Greenwich Village Halloween Parade Photo: Dave Fletcher

There's never a shortage of things going on in New York, but the cultural calendar really heats up in the fall, as New Yorkers who fled the summer heat return to the city and demand to be entertained. Starting in September, a host of eclectic festivals and events highlight the various subcultures of the city and provide a public spectacle to be enjoyed by visitors and locals alike. From an ethnic celebration on the Lower East Side to a test of grit and determination that encompasses all five boroughs, below are my picks for autumn events in the Big Apple.

Posing on Times Square. Photo: Joe Shlabotnik

If I could give visitors to New York only one piece of advice, it would be this: get out of Midtown Manhattan. Don't get me wrong, Midtown has a lot going for it. That's where you'll find the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center. But the thing is, real New Yorkers don't hang out in Midtown unless we have to. We work there every day, in the forest of skyscrapers. But when it's time to shut off the computer and go meet friends for a drink, we instinctively head downtown, where the buildings are shorter, the bars friendlier, and the people that much more interesting. After all, life in New York is divided between work and play, and Midtown represents work, while downtown is all about playing. It's no contest.
Photo: Whatleydude

I feel sorry for the tourists I see walking glassy-eyed through Times Square, thinking it's the heart of the city. It's not. Union Square is the real center of New York, and there's no better jumping-off point for your downtown adventures. You see, Union Square represents the union between uptown and downtown, Broadway and the Bowery, business and pleasure, tight and loose. It's the place where weekends begin, where people meet and embark on wild evenings downtown, amassing tales to tell and secrets to keep. It's a gateway to a fun time in New York, as well as a good place to buy a loaf of bread for dinner. It's a place of possibility and of balance.

Photo: Ed Yourton

Above all, it's a park, with lovely trees, wooden benches where you can sit and read your New York Times, dog runs, playgrounds, a green market, buskers, cops, political activists, poets, a big subway station, and statues of George Washington and Mahatma Gandhi. And it's surrounded on all sides by everything you need in this city. At the northern end is the Barnes & Noble bookstore, useful to visitors for its periodicals, cafe, and public rest rooms. At the northeast corner is the W Union Square hotel. On the west is a string of hip restaurants and shops, ranging from the trendy Coffee Shop and Blue Water Grill to laid back Heartland Brewery and Diesel Jeans.

Photo: K. Coles

Students from the New York Film Academy on the east side are always wandering through the square with cameras, making their masterpieces, while the nearby Daryl Roth Theatre draws big crowds for live performances of the otherworldly musical Fuerzabruta. To the south lie two remarkably large stores that somehow haven't hurt the character of the place: Virgin Megastore - which is open late, so you can drunkenly listen to new music on headphones at their listening booths - and Whole Foods, a pricey organic grocery that's a good spot to buy a premade sandwich if you're saving your dinner budget for martinis later.

Yo Majesty at Irving Plaza. Photo: Gaelenh

And within five minutes walk of Union Square in any direction, the whole city opens up. Looking for something to read? Drop by the Strand on 12th Street, the city's finest old bookstore and the last survivor from the days of Booksellers Row. Thirsty for a beer? Cruise on over to Shades of Green, a comfortable Irish bar on East 15th Street the pours the best pint of Guinness this side of Dublin. Feel the need to rock? See a show at Irving Plaza, a perfect mid-sized performance space that draws some of the best emerging bands in the country. Feel like traveling back in time to Old New York? Bend an elbow at the Old Town Bar & Grill, a neighborhood staple since 1892.

I could go on, but the best part about Union Square is that it just feels good to be there. In fair weather or foul, it's a pleasure to simply sit and watch people from every walk of life pass by, lost in their own New York adventures, just like you.

"Crossing Delancey" Photo: NYdiscovery

Of all the neighborhoods of New York, none is more evocative of the blood, sweat, and tears that built the city than the Lower East Side. It's one of the oldest neighborhoods in Manhattan, having provided a home to millions of lower class African, Italian, Polish, Irish, Ukrainian, German, Jewish, and Latin American immigrants throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Even the name sounds tough. Just hearing the words 'Lower East Side' evokes images of close-knit families, soot-covered laborers, pushcart vendors, overcrowded tenement apartments, and kids playing in the street as dead horses rot in the gutter and bloodthirsty criminals search for their next victim. After all, it was the setting for Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, where gangs like the Five Points, Roach Guards, Dead Rabbits, and Bowery Boys would fight for supremacy in an area that was all but lawless. These were mean streets indeed.

In those days, "crossing Delancey" was a way to say you had succeeded in life, because once a Lower East Side resident crossed Delancey Street and headed north toward the wealthier neighborhoods uptown, they had left their poverty behind for good. These days, however, people cross Delancey in the other direction, as the Lower East Side is now one of the most fashionable parts of the city. A recent afternoon stroll revealed a tantalizing mix of history, culture, and cuisine from what was once one of the most miserable ghettoes in the world.

The author and his son, Zachary

Have you ever dreamed you could fly?  I have. My dreams of flight always have me swooping over the streets of New York, high above the traffic but close enough to the people to appreciate the millions of stories unfolding below me. It's a feeling of freedom and exhilaration, and while it's just a dream for now, I just discovered the next best thing: the High Line.

An Urban Icon Reborn

The High Line is New York's newest city park, and it's a spectacular example of how a disused industrial relic can be transformed into a new urban utopia. It's essentially a floating garden and promenade perched atop a 2.33 kilometer section of an elevated freight railroad line that snakes through the west side of Manhattan from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to 34th Street in Midtown. The park's industrial history dates back to 1934, when the elevated trestle was built to facilitate the flow of freight into the city from Boston, Chicago, and other parts of the country. After nearly fifty years of service, it was abandoned in 1980 and remained vacant for the next two decades, save for the odd vagrant and urban explorer.

In the late 1990's, city officials were considering the enormous task of dismantling the High Line when a couple of visionaries came up with a better idea. Inspired by the many beautiful wildflowers, grasses, and trees that sprouted on the tracks, Robert Hammond and Joshua David started a campaign to turn it into one of the world's most unusual city parks. An unlikely alliance of activists and politicians pulled together to make it happen, and today we've got one of the most interesting new urban parks anywhere in the world.

The first section of the High Line - from Gansevoort to 20th Streets - opened a few weeks ago, and New York has been crazy for it ever since. I visited The High Line for the first time this morning and can tell you it's simply spectacular. Entering via elevator on 16th street, I strolled out to the promenade and was immediately impressed by its seamless integration of form and function. While modern walkways have been installed, patches of the original wildflowers remain along the edges, fed by runoff from the water fountains. Stylish benches and even a row of chaise longues - befitting the fashionable neighborhood - provide a place to relax and take in the beauty of the park, from the colorful plants to the public art to the parade of New York society walking by. True to its name, the High Line is actually quite high up in the air. The views from ten meters above the street are breathtaking, like you're flying above the city, impervious to the chaos below. It's a rare feeling of lightness in a city with plenty of weight to go around.

The Floating Park's Many Faces

The High Line's charms are evident at every turn. In one section near 17th street, the long, dark wooden benches of a sunken amphitheater face picture windows that frame a view of traffic heading up 10th Avenue. Further north, visitors can stare eye-to-eye with iconic billboards featuring a young Shaquille O'Neal, or a scantily clad model advertising Armani Exchange. Art aficionados have several works to study, including a fascinating piece by Spencer Finch called The River That Flows Both Ways. Occupying several large panels along a wall in a shaded tunnel, the artist selected individual pixels from a variety of photographs of the Hudson River, isolated the color from each, blew them up to a massive size, and assembled them into a reordered whole. The result is a kaleidoscope of color reflecting the turbulence of the river and of New York itself. 

From an engineering standpoint, the High Line is a masterpiece of American industrial strength in the early 20th century. Designed to support four fully loaded freight trains three stories above the street, it can certainly support a few thousand New Yorkers strolling on a pretty day. I was personally quite taken with the remnants of the railroad tracks that remain in certain areas, overgrown with flowers, trees, and grasses. From close up, they evoke an image of distant plains and the hardscrabble frontiersmen who scratched out a living in the Old West.

New Perspectives and Inspired Designs

Big afro and the Standard Hotel

The biggest winners are the architecture fans. Not only does the High Line afford spectacular angles on some of the amazing buildings in Chelsea, it provided the inspiration for one of the city's most exciting new hotels as well. The new Standard Hotel straddles the park at 13th Street, and its wavy facade of bluish glass reminds me of the retro-futuristic buildings of the fifties and sixties, an era when jet travel was new and Americans were convinced we'd be living in outer space before long. Built by hotel developer Andre Balazs, the 337-room hotel is at once an extension of the High Line and its architectural counterpart.

I could have spent hours walking up and down the High Line, but eventually it was time to descend back to the real world on street level. After I left, the one idea that I couldn't shake was just how well the park realized - and exceeded - the fantastical architectural renderings I'd seen in the newspaper years ago. It's as if the designer's vision simply leaped off the page and manifested into a fully formed park, perched atop a railroad line that is once again a vital part of New York City.

There's no better time to travel than during a global financial meltdown. Price wars between airlines have led to plummeting ticket prices, and posh hotels are practically giving away their beds. Promotions on all kinds of products – ranging from hot chocolate to haute couture - make it possible for even unemployed bankers to get a taste of the good life. We asked our local bloggers to uncover the best deals, and to tell us about the simple and inexpensive pleasures that can always be found in their cities. With cheap tickets and insider advice, there's no reason why a shrinking economy should stop you from expanding your horizons.

New York

Photo: Tiseb

There's an old joke that it costs twenty dollars just to walk out your front door in New York, and it's funny because it's true. New York has always been an expensive city, and every one of my fifteen years of living here has been marked by a struggle to keep up with the rent, bills, and assorted random expenses that seem to come out of nowhere. It often stresses me out, and during moments of weakness, I sometimes wonder why I do it, but it always comes down to one point: it's worth it.

New York is worth every penny we pay for it. In fact, New York is a bargain. Even during a recession. Especially during a recession. Because while New Yorkers pay through the nose for everything from food to clothing to professional dog-walkers, we get even more for free, just by being here, and the recession helps us appreciate it. As it happens, New York is down right now, making it better than ever.