The most diverse, cosmopolitan city on the planet. The ultimate classroom. A city brimming with resources of every imaginable kind, including leading institutions in culture and commerce, science and medicine, diplomacy and philanthropy. A city of parks and rivers, festivals and parades, neighborhoods and neighbors. Endlessly inventive, fiercely proud, generous and striving and unfailingly bold: a city that welcomes every aspiration, every plan, every possibility.

Nearly every language is spoken and every religion is practiced in New York, the largest city in the United States.

Some things to do

• Visit Central Park with all it has to offer -- catch some rays in Sheep Meadow or jog around the Jackie O. Reservoir.
• Catch the latest musicals and plays on Broadway for free with Columbia’s Urban New York program.
• Feast at the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy.
• Bring your camera to the Coney Island Mermaid Parade.
• See a show at Hammerstein Ballroom or another of the dozens of concert venues
• Grab a hotdog at Gray’s Papaya on 72nd Street.
• Go to the Metropolitan Opera for $25 using your student discount.
• Hear the latest spoken word poetry at the Nuyorican Café in the Lower East Side.
• Enjoy Sunday Dim Sum in Chinatown.
• Eat the famous cheesecake from Veniero’s Pasticceria.
• Fill up on lox and bagels at Ess-a Bagel in the Lower East Side.
• Catch an independent feature at the Angelika and be sure to spend time in the spring at the TriBeCa Film Festival.
• Go to Fashion Week at the tents in Bryant Park.
• Visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art at night for their college parties.
• Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk and grab a slice of Grimaldi’s Pizza and stop by Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory to finish off the night.
• Take the ferry to Staten Island and see a Staten Island Yankees game, or see the pros with $12 bleacher seats at Yankee Stadium.
• Eat all the chocolate you can stomach at the annual Chocolate Show
• See the inflation of balloons at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on the Upper West Side.
• Watch the US Tennis Open in Flushing, Queens.
• Visit the National September 11 Memorial & Museum

Where to go

Some neighborhoods to visit...

• Astoria, Queens
• Chelsea
• Chinatown
• Financial District
• East Village
• Greenwich Village
• Hell’s Kitchen (Clinton)
• Harlem
• Jackson Heights, Queens
• Lower East Side
• Park Slope, Brooklyn
• SoHo (South of Houston)
• TriBeCa (Triangle Below Canal)
• Washington Heights/Inwood
• Williamsburg, Brooklyn
  

…and a few places to see

• American Museum of Natural History
• Apollo Theater
• Brooklyn Bridge
• The Bronx Zoo
• Central Park
• Ellis Island
• Frick Collection
• The Guggenheim Museum
• Lincoln Center
• Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Museum of Modern Art
• New York Botanical Gardens
• New York Stock Exchange
• Rockefeller Center
• United Nations
• Whitney Museum of American Art
• Yankee Stadium

Hidden treasures

A sampling of places to eat:

• Amy Ruth’s Home-Style for great southern soul dishes, is on 116th and Lenox, but you may also run into it on campus as student groups often order it for events.
• Azuri Cafe is a no frills Middle Eastern food stop in Hell’s Kitchen, and worth the wait for schwarma and falafel.
• Bon Chon Chicken serves up a Korean version of fried chicken.
• Boqueria is a Catalonian-inspired Spanish tapas restaurant in the heart of Chelsea.
• Doughnut Plant is a dream come true for dessert fans.
• FROG will exercise your palate in this chic bistro that mixes Vietnamese and Moroccan flavors with traditional French classics.
• La Palapa is an affordable and intimate introduction to classic Mexican flavors with a New York twist.
• Sevilla is found along the small streets of the West Village, offering up fantastic Spanish cuisine with a specialty in paella.
• Mamajuana Café in Inwood brings Caribbean and Latin American flavors to life, with live flamenco dancing.
• Mooncake Foods is small enough to miss, but good enough to keep you coming back with their use of Pan-Asian flavors.
• Taboon brings gourmet Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine to the excessively trendy Hell's Kitchen.

A sampling of museums and stores to visit:

• The Cloisters Museum showcases Medieval European Art and Architecture in Fort Tryon Park, near Columbia’s Baker Field.
• Find Outlet serves up haute couture without haute prices.
• 5 Pointz in Queens is a park where graffiti is legal and the art is top rate as New York’s best artists test out their skills.
• La Marqueta Farmers Market in Spanish Harlem offers a variety of Latino food.
• rePop is a thrift seekers dream, offering great catches at great prices in this Clinton Hill, Brooklyn find.
• Sabon serves up an array of Israeli inspired soaps (including free samples) in multiple locations like SoHo and the Upper West Side.
• SoundFix Records in Brooklyn still has great LPs and brand new CDs in their collection.