Shape-Up on Bedford

Around 7:30 a.m., the men gather in the chilling December air at the corner of South 5th Street and Bedford Avenue, next to the Williamsburg Bridge overpass, as they do every morning. There are about 30 of them, ranging in age from twentysomething to early fifties. Some stand alone; others cluster in small groups, chatting, making jokes. But everyone keeps an eye on the street, watching the cars, vans, and pickup trucks that pass by -- and waiting for the occasional vehicle that slows down. Read more [...]

Dr. Valentin Fuster: “I Want to Be On the Frontline”

Dr. Valentin Fuster’s workday begins at 5:00 am – but for the first fifteen minutes, he does absolutely nothing except think about the hours ahead of him. “Basically I program the day in terms of priorities,” he says, “to be sure that when I start, I know exactly where I am.” Read more [...]

The New B&Bs: Low-Cost Lodging for the Price-Conscious Traveler

Say you’re a New Yorker whose friends or relatives from outside the U.S. are planning to visit. You’d love to put them up in your Manhattan apartment, but unfortunately, like many Manhattanites you barely have enough space for your own family. Read more [...]

Who Owns an Icon?

In his novel The Ghost Writer, Philip Roth observed that if the Jewish religion had saints, Anne Frank would have been canonized. More than fifty years after she perished in the Bergen-Belsen death camp, the teenaged girl has taken on a symbolism beyond the facts of her short life and the diary of her two years in hiding. Read more [...]

In Mid-Manhattan, Culture and Cuisine All’Italia

It’s easy to feel a bit disoriented when entering Eataly for the first time. Not just because of the crowds, which are plentiful at most hours of the day, or the noise, which is on the level of a Times Square subway station at rush hour. It’s the fact that Eataly is not a place that can be easily categorized. Part market, part tourist attraction, part festival – it really doesn’t resemble any venue typically found in New York, or for that matter in the U.S. Read more [...]