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Manhattan

Photo Credit: Joseph Pobereskin/NYC & Company, Inc.

Once home to the Canarsie Indians, Manhattan started its journey toward being America’s favorite borough in 1626, when Peter Minuit bought it for a mere $24 worth of baubles. Today, Manhattan not only is a major tourist destination, it also contains some of the toniest addresses in the world. Its upscale neighborhoods combine excellent restaurants and shopping, beautiful parks and landmarks, and classic architecture to create an ambience seldom equaled elsewhere.

But even the less-than-affluent Manhattan neighborhoods have their own style and flair. And many of these neighborhoods, such as Harlem, the Lower East Side, and Inwood, are in the process of gentrifying. It’s projected that soon even these areas will be affordable only for the wealthy. Thankfully, for the time being there are still accessible neighborhoods, each with unique appeal.

Manhattanites are justifiably proud of their neighborhoods. In many New York City circles, people are thought to be defined by where they live. So great is this status consciousness, it even extends to the neighborhood names. Manhattan dwellers (or at least, their real estate agents) are great at creating catchy acronyms that describe actual locations and bring a certain cachet. SoHo (“South of Houston Street”) and Tribeca (“Triangle Below Canal Street”) were the first areas to adopt nicknames. NoHo (“North of Houston Street”) and NoLita (“North of Little Italy”) came later. And now that Manhattan established the trend, Brooklyn is getting in on the act. Its relatively new DUMBO (“Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass”) neighborhood has added humor to the list of reasons to use an acronym as a neighborhood name.

Manhattan’s neighborhoods include:

Chelsea | Gramercy Park | Greenwich Village | Harlem | Lower East Side
Lower Manhattan | Midtown | Times Square/Theatre District
Roosevelt Island | SoHo | Washington Heights | Morningside Heights
Inwood | Upper East Side | Upper West Side