This is one of my favorite bars in Manhattan. It has a courtyard in the middle and they only serve a large selection of Belgian beer. It's always dark with red lights so it's like a giant darkroom with everyone developing hangovers instead of film. The courtyard creates a front bar that is open on the weekends, so if you get cornered talking about architecture you can escape over to the front bar and watch people walk down 4th street.

Empty, but not abandoned, this cavernous Brooklyn loading dock was once considered the largest individual building in the world.

Mcgolrick Park at midnight in the snow. Any early morning with all the bums and drunks passed out on Nassau Avenue. NYC still looks best between 3am and 6am, just before the light comes in to shine on all its flaws.

The Ear Bar has been in New York longer than any of us. In a city of vacuous fleeting trendy bars the Ear Bar (which is really called the Ear Inn but I've never called it that) is the real deal.

While the current trend in noodles may well be ramen, this bafflingly-named Japanese restaurant just ten minutes from my apartment specialises in udon. Unless you are my friend Diego Zambrano it will probably take you several visits to get through all the things you need to try on the menu - the gyoza are otherworldly, the sushi 'tacos' clever enough without being silly. New York has thousands of awful Japanese places; this is not one of them. It's super nice to come in on a Sunday night and eat at the bar next to curmudgeonly old guys barking at each other in Japanese.