On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog

(Aka The world outside my house)       

 

Manhattan is without any doubt the most popular borough in New York, so famous that most of the people I know in Italy think it actually is New York. Basically few people know that New York has officially five boroughs, and I can tell you that each one of them is a different city with its characteristics and peculiarities. Sometimes they even have cities in the cities. Citiesception.

I live in one of the best borough of Manhattan, not because I am rich, and I am not, but because I found through friends of friends of friends a nice studio that I pay a reasonable price and I like. I’ll tell you later on how my apartment looks alike, but I can give you a spoiler about it telling you that is one of the cutest shoebox in New York. My borough is calm, relaxed and full of old people that carry around dogs and dogs which carry around old people. I love it, and it’s close to one of my favourite rooftops so even better.

Just close to my borough there is Midtown, the part of the city I know better, the one with Times Square and full of skyscraper to give you an idea. I mean, there are skyscrapers almost everywhere but this part is the business area, together with financial district, that you imagine when you think about New York. I know this area because even I work here and some of my favourite places are here, from bars to restaurants, and is the easiest one to walk in and visit because of the many subways and bus lines.

I will have to visit more Manhattan, I am still a noob of the city as I guess you could spend a life here and still haven’t seen all the places this borough has to offer. Like for example I still have to find my favourite bar, which I consider very important. Actually Jimmy’s Corner in Midtown is a cheap, friendly bar next to Times Square, I recommend it if you don’t want to see tourists asking for tea and you want to breathe New York air. If you like 50’s atmosphere I instead recommend Bill’s Gay Nineties, there is an old man that looks totally like Tony Bennet singing new and old songs with 50s style and it’s wonderful.

For what concern the south part of the Manhattan peninsula I have been in tons of places but I could name a few of them as most of the time we just enter in random bars and have a couple of beer without caring too much about the name or the place. It’s clear that around Washington Square there is a huge amount of bars and places where young students go to forget the pain of a deep study and to celebrate the fact that there are almost no hipsters in this area. They focus on Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, which I will describe later.

East Village, Greenwich Village and West Village are all nice areas, alive, vibrant and full of people. This makes them noisy and even stressing during the week but represent a good alternative at night, especially during weekends where you could have luck with girls in some bars and small drinking holes with small doors. A restaurant are awesome too, one in particular is fascinating and reminds me of my little town in Italy, not Rome but Civita, and is run by a funny and qualified Italian, Mr. Giovanni Bartocci in Via della Pace Restaurant. Sadly I had few occasions to come back there but I will as soon as possible, I will continue my quest around the city in order to complete my borough travel guide and in the mean time I will come back to Mr. Bartocci, who is facing like me a bad moment with his soccer team but doesn’t stop supporting it.

If you go even lower in the city you will get to Soho, Canal Street and all Downtown, which I will describe in another occasion as I am running out of space in this post. And I have to talk about Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Staten Island and the small islands around New York. Or in order to speed things up I can just post the torrent file of my Lonely Planet if you prefer.

(Via della Pace, true faliscan restaurant)