The majority of people will head into Manhattan and stay here as this is the part of the city that is most well known as being "New York". This is where you will find Times Square, the Empire State Building, Central Park, MET, Wall Street, Broadway, etc. With the major draws being here this is where most people will want to stay so they can "see" everything that you are expected to see when in New York.
This is also the smallest and most densely populated of the five boroughs so expect to see lots of people, tall sky scrappers close together, and lots of traffic. Within 30 minutes of being in the city I had my first truly New York experience; I was almost hit by a cab while crossing with the light as he was trying to cut through a crowd so he didn't miss the light. I just happened to be the first person in said crowd that he tried to get through.
Manhattan itself in broken down into three main sections that are then broken down even further:
- Upper / Uptown Manhattan: area around Central Park where you can find smaller tourist sites and lots of high society types. This is the place to be seen (and to spend money).
- Upper East Side: east side of central park
- Upper West Side: west side of central park
- Harlem: Top part of Central Park
- East / Spanish Harlem
- Marble Hill: sometimes considered part of the Bronx due to the newer Harlem River Ship Canal which cuts it off from Manhattan
- Inwood
- Washington Height
Lower / Downtown Manhattan: Southern part of Manhattan where you will find Wall Street, Ground Zero, Battery park, and the Brooklyn St Bridge.
- SoHo: South of the Hudson
- Meatpacking District
- West Village
- Greenwich Village
- Little Italy
- Nolita: North of Little Italy
- East Village
- Flatiron District
- Gramercy
- Peter Cooper Village / Stuyvesant Town
- Chelsea
- Union Square
- Tribeca
- Chinatown
Midtown: The middle part where you can find the well known tourist sites like NBC, Empire State building, etc.
- Central Business District
- Fifth Avenue: most expensive real estate in Manhattan
- Broadway Theatre District
- Sixth Avenue: headquarters for multiple US TV networks
- Hell's Kitchen
- some of Chelsea
- Murray hill
- Kips Bay
- Turtle Bay
- some of Gramercy Park
Now I could go into every little nook and cranny of New York and list what everything has to offer but this would be an extremely long post and you wouldn't read half of it. Instead I'll just focus on the general highlights of each area and if demand calls for it then in the future I will break this down into things to do in each area.
