People & Places >>

• Best radio-interview-show host
  Brian Lehrer
  Five days a week, from 10 to noon, Brian Lehrer offers intelligent and reasoned discussion on topics that don't always lend themselves to either approach. Police shootings, political brawls, street collapses—all are fair game for Lehrer's deliberative deconstruction on WNYC-AM and FM. He's... More >>
• Best (and cutest) East Village radio DJ
  Timmy G
  Everyone—especially the beauty- hungry listener—is a winner when Timmy G podcasts his musical showdowns (such as June 30's "Cocteau Twins vs. Lush") on commercial-free, Internet-only EVR. We assume it's all in good fun that handsome, young homo Timmy has named his weekly radio show... More >>
• Best reason to stop bitching about how small and noxious your apartment is
  The Lower East Side Tenement Museum
  A century ago—long before trendy bars, overpriced eateries, and bland glass monoliths took possession of the quarter—thousands of mostly recent, mostly Eastern European immigrants crowded the narrow streets of the Lower East Side: scurrying off to whatever work they could get;... More >>
• Best (in fact, only) Louis Sullivan building
  Bayard Building
  Though he didn't invent the skyscraper (that fine distinction belongs to Major William Le Baron Jenney, whose nine-story, steel-framed Home Insurance Building was erected in Chicago in 1885), burly, arrogant, and supremely gifted architect Louis H. Sullivan was the genius behind some of the... More >>
• Best criminally unknown superstar in our midst
  Diamanda Galás
  With a fierce intellect and passion for politics that equal her prodigious talents as a composer/pianist/vocalist, you'd think Greek-American force of nature Diamanda Galás would be well-known by most music lovers here. Though she's given many a sold-out, critically acclaimed performance... More >>
• Best transatlantic reed boat dry-docked near the Hudson
  Abora III
  What's 39 feet long, 13 feet wide, and weighs 10 tons? It's not Michael Bloomberg's ego—it's the Abora III, which spent a few weeks this past summer parked at the midtown area on the Hudson (near the Circle Line). German archaeologist Dominique Görlitz is trying to prove that... More >>
• Best place to get murdered, raped, or robbed in the city
  East New York, Brooklyn
  Year in, year out, East New York, Brooklyn, is the most violent place in the city. And until the city pulls what it did up in Washington Heights and splits the precinct in two, thus halving the statistics, it looks like it will stay that way. Through September 9, the notorious 75th Precinct,... More >>
• Best underappreciated skyscraper
  the original McGraw-Hill Building
  Perhaps it's because it stands on an unappealing stretch of West 42nd Street. Or maybe it's because it looks like a tall green warehouse. Or it could be that people just think it's ugly. Whatever the reason, the original McGraw-Hill Building doesn't earn a lot of kudos when talk turns to the... More >>
• Best New York lawyer not in New York
  Glenn Greenwald
  No question that Glenn Greenwald is the winner—not because he's practicing law, and not because he's not practicing law. Greenwald, now living in Brazil and seen mostly on the Salon site, is one of the best political commentators out there. Unlike most other bloggers, Greenwald practices... More >>
• Best illegal Valentine's Day card sent to a New Yorker
  Matthew Diaz's missive from Guantánamo Bay
  Matthew Diaz's missive from Guantánamo Bay. The recipient of this love-of-liberty card? Barbara Olshansky of the New York–based Center for Constitutional Rights. The sender? Lt. Comdr. Matthew Diaz, who didn't sign it but included a secret 39-page list of captives held by the U.S.... More >>
• Best little house in the Village
  75 12 Bedford Street
  The wildly liberated, ferry-riding, candle-burning literary prodigy and good-time girl Edna St. Vincent Millay lived in this circa-1873 house at 75 1/2 Bedford Street from 1923 to 1924. Nicknamed "the narrowest house in the Village," this nine-and-a-half-foot-wide domicile was originally entered... More >>
• Best old, short street
  Weehawken Street
  There were already people hanging out on Weehawken Street when Henry Hudson arrived in the neighborhood in 1609, but who knows how much they had in common with the gay bears who gather there on Pride Day, or the rowdies to whom the message on a wall plaque—"Help Keep the Beauty of It . . .... More >>
• Best peace tribute
  Marble Collegiate Church
  The thousands of colored streamers tied to the fence around the Marble Collegiate Church have flapped silently since March 2006, when they were placed here as symbolic reminders of the Iraq War and the toll it has taken. Gold ribbons display the names, ranks, and ages of the more than 3,800... More >>
• Best. Law. Ever.
  New York City's Noise Code
  On July 1, Mayor Bloomberg's most delightful legislative measure went into effect, an overhaul of New York City's Noise Code. In addition to welcome regulations limiting construction noise and nightclub decibels, the new law demanded that Mr. Softee trucks must silence their insidious jingle... More >>
• Best noble failure
  It's Still Not a Done Deal
  Recently, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn hosted a literary soiree and fundraiser. The title of the afternoon: It's Still Not a Done Deal. "It" refers to Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards proposal, the multibillion-dollar plan that will transform the abandoned rail yards and neighboring buildings... More >>
• Best underappreciated waterfall that also happens to be a historic site
  Morningside Park's mini-waterfall
  Morningside Park's mini-waterfall is the unintended outcome of a famed 1968 protest. Back then, Columbia University students and Harlem residents got their collective panties in a wad over the school's plan to build a public gym in the historic park, a narrow and steep strip of land that... More >>
• Best place that will cease to exist when Columbia takes over West Harlem
  Hint House Artist Collective
  Columbia University's planned 17-acre expansion will gobble up at least 80 businesses. Some, like the beloved Dinosaur BBQ and world-famous Madame Alexander Doll Company, have agreed to relocate with the university's assistance. But others, like the Hint House Artist Collective, may soon just... More >>
• Best Manhattan neighborhood in Brooklyn
  DUMBO
  Atlantic Yards may yet turn downtown Brooklyn into a soulless new Herald Square, but as of now, the borough's most Manhattanized neighborhood is the 15-square-block area that for several decades has boasted the acronym DUMBO (as in "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass"). Down below Brooklyn... More >>
• Best New England town in the Bronx
  City Island
  If you can't beat 'em. . . . Back before the American Revolution, the natives of the 230-acre rock just off the East Bronx in Long Island Sound gave their turf the imposing name City Island and promoted it as a port that could rival New York's. In 1896, about 135 sleepy years later, the island's... More >>
• Best remnant of old (old) Soho
  Fanelli Café
  The first floor of 94 Prince Street had been used as a saloon for 73 years (and a speakeasy for two) when Michael Fanelli took over the place in 1922. Back before Soho had a name, in the days when Robert Moses planned to turn the entire area into an entrance ramp for his proposed Lower... More >>
• Best place to seek shelter from a rainstorm
  Morgan Library and Museum
  Second only to finding someplace relatively clean to relieve yourself in this city is the great importance of knowing what to do (and where to go) wh en the heavens open and you're nowhere near home. You get what you pay for with those shoddy, self-destructing umbrellas sold by opportunistic... More >>
• Best place to compose a Dear John (or Jane or Jean) letter in palatial grandeur
  Frick Collection
  Like the ABBA song says, "Breaking up is never easy. . . . " But it doesn't have to be utterly dreary, either, so long as you're the one doing the dumping. Of course, it's only polite to destroy someone's life face to face, but that's not always practicable (the poor sod's in another country, or... More >>
• Best equestrian statue
  El Cid
  Though Augustus Saint-Gardens's blazing gold-leafed vision of General William Tecumseh Sherman at Grand Army Plaza (beside the currently shrouded Plaza Hotel) is perhaps the best-known of the city's dozen horsey monuments, socialite-artist Anna Hyatt Huntington's stunning depiction of Spanish... More >>
• Best graveyard
  Rossville Boatyard
  Though the word survivor is often used in a somewhat ironic, self-congratulatory manner by New Yorkers about themselves and each other, this claim is largely aspirational: In fact, New Yorkers have been dropping like those proverbially moribund flies for hundreds of years now—the victims... More >>
• Best place to read about New York history in blissful quiet
  New York Society Library
  Though New York's first free public library was the Astor Library, the mammoth red-brick, faux-Venetian gothic pile on Lafayette that now houses the Public Theater, the city's first circulating library is the still-grand old New York Society Library, which opened its doors to the public in 1754.... More >>
• Best adherent of mosaic law
  Jim Power
  Jim Power must never get tired: Just about every lamppost within his reach winds up getting tiled. You've seen the weathered street artist's work at Astor Place while you're waiting to get run over by taxis and bike messengers. His mosaics—often featuring slogans that stick with... More >>
• Best old-school Greenwich Village restaurant
  Minetta Tavern
  Minetta Tavern is where crazy old Joe Gould bragged to The New Yorker's Joseph Mitchell about the greatest book never written. You can spot Gould's grizzled visage among the scores of black-and-white ink drawings that line the walls of this Village throwback. Former stars of stage, sport,... More >>
• Best old-school Italian joint in the East Village
  John's of 12th Street
  John's of 12th Street, off Second Avenue, could be a contender in a lot of categories: It's got a tasty broccoli rabe, a nice veal chop, a great carbonara. But you come here mostly for that aura—dim lighting, old wooden booths, wisecracking waiters, a massive candle in the back that's been... More >>
• Best old-fashioned labor stem-winder
  Ed Ott
  Great oratory was once part of the sales pitch that trade unionists used to win over the masses. But it's a dying art. Ever hear AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney give a speech? Zzzz. However, New York City Central Labor Council director Ed Ott boasts a set of golden pipes. Ott—whose labor... More >>
• Best bridge anywhere
  Brooklyn Bridge
  It is the best of the best, a free 20-minute walk from one metropolis to another. It offers a perch high above the canyons of Wall Street and the rippling river, with uninterrupted views from the Narrows by Staten Island to New Jersey, from Liberty's statue to the Woolworth Building. And... More >>
• Best Bonnie-and-Clyde duo in City Hall
  Charles Barron and Viola Plummer
  Who needs a bank heist when taxpayers will gladly pay you to jack City Hall? Councilman and diehard Black Panther Charles Barron and his black-radical chief of staff, Viola Plummer, win the award for political gangsta couple of the year. It's no secret that the two are very familiar with... More >>
• Best old-school-decrepit subway station
  Chambers Street J-M-Z stop
  Ah, time machines! That fantasy of H.G. Wells, the dream of eager physicists tinkering all night with their particle accelerators and theories of relativity! But would-be New York time travelers need only a MetroCard to venture into the past. Just mosey downtown and swipe yours through the... More >>
• Best statue of a famous political leader
  statue of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia
  Admittedly, it's pretty tough to capture anyone's essence—let alone that of a feisty and famous mayor—in a bronze figure that's going to be frozen in motion forever. But in a city filled with stiff, Napoleonic-style depictions of the politicians of yore, the statue of Mayor Fiorello... More >>
• Best subway steel drummer
  Jeffrey "Sighting" Antoine
  You needn't be a Christian, a soldier, or even religious to get a little kick in your step when Jeffrey "Sighting" Antoine starts rolling out "Onward Christian Soldiers" on his steel drum as you exit the A or C trains at the Broadway-Nassau station downtown. Nor is there any better way to gird... More >>
• Best ghostbuster
  Artie Matos
  Artie Matos, a 37-year-old Staten Island native, isn't merely a furniture salesman and interior decorator; he's also a paranormal investigator. Since what he calls his first encounter with a ghost, at age 11, Matos has studiously researched the existence of spirits and other unexplained... More >>
• Best urban monk
  Nicholas Vreeland
  At the Tibet Center in Brooklyn, Buddhist monk Nicholas Vreeland jokes that he teaches students "how to integrate the sound of the subway into meditation." You've got to be a great monk to make your stillness heard at the center's new digs in DUMBO, amid the Q trains rumbling overhead on the... More >>
• Best way to enjoy the Brooklyn Promenade
  Blue Pig
  The Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory is a mite too touristy; Häagen-Dazs, too pricey and elitist; and the Tastee Delight on Montague has shut down, depriving us of their 500 flavors that all taste exactly the same. (The culinary equivalent of that "How to Recognize the Moods of an Irish Setter"... More >>
• Best straight-headed ho
  Al Sharpton
  Speaking of hip-hop, the irreverent Reverend Al Sharpton plans to save the sinful generation by washing out the mouths of all entertainers who use the N-word, disrespect women, and applaud violence for mass consumption and profit. Sounds sweet, but does this mean that the work of N-word kings... More >>
• Best albatross
  Bernie Kerik
  Always seeking the limelight, Rudy Giuliani's former prison-guard pal kept popping into the news in 2007, and he didn't even have to seek it out. Bernie Kerik's disastrous stint in Iraq as a supposed trainer of police got mentioned in the late-summer flap between Charles Ferguson, director of... More >>
• Best place to pretend you're in a movie about New York where an important scene plays out in a tiny coffee shop
  Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop
  Tiny, enchanting Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop is almost too perfectly cast in the role of a Manhattan diner—its narrow space clad in artfully distressed Formica and chrome, with a counter (state-of-the-art circa 1930) running almost the entire length. How someone labored to make those... More >>
• Best city councilman to tighten his belt
  Eric Gioia
  Free food and meals are some of the last legitimate perks that city council members are allowed to enjoy, but this past spring, Eric Gioia, a 34-year-old Harvard-educated representative from Long Island City, decided to see what it was like living on the maximum $28-a-week federal... More >>
• Best highway pull-over
  Shore Road pullover
  Should you be in need of a remote, fairly private spot adjacent to a local roadway, the Shore Road pullover on the Belt Parkway is made to order. It is reached off the eastbound lanes of the Belt, just before you hit the Verrazano Bridge exit. There is room for about a dozen cars, though on... More >>
• Best Brooklyn assemblyman who never quits
  Jim Brennan
  The argument for term limits—imposed on city officials by referendum in 1993—is that politicians grow jaded, complacent, and worse the longer they remain in office. There are so many examples of this ailment dwelling in the un-limited state legislature that it's hard to argue against... More >>