You began playing with your hula-hop during the complacent fifties, became a flower child in the sixties, just kept dancing as a disco king or queen in the seventies and today all you ask for is a tranquil holiday. Well guess what? New York City is your answer.

A great advantage visitors to Manhattan have is the island's small size but to put it bluntly everything is just so big, busy and crowded. But you can still explore without the crowds and utilize your own tempo. While you're here, avoid the usual tourist route, although sometimes you can't resist nor shouldn't; try to add in some of these little gems instead.

If you graduated from a large university, chances are your alma mater has their own alumni club in the city, so you may be able to reminisce with some old friends.

The 92nd Street Y and Tisch Center for the Arts is a world renowned community and cultural center. Offerings cover lectures with guest speakers such as Dr. Madeleine Albright or Alec Baldwin, literary readings, walking tours, dance performances and seminars. Tisch Center produces and presents classical concerts, world, folk, cabaret and jazz music. There are always incredible happenings going on at this Y!
1395 Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street
www.92y.org/

Want to visit a museum and enjoy some art? Then head for the less crowded Whitney Museum with the world's foremost collections of twentieth-century American art. With some 12,000 paintings, sculptures and multi media, you will have your fill.
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street
www.whitney.org/

Instead of the traditional hop on hop off tour buses, try the water taxi instead operating on a set schedule. You can purchase 1 or 2 day passes and covers a lot of ground without getting stuck in traffic. Stopping at Greenwich Village, Battery Park, World Financial Center, Brooklyn Bridge and the South Street Seaport creates a mini tour according to your rhythm. These areas are ideal to sample some of the most interesting neighborhoods and best restaurants NY has to offer with views to go.
www.nywatertaxi.com

The Cloisters is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art far from the maddening crowd and embraces an old monastery overlooking the Hudson River with its surrounding gardens and park land. The collection comprises of medieval European sculpture, tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, goldsmiths' and silversmiths' work, stained glass and enamels. Periodically, concerts are held.
Fort Tryon Park in upper Manhattan
www.metmuseum.org/

Finally, if you're here on a Sunday and have an afternoon to spare, take a stroll in Central Park. It is a charming oasis just as seen in hundreds of photos, paintings and films and once in, you have no idea that you're in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world.

Learn more about this author, Veronica Shine.
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