Where Native New Yorkers, (real, famous and infamous) tell you where to go:

(Selected quotes to go in the boxes Ken designed. There should be space for people to start blogging after each one, to start a dialogue with the site. I've got more if designer thinks there's room enough.)


"My favorite "insider" New York experience is walking down the ramp that spirals around the Guggenheim Museum. It's so wonderful, you feel like skipping."

Craig Kellogg
Architect and writer


"I like Chumley's, the downtown speakeasy. The back street number is "86," which is where the term "86" as in get rid of, get lost, comes from. People used to go out the 86 entrance to avoid the police."

Laura Vogel
Writer and editor


"The best views of Times Square are at the 8th floor bar at the Marriott Hotel. If you go all the way to the revolving restaurant on the top you can't see the street. The bar halfway up has a great street view plus the food is much cheaper. It's where I take all my out of town friends for a taste of "real" New York."

Matthew Link
Editor-at-Large
Out Traveler Magazine

"Nothing is more beautiful than New York in the snow."

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani

"Map or no map, yuh ain't gonna get to know Brooklyn wit no map."

Thomas Wolfe

"In New York you can have anything you want, and in the old days you could too, so that hasn't changed."

Brooke Astor

"Uptown is for people who have already done something. Downtown is where they are doing something now."

Andy Warhol


"Growing up in Spanish Harlem was strange for me. There weren't many Chinese families in the area. But where I lived I was close to the Yorkville area - Germantown. My favorite place to go to have a thotdog was the Papaya King. It was there long before Gray's Papaya existed. Having one of those dogs with mustard and sauerkraut was heavenly, followed by a coconut champagne drink. Whenever I am in the neighborhood, I stop by to get a couple of dogs for old time sake. As their slogan says, "Better than filet mignon."

May Pang, (who first became famous as the "other woman" in John Lennon's life)
Author, musician, Feng Shui jewelry designer
www.maypang.com