New York

Planning Manhattan in bands, one stretch per day

Plan this city in horizontal bands. Manhattan is long and thin, its main subway lines run up and down it, and crosstown traffic in Midtown is so slow that buses and cabs often lose to people on foot. Give each day one stretch of the island (or one borough) and walk within it.

• Three days: begin at the southern tip with the 9/11 Memorial and Wall Street, ride the free Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty, then cross the Brooklyn Bridge on foot to DUMBO. Day two belongs to Midtown, with Rockefeller Center by day and a Broadway curtain at night. On day three, work through Central Park with the Met on its east flank and the American Museum of Natural History on the west.
• Five days: add Harlem and a slow afternoon in Greenwich Village, then a Brooklyn day in Williamsburg, staying on for its bars after dark.
• A week: take the subway out to Queens for Flushing and Jackson Heights, or to Coney Island for the boardwalk and a coal-oven pie at Totonno's. Philadelphia makes a good rail day trip from Penn Station.

Reserve rooms early. Hotels here fill all year, and for the busy autumn and December weeks a booking months ahead is sensible. Popular Broadway musicals sell out too, though discount outlets release cheaper seats for many shows on the day.

Some queues are optional. The Empire State Building stays open until 2AM and is far calmer late at night. The Guggenheim is one of the few museums open on Mondays, so that is the day to avoid it. Bus tours all follow the same circuit. Reverse it (downtown first, Midtown after lunch) to dodge most of the lines.

Collect a rental car only when you leave town; flights to Chicago and Miami leave from all three airports.

Late spring, heavy summers and the best walking months

Spring comes late, then all at once. May, June, September and October are the months for walking from breakfast to dinner without suffering.

High summer is heavy. Midsummer afternoons sit near 29°C with nights around 21°C, and the pavement and towers keep the heat in after dark, so the city stays warmer at night than the suburbs around it. Subway platforms can be hotter than the street, although the trains themselves are air-conditioned. The upside is a calendar of free outdoor concerts and events.

Rain is spread through the year, between roughly 81 and 117 mm every month, so pack a small umbrella whatever the season.

Winter is cold and damp. January highs sit around 4°C, and snow falls most years: the long-term average is 29.8 inches (76 cm) a season, with big swings from one winter to the next. December is the most crowded and most expensive month. The Rockefeller Center tree draws huge crowds to Midtown, as do the department-store windows. Thanksgiving week is busy too: the Thanksgiving Day Parade runs on the fourth Thursday of November.

For value, aim for January to March, usually the cheapest time for hotels, and put up with the chill. Theatre lovers might target early June, the climax of the Broadway season with the Tony Awards.

The folded slice at Joe's and other New York staples

Start with the slice. A proper New York pizza is plain cheese on a thin crust, eaten standing up and folded lengthwise so the grease stays put. Joe's in Greenwich Village is the benchmark corner shop. For a sit-down pie from a coal oven, Lombardi's in Little Italy claims to be the oldest in town, while purists head to Patsy's in East Harlem and order it with no toppings at all. In Brooklyn the locals stay loyal to Totonno's on Coney Island and Di Fara's in Midwood.

Jewish immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe gave the city its bagels, knishes, cheesecake and delicatessens. Order pastrami or corned beef piled on rye at a classic deli and expect enough for two. Street carts sell the all-beef hot dog that locals call a "dirty water dog", and the halal carts of Midtown dish up rice with meat for one of the cheapest full meals in Manhattan.

Queens is where the range of the city shows. Jackson Heights and Flushing have whole streets of Latin American and Asian cooking, and the Queens Night Market in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park gathers food from more than 85 countries.

Look for the letter grade in restaurant windows; the health department awards it after each inspection. Bars can pour until 4AM. Wine and spirits are sold only in liquor stores; delis and supermarkets cannot stock them.

Pace matters on the pavement. If you need to check a map or take a photo, step to the side first. Waiting your turn is called standing "on line" here, and the people in it expect you to keep up.