Beyond Manhattan: The highlights of New York most visitors miss

Sydney Morning Herald

11-06-2025

There was a time when Manhattan-dwellers wouldn't deign to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, but those days are long gone, as are the cheap rents that originally fostered the artists and musicians who made this borough a byword for hip the world over.
It has become a parody, too: quinoa milk lattes, tattoo parlours on every block, and unwanted innovations such as rainbow bagels and bars inside barbershops.
But there was a Brooklyn long before any of this, and a Brooklyn that lies beyond the reaches of gentrification still. It is reductive, in fact, to talk about Brooklyn as a whole – if it were a city, it would be the third most populous in the US and each Brooklyn neighbourhood has its own distinct vibe and calling card.
Each neighbourhood within Brooklyn has its own atmosphere. Williamsburg and Greenpoint are well-trodden by tourists, the first neighbourhoods to gentrify and still generating some of the city's hottest dining destinations – just try to get a table at Cantonese American spot Bonnie's (bonniesbrooklyn.com).
But the red brick artist lofts and gritty dives that once gave it character have given way to luxury condos and pricey cocktails, and it can feel like a hipster Disneyland.
Further south, Fort Greene hits that sweet spot between harbouring genuine local culture and excellent fodder for any visitor.
Catch a show at Brooklyn Academy of Music (bam.org), then stroll along DeKalb Avenue to find dinner – the eagerly awaited Saraghina Caffe (saraghinacaffe.com) just opened there – finishing at nearby Vanderbilt Avenue (prospectheightsplaces.com) for one of the city's best Open Streets.
From here, it is a short stroll to Prospect Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux of Central Park fame. At weekends, the borough's de facto backyard is a ruckus of runners, cyclists, competing barbecues and birdwatchers, weddings and quinceanera birthday celebrations.
On its north side, the Brooklyn Museum (brooklynmuseum.org) is at the forefront of culture, and the bandstand hosts the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival (prospectpark.org). In the evenings, fireflies dart between picnicking attendees while music plays.
But go deeper into Brooklyn still. To Gowanus, where the clean-up of its notoriously polluted canal continues (you can now take sunset canoe rides, bookable at gowanuscanal.org), ushering in a new era of development around clusters of great spots: Threes Brewing (threesbrewing.com) for craft beer; Insa (insabrooklyn.com) for Korean barbecue and karaoke; and the charming old-world Jalopy Theatre (jalopytheatre.org) for folk music.
Further south, Green-Wood Cemetery (green-wood.com) offers tours of its 194 hectares of ostentatious mausoleums and notable internees, such as artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and composer Leonard Bernstein. It has evolved into a cultural destination for the living, with outdoor movie screenings and pop-up performances.
End a visit on the waterfront in Red Hook, with a shrimp basket and sunset views at Brooklyn Crab (brooklyncrab.com).
Essentials
Brooklyn is well serviced by multiple subway lines (J, M, Z, F, B, D, N, Q, A, C, 2, 3, R, 4, 5, G), plus buses and the NYC Ferry (ferry.nyc) The Ace Brooklyn (acehotel.com) offers double rooms from about $A323 a night (excluding taxes).
The Bronx
Visitors come to the Bronx for its three main attractions: Yankee Stadium (try to catch the New York Yankees on their home turf; (mlb.com); the Bronx Zoo, which is as vast as it is impressive (bronxzoo.com); and the New York Botanical Garden, the country's largest with a million plants and a gorgeous Victorian-style glasshouse (nybg.org).
The latter two are adjacent to Arthur Avenue, far and wide considered the real Little Italy (Mario's Restaurant is the stuff of red sauce legend).
All of these are worth the ride and could fill a three-day itinerary on their own.
Affluent 19th-century New York families built their summer houses amid the greenery of the northwest Bronx, and many remain standing today.
The 18th-century Van Cortlandt House has been restored as a museum, and its surrounding land is now the 464 hectare Van Cortlandt Park. Nearby, Wave Hill (wavehill.org) was a private estate visited by Charles Darwin, Mark Twain, and Theodore Roosevelt, but is now a serene public garden, looking out over the Hudson River.
There are also unexpected architectural gems, such as the historic district of the Grand Concourse, originally modelled on the Champs-Elysees, or the Bronx Community College, a National Historic Landmark designed by Stanford White. Once a Roman-style aqueduct, the High Bridge (nycgovparks.org) has been restored and reopened as a footbridge connecting Washington Heights in Manhattan and the Bronx.
And it has its own quaint seaside escape; City Island is a fishing community, packed with seafood restaurants, local galleries and boat culture.
But none of that gets to the heart of what the Bronx is about: vibrant, tight-knit and eclectic, as exemplified by the emerging neighbourhood of Mott Haven. With easy access to Manhattan, this previously industrial hood has been slowly, quietly burgeoning with hip dining spots like Bricks & Hops (bricksandhops.com) and Beatstro (beatstro.com) drawing the crowds.
Other local businesses to check out include indie bookstore and wine bar the Lit Bar (thelitbar.com); Bronx Native (bronxnativeshop.com), a clothing line in homage to the designers' home turf; and Mottley Kitchen (mottleykitchen.com), a cafe with rooftop yoga and fresh juices.
Essentials
Take the 1, 2, 5, B, or D subway lines north to reach the Bronx, or the Metro-North commuter train from Grand Central station. Wingate by Wyndham (wyndhamhotels.com) offers double rooms from about $US135 a night (excluding taxes).
Queens
Some of the best views of the Manhattan skyline are from the Gantry Plaza State Park (parks.ny.gov) in Long Island City. But it would be a disservice to this borough to use it solely as a vantage point to its glitzier neighbour.
Queens is one of the most ethnically diverse boroughs in the US, with more languages spoken here than anywhere else on the planet.
This diversity breeds a wildly rich food culture with more than 3000 restaurants representing at least 120 nationalities. If nothing else, come here to eat your way around the world.
Corona is famed for its Latin American kitchens; Elmhurst veers more pan Asian; and Jackson Heights is the go-to for Indian, Mexican, Nepali and more. Queens' own Chinatown, Flushing, is the largest outside Asia. The New World Mall food court (newworldmallny.com) is the go-to for affordable and diverse Chinese cuisine. Tangram Mall food court is terrific, featuring many popular Queens food vendors (retail.tangramnyc.com).
If navigating between momos and chivitos is overwhelming, Culinary Backstreets (culinarybackstreets.com) offers a foodie walking tour of Queens to help you find that hole-in-the-wall Thai eatery you may otherwise overlook. Another way to taste it all is to head to Queens Night Market (queensnightmarket.com) in Flushing Meadows' Corona Park on a Saturday.
Down in the leafy residential neighbourhood of Ridgewood, gentrification has started to cross the border from Brooklyn's Bushwick. Multipurpose arts venue Nowadays (nowadays.nyc), with its massive outside space and dance parties, has a lot to do with the changes.
Venues such as Rolo's (rolosnyc.com) and Pizzeria Panina (instagram.com/pizzeriapanina), both helmed by impressive hospitality talent, have set out to create long-standing neighbourhood restaurants rather than flash-in-the-pan successes.
But Queens is more than its food (or, at least, in between eating, there is plenty to entertain). The contemporary arts institution MoMA PS1 (momaps1.org) is certainly responsible in part for heralding a new era in Long Island City, such was its impact.
In Astoria, the Museum of the Moving Image (movingimage.us), with its permanent Jim Henson Exhibition, is an immersive audiovisual experience too often overlooked.
Queens stretches all the way down to the Rockaways, a 17-kilometre peninsula of sandy beaches merely an A-train ride from the city.
Devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the revitalised Rockaways now boasts cute beachy boutiques such as the Swellife (theswellife.com) and popular eateries like Tacoway Beach (tacowaybeach.com).
Essentials
The 7 subway train traverses most of Queens; for the Rockaways, take the Far Rockaway-bound A train or the Rockaway Park-bound shuttle. The Rockaway Hotel and Spa (therockawayhotel.com) offers double rooms from $US290 a night (excluding taxes).
Staten Island
It's a classic New York City tourist hack to ride the Staten Island Ferry instead of coughing up for a boat trip to visit the Statue of Liberty. After all, the ferry is free, beer is served on board and it glides right past Lady Liberty herself. Yet many visitors make a U-turn and head straight back.
Staten Island has an entrenched outsider status – they did vote to secede from New York City in 1993 – and is closer geographically and culturally to New Jersey. Nicknamed "the forgotten borough".
With a population just shy of 500,000, Staten Island is the least populated of the boroughs, but also the greenest, with a 1133-hectare greenbelt cutting across its centre and flocks of wild turkeys.
Freshkills Park (freshkillspark.org) is an unlikely ecological success story, replacing what was formerly the world's largest landfill.
The attractions are fewer than those of her sister boroughs, but nonetheless intriguing – such as the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art (tibetanmuseum.org), the largest collection outside Tibet, so groundbreaking that the Dalai Lama visited in 1991.
Another example is the Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden (snug-harbor.org), which comprises 14 botanical gardens, three museums (the Staten Island Museum is a great place to get some historical bearings), two art galleries and an urban farm which supplies restaurants across the city.
Visit the South Shore's Conference House where Revolutionary War peace talks were held, or the Historic Richmond Town (historicrichmondtown.org), home to 40 restored properties on the site of a 17th-century village, including the Dutch-style Voorlezer's House, the nation's oldest schoolhouse.
St George offers a cluster of good dining options like Enoteca Maria (enotecamaria.com), which has grandmas from around the world cooking up a storm and acclaimed beer outlet Clinton Hall (clintonhallny.com).
The Flagship Brewing Company (flagshipbrewery.nyc) launched in 2014 and brought new energy to the area; order an award-winning IPA and have a pizza delivered to the bar from nearby Pier 76 (pier76si.com). The prize for best pizza is keenly contested, thanks to the borough's Italian roots, but Joe & Pat's (joeandpatsny.com) usually takes the title.
Essentials
The Staten Island Ferry runs every 15 to 20 minutes from the Whitehall Ferry Terminal in Manhattan; tickets are free and the trip takes about 25 minutes. Fairfield Inn & Suites New York Staten Island (marriott.com) offers double rooms from about $A234 a night
…And if you must take Manhattan
Manhattan comprises six islands in total, plus a small section of the mainland, called Marble Hill, usually assumed to be the Bronx.
If you feel you have seen it all, try visiting the other islands. Governors Island (govisland.com), just minutes from Lower Manhattan by ferry, has been transformed over the past decade and is now packed with art, educational centres and some beautifully restored historic buildings.
There is also an array of wellness experiences at QC NY spa (qcny.com) and good things to eat at the beautifully designed Island Oyster (crewny.fun), which has views of Manhattan from the outdoor bar. The almost 70-hectare island is car-free; hire a bike and explore at leisure.
Roosevelt Island's first hotel, the 224-room Graduate (graduatehotels.com), on the campus of Cornell Tech, is spectacular, with a chic rooftop bar and dining room in anticipation of more visitors arriving on the aerial Roosevelt Island Tramway.
As well as the lesser-known parts of Manhattan, there are also new attractions for a return visitor. Little Island (littleisland.org), near the Meatpacking District, is an extravagant floating park, free to visit and offering an amphitheatre with live performances, food stalls and landscaped gardens.
Summit One Vanderbilt (summitov.com) is a sky-high viewing experience, this one including a dizzying 42-second ride in a light and mirror-lined lift.
The Museum of Broadway (themuseumofbroadway.com) in Times Square offers an in-depth lesson on Broadway's history and a fascinating look at what it takes to make the on-stage magic happen.