This is the view from the Manhattan Bridge of the Fulton Ferry Park, a pretty popular destination being between the Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridges, which still has the old waterfront tobacco warehouses. It’s changed a bit being made more of a “finished” park with a kind of beach etc, and has also been a regular spot for outdoor music shows, one for me being the memorable 7-7-7 Boadrum orchestrated by the Boredoms.

The operators of the Peter Pan bakery make the best donuts I've ever tasted. This place is charming to its core. Decor and presentation: circa 1971 & virtually unchanged since.

My favorite place on Bedford Avenue, this bookstore has both new and used titles. If you're patient and look close enough, you can usually find a book that's worth more than they're asking. Not to mention their stellar selection of magazine titles. Good for design, art, photography, sociology, fiction, and everything in between.

My favorite Japanese restaurant in NY...Small and cozy place, the staff is great, the food always simple and delicious, the uni shots are addictive and the sake perfect.

When I first moved to New York, enamoured by its parks and museums and design firms and restaurants and bars, I never imagined that there could be much more to its geography than that. How wrong I was. My first drive across the George Washington Bridge was jaw-dropping - the cliffs of New Jersey are astonishingly tall, covered in a dense thicket of trees. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. Drive up 87 to the Catskills or the Adirondacks and you'll witness the Hudson River winding its way through spectacular scenery and unforgiving seasons. Now I can't get enough; just two hours up the road, it's like the city never existed. Perfect recuperation after a long week.