Where to stay in New York City

Brooklyn's creative core: Williamsburg has the best brunch scene in the city (Peter Luger Steakhouse, Egg, Diner), the Brooklyn Brewery, and the waterfront park with the finest Manhattan skyline view outside a helicopter. Bushwick just east has the most extensive street art mural program in the US — an open-air gallery along the Jefferson L train stop.

The Upper West Side flanks Central Park on the west: the American Museum of Natural History (the blue whale ceiling), the best delis in the city (Zabar's, Barney Greengrass), and apartment buildings where Seinfeld was set. Continue north: Harlem has the Apollo Theater, Sylvia's for soul food, and the most historically significant jazz clubs in the world — Minton's, the Cotton Club revival, Ginny's Supper Club.

The most ethnically diverse urban area in the world — over 160 languages spoken in Jackson Heights alone. Flushing's Chinatown is larger and more authentic than Manhattan's. The New World Mall food court has the best dim sum outside Hong Kong. Jackson Heights has superb Indian, Bangladeshi, Nepali, Colombian, and Ecuadorian food at neighborhood prices. The subway gets you here for $2.90.

The Manhattan everyone has seen: Times Square (go once, quickly), the Empire State Building, Grand Central Terminal (magnificent and free to enter), the High Line, Chelsea Market, and the MoMA. Not where New Yorkers spend time, but where the landmarks are. The High Line — a decommissioned elevated railway turned park — is the best free walk in New York.

The oldest part of New York: the 9/11 Memorial (free, moving, essential), the Oculus transit hub (a $4 billion Calatrava building worth seeing for free), Wall Street, and the free Staten Island Ferry to the Statue of Liberty. Cross the Brooklyn Bridge on foot (30 minutes) to DUMBO — the most photogenic alley in New York is the corner of Washington and Water Streets with the Manhattan Bridge framed perfectly.

The West Village is where New York looks like the movies: Federal-style brownstones, wisteria in spring, the best wine bars in the city, and more Sex and the City filming locations than anywhere. SoHo just east has the greatest concentration of cast-iron architecture in the world and the highest-end boutique shopping outside Fifth Avenue. Spring Street is the spine.