New York highs and lows

No city does such glamorous high life and such charming street life as New York. Natasha von Geldern finds new reasons to love the city on her first time visiting New York for Travelbite.co.uk.

I was relaxing with a cold beer on the Circle Line cruise around Manhattan Island when I heard the tour guide saying to the people sitting behind me: "So, I was talking to my agent." It turns out he has a thriving sideline career in TV advertising.

Granted he is the sort of silver-haired (and silver tongued) gentleman you can imagine fronting cheesy American Colgate commercials. But for me it was just so New York, or at least the New York City of my imagination, where everyone is glamorous and famous or somehow connected with 'show business' a la Sex and the City.

Drifting along the Hudson River in the golden early evening sunlight, the stunning architecture of the city glinting, the city looks at its most beautiful and most elegant. There are many reasons to love New York City but I found a new one in an unusual place - where you can't see the city at all.

After lady liberty and the famous skyline, the boat moves north around the top of Manhattan, through the Harlem River and to a place that seems a million miles away from the towers of Midtown. Trees grow down to the muddy water's edge and a group of young boys squat around a campfire on an old wooden jetty, laughing and waving. It was the opposite of a world where the pursuit of money and fame are the dominant theme.

The day before I'd been contemplating the city, again with a drink in hand, this time from one of the latest trendy brunch spots in New York - on the rooftop of 230 Fifth. Just another way to appreciate the many architectural treasures of New York with full frontal views of the Empire State Building and the glittering gold summit of the second Madison Square Garden building.

As I sipped my Mojito Royale under a palm tree on the 14,000-square-foot deck and waited for my 'Liquored up French Toast' the picture was of a city full of beautiful young things enjoying the sunshine and the highlife.

Down at street level the annual Ninth Avenue Food Festival was kicking off - offering a taste of what Hell's Kitchen is cooking as restaurants set up outdoor stalls serving up a gastronomic extravaganza. I found the expected latin accents like Spanish Mexican empanadas and Brazilian feijoada, as well as less well-known cuisines from places as far flung as Ethiopia and the Ukraine, and everywhere in between.

It is all delicious and there is a constant flow of fresh lemonade and pina coladas but the best thing about this festival is the people. A man stops in the middle of the street, puts down his bag and begins to dance with his beer can, the latin music pumping out from the nearest food stall. A crowd gathers to watch. At the end of the song he finishes his gyrations and carries on.

This is just a neighbourhood festival writ large. Not glamorous but genuinely good and positively eccentric. Thousands of regular New Yorkers and visitors mingle and munch their way between 34th and 57th in mid May every year.

The psychedelic madness of Times Square is where thousands of people mill about, dazzled by the neon jungle and seemingly waiting for something to happen that never does. Unless you get groped by the naked cowboy.

But it's easy to leave the thundering traffic-choked avenues and skyscrapers behind and retreat into one of New York's many neighbourhoods. The most famous, and most charming, being Greenwich Village. In Washington Square and Commerce Street you can taste buttoned-up 19th-century New York before reaching for the heights of fashion on Bleecker Street. I was transported to another place altogether by the mountain of frosting on my Magnolia Bakery cupcake.

In Chelsea Market I indulged in another cupcake at Elenis and was forced to rethink my whole wardrobe and lifestyle at Anthropologie (perhaps in New York wardrobe and lifestyle are the same thing). This funky, arty, foodie hangout is all about enhancing community through food and I would place it on my must experience in New York list.

I seem to be talking a lot about food here but surely food and drink make travelling more intensely pleasurable and I found another example of that principle in Chinatown that night. The Peking Duck House on Mott St is possibly the best Chinese restaurant in the world. A chef grasps a crispy duck by the neck and carves away with a large knife at a table in the middle of the room.

On my last day in New York I walked from my hotel through the leafy Upper West Side past the sun-dappled frontages of Brownstones to Central Park and made a beeline for The Boathouse. Having breakfast here amongst the dog-besotted New Yorkers is a quintessential experience.

I chatted to a couple while they were waiting for their order (bagels with eggs, smoked salmon and cream cheese naturally). They come here most mornings and then head off to their "spot" in the park. I headed off to listen to a saxophonist play Michael Jackson on the Bethesda Terrace.

I took some photos of the skyscrapers behind the lake and the trees but really the most appealing sight was all the New Yorkers enjoying a sunny Sunday in the park with their picnics and icecreams.

It was the best kind of New York story, mixing sophisticated glamour with sidelines of real life NYC. From the vertical heights to street level, New York is the place to be.

Natasha von Geldern

For more information on visiting New York see the official guide at the nycgo.com website.

Stay at the Hotel Beacon, an elegant Upper West Side hotel that offers good value in a convenient location in New York City. Click here to read the hotel review.

Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises departs from Pier 83 and is a relaxing and fun way to see the world's most famous skyline. You'll find food, drink and the city's best tour guides on board.

Follow us @travelbite