The New York travel guide

New York runs on three pillars: Broadway, an iconic Manhattan skyline that sells itself, and a museum collection that holds three of the world's top ten institutions on a single 60-block stretch of Fifth Avenue. The headline draws cluster across two zones. Lower Manhattan: the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the 9/11 Memorial, the Brooklyn Bridge walkway. Midtown: Times Square, the Empire State Building, Top of the Rock, Rockefeller Center, MoMA, Central Park's southern edge. Most first-time visitors give Manhattan three days, then split the rest between Brooklyn (DUMBO, Williamsburg) and one of the long-distance day trips.

Broadway is the sister category to London's West End and the brand-defining tickadoo bucket on this side of the Atlantic. Forty-one venues run between Times Square and the West 40s, with long-running musicals (The Lion King at the Minskoff, Wicked at the Gershwin, Hamilton at the Richard Rodgers, Chicago at the Ambassador, MJ at the Neil Simon, The Book of Mormon at the Eugene O'Neill, & Juliet at the Stephen Sondheim) alongside a rotating slate of plays at the Hudson, the Belasco, Studio 54 and the Lincoln Center Theater complex. TKTS Times Square sells day-of half-price tickets from 11:00 daily for matinees, 15:00 for evenings; standby and SRO seats vary by show. Most musicals run 8 performances a week (Tuesday through Sunday, no Mondays).