Founded and designed by Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988), The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum preserves the working atmosphere of the artist's former studio in New York.

Strand is a castle of books. It claims 2.5 million new and used books, across 18 miles of shelves, cared for by 200 employees—so set aside a couple of hours. Plenty of art books and good prices. Get your healthy huff of that old book smell.

The Chelsea Market is filled with great restaurants and speciality food stores and pop up shops. I love stopping in and getting a gourmet grilled cheese from Lucy's Whey or a healthy juice from raw food restaurant One Lucky Duck, while shopping for dinner ingredients at the Italian market Buon Italia. For a great sit down restaurant, I love The Green Table, which serves great farm to table food.

Only a 40-minute subway ride from my apartment and a world unto itself, Coney Island is always a new experience and like seaside weather, it’s always different. I stumbled upon this kite festival one grey fall afternoon. Other visits have yielded dance parties on the boardwalk, roller coaster rides, shandies in plastic cups on the beach, a trip to "Little Odessa", and a myriad of interesting characters and experiences.

Dumbo, which stands for 'Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass,' is a neat neighborhood in Brooklyn that is at an awesome vantage point of Manhattan. There are cool rocks on the shore of Brooklyn Bridge Park that are fun to relax on and sneak alcoholic beverages.