Features > General > Upper West Side Guide
New York's Upper West Side, home of Lincoln Center and Seinfeld alike, is one of the most diverse and exciting neighborhoods in New York City – with sub-neighborhoods from the trendy Lincoln Center district to the off-beat Morningside Heights area around Columbia University. A day's walk can take you from Columbia, up around 110th St, all the way down to the Time Warner Center on 59th (just under three miles) – so wander away!
SEE: If you walk around Central Park West, you can see some of the landmark buildings of the Upper West Side, constructed in typical heavy nineteenth-century architecture. The Dakota Building, site of John Lennon's shooting, is on 72nd St. Visit the American Museum of Natural History on 79th St and Central Park West for an exciting look into science, including enormous dinosaur skeleton reconstructions, and the adjacent Rose Center for Earth and Space is one of the world's best planetariums. St. John the Divine, on 112th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, is one of the largest Neo-Gothic cathedrals in the world: a beautiful and imposing structure. Be sure to eat across the street at the famous Hungarian Pastry Shop.
EAT: The Upper West Side is full of fantastic eateries. In addition to the aforementioned Hungarian Pastry Shops, which sells delicious desserts in an artsy, funky, off-beat setting, you can also eat at Gennaro, on 665 Amsterdam Avenue, a fantastic Italian restaurant with to-die-for risotto.Trattoria dell'Arte, on 57th and 7th, also serves up some of the best antipasti in the city in an interior fillde with – get this – sculpted body parts. Or check out L'Ouest, at 2315 Broadway, for great French food.
DO: Catch a show at one of the cinemas in or around Lincoln Center. Lincoln Square has the big blockbusters,but is worth checking out for its “themed” theatres, which are named and decorated, rather than just numbered. Lincoln Plaza and the Walter Reade are both great for art-house and foreign cinema. But opera, ballet, classical music and theatre are what you came here before – if you can get tickets, go!
By Tara Isabella Burton
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