the place where so many thousands died.