It's Christmas year-round at Panna II, as the walls and ceilings are completely covered with festive string lights. A great restaurant for a group dinner, Panna II offers small sharable plates in a fun and lively atmosphere. It's BYOB with no corkage fee so stop by the liquor store beforehand to pick up all the wine, beer and liquor you can carry.

The Family Store is the best Mediterranean food you can get in New York City. That is all.

Warm winter holiday vibes all year long, especially during the holidays. A hint of the old NYC where one could be a functioning alcoholic by day and artist by night. Proper characters here, the lore is deep.

My second-favorite outdoor-place in Manhattan. The abandoned 1.6 km rail tracks running above Chelsea down to the Meatpacking district were turned into an above-ground park. Perfectly nice place for sitting in the sun, reading, relaxing, having lunch in some green spot in the city. Nice views at the Hudson River, New Jersey, the Statue of Liberty (little small from there but still visible) and the architecture around Chelsea.

The Home Depot is one of the first things I saw when the taxi brought me at the place where I live now in NYC. I am renting a room in an old feather factory, which the owner build into a very cozy loft with rooms, common places and studios over the last 12 years. The Home Depot is a massive construction store, one of the leading ones in the US if you can say something like that about construction stores...You ll find them everywhere in the states as well as in my backyard and you can even follow them on Facebook. In general everybody in Bed Stuy complains about the Home Depot, because the employees are grumpy, lazy and never know anything when you ask them for something.