New York without Times Square: where New Yorkers actually go
Times Square is for the airport bus. The five-borough city — the one that takes a year to learn — is built out of small streets, smaller cafés and a thousand independent restaurants Midtown will never tell you about.
First-time New York advice is mostly a list of things to put up with: the queue at Joe’s Pizza, the queue at Levain, the queue for the Brooklyn Bridge. They’re fine; they’re also where the city stops being itself. The other New York — the one with the cafés people walk to before work, the natural-wine bar a couple blocks off Smith Street, the bookshop in a basement in Boerum Hill — is one or two trains away in every direction.
Coffee — Lower East, Brooklyn, Long Island City
Sey Coffee (Bushwick) still pours the most interesting filter in the city; you’ll wait but not long. Devoción (Williamsburg) is the photogenic one with seats. Abraço (East Village) has been there since before third-wave was a phrase and still does it best. In LIC, COFFEED and Sweetleaf are the easy Tuesday-morning stops. In Manhattan: Felix Roasting Co. for the room, Bluestone Lane for the predictable green-juice option, Variety in Williamsburg for the pour you remember.
Dinner — Cobble Hill, the Lower East, Crown Heights
Reserve Cervo’s (Lower East Side) for the Portuguese seafood. Try Win Son (East Williamsburg) for Taiwanese-American small plates that defined a decade. Faun (Prospect Heights) does the neighbourhood-Italian thing better than anywhere in Manhattan. Le Crocodile (Williamsburg) is a Williamsburg-Hotel-Wythe restaurant that doesn’t feel like one.
Records, bookshops, the slow Sunday
Academy Records (Williamsburg & East Village) for jazz and used classical. Rough Trade has moved but still works. Books are Magic (Cobble Hill / Carroll Gardens) is the neighbourhood bookshop everyone wishes their neighbourhood had. McNally Jackson (Nolita / Williamsburg / Seaport) covers the rest. For vintage: Beacon’s Closet (multiple), Procell (LES), and Awoke Vintage in Greenpoint.
Skip Times Square. Take the L to Bedford or the G to Carroll, walk two blocks in any direction, and start there.
Take it with you
The full Pin Reef New York volume covers all of the above plus 1,500 more — independent cafés, restaurants, galleries, record shops, bookshops and bakeries across all five boroughs, every pin placed by a person, no chains. Drop the Google My Maps file into your phone and the city opens with Midtown already optional.