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To the west, SoHo is one of the premier districts for galleries
and the commercial art scene. Continuing north, the West and
East Villages form a focus of bars, restaurants, and shops catering
to students and tourists. Chelsea is a largely residential neighborhood
that is now mostly known for its gay scene and art galleries
that borders on Manhattan's old Garment District. Murray Hill
contains the city's largest skyscraper and most enduring symbol,
the Empire State Building.
Beyond 42nd Street, the main east-west artery of midtown, the
skyline becomes more high-rise and home to some of New York's
most awe-inspiring architecture. There are also some superb
museums and the city's best shopping as you work your way north
up Fifth Avenue as far as 59th Street. Here, the classic Manhattan
vistas are broken by the broad expanse of Central Park, a supreme
piece of nineteenth-century
landscaping. Flanking the park, the mostly residential Upper
West Side boasts Lincoln Center, the American Museum of Natural
History, and Riverside Park along the Hudson River.
On the other side of the park, the Upper East Side is wealthier
with its nineteenth-century millionaires' mansions now transformed
into a string of magnificent museums known as the "Museum
Mile," the most prominent being the Metropolitan Museum
of Art. Alongside, is a residential neighborhood and a nest
of designer shopping along Madison Avenue. Above Central Park,
Harlem, the historic black city-within-a-city, has a healthy
sense of an improving go-ahead community; a jaunt further north
is most likely required only to see the unusual Cloisters, a
nineteenth-century mock-up
of a medieval monastery, packed with great European Romanesque
and Gothic art.
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