The Avenues run south to north, starting from Battery Park, where the Hudson and the East Rivers meet. Fifth Avenue divides the town into East and West sides, while Broadway dissects the city on an angle from the East Side, downtown, to the West Side, uptown. With the numbered streets, which cross town from river to river, they form grids, within which are little neighborhoods. So complete is each neighborhood, wrote essayist E.B. White, and so strong the sense of neighborhood, that many a New Yorker spends a lifetime within the confines of an area smaller than a country village. With that in mind, I ve chosen a few special neighborhoods where you can rendezvous for an entire weekend, if not a lifetime, or use them as a homebase from which to experience other parts of town.
Manhattan is one of the best places in the world for dining deux.
This is a city where you can celebrate each chef s personal style within a showcase some call it a stage set inspired and developed, often by or with an entrepreneurial restaurateur. For convenience, each neighborhood is a section in the book, with its own Romantic Retreats and Dining Deux. Because there is so much to do and see wherever you stay in Manhattan, listings for Leisure for Lovers are at the end of the chapter, along with information sources.