Authentic New York Photos

Photograph by John Kernick

From the deck of the Staten Island Ferry, the Statue of Liberty still stands stoically on Liberty Island, and the sight is much the same "as an immigrant might have seen her for the first time," says New Yorker James Sanders. Plus, the ferry ride offers a glimmer of urban respite for city-weary visitors and residents. "You can actually feel the heat drop as you pull away from the machine that is the city," Sanders adds.

Read more about "Authentic New York" in the April 2008 issue of National Geographic Traveler.

Photograph by John Kernick

Village Voice dining critic Robert Sietsema suggests Keens Steakhouse for a dose of New York history. The restaurant opened in 1885 as a gentlemen-only supper club where regular patrons would stow their thin-stemmed clay pipes (called churchwardens), then in vogue and too fragile to be transported. Members of the "pipe club" got a card with a unique pipe number, used for retrieving each man's pipe from the storage room. Once the storage room filled, Keens began hanging the clay pipes on the walls and ceilings, where they are still visible today.

Read more about "Authentic New York" in the April 2008 issue of National Geographic Traveler.

Photograph by John Kernick

The driver of a traditional hansom cab steers his charge around Central Park, the 843-acre (341-hectare) landmark green space—not to mention the country's first landscaped public park—in Uptown Manhattan. His antique carriage harkens back to turn-of-the-20th-century New York, which had up to 4,000 such carriages in service. These days, the horse-and-buggy ride appeals mostly to tourists and romantics looking to amble through Central Park in style. "The park has been restored, and beautifully, to its 19th-century glory," says local James Sanders. "More than ever it's the great American democratic public space."

Read more about "Authentic New York" in the April 2008 issue of National Geographic Traveler.

Photograph by John Kernick

Radio City Music Hall's main lobby glitters with a suspended, 35-foot-long (10.6-meter) Swarovski crystal tree, installed in 2007 for the concert hall's 75th anniversary. The tree sparkles with more than 10,000 crystals and weighs a hefty 3,000 pounds (1,361 kilograms). Peeking through the spectacle is American artist Ezra Winter's three-story "Fountain of Youth" mural. The art deco Radio City Music Hall, built during the Depression, cost more than $7 million in 1932 and immediately wowed crowds with its glamorous details and razzle-dazzle ambience. One local critic of the era remarked, "It has been said of the new Music Hall that it needs no performers."

Read more about "Authentic New York" in the April 2008 issue of National Geographic Traveler.

Photograph by John Kernick

Masterfully remaining upright while clutching a portfolio, a young artist fields a call on his cell phone while bicycling along SoHo's boutique-lined Prince Street. "New York shopping still has a neighborhood sensibility," says Pavia Rosati, executive editor of the shopping and lifestyle website, Daily Candy. "Small shops are specialized to a particular part of town, whether they sell clothes, furniture, or cookware."

Read more about "Authentic New York" in the April 2008 issue of National Geographic Traveler.

Photograph by John Kernick

On Maiden Lane in the frenzied Financial District of lower Manhattan, busy New Yorkers still make time for a traditional shoeshine. A woman skillfully buffs this patron's leather shoes to a fine gleam, dissolving away the dirt and grime kicked up from the city streets.

Read more about "Authentic New York" in the April 2008 issue of National Geographic Traveler.

Photograph by John Kernick

One of Manhattan's ubiquitous yellow cabs lingers below the iconic Radio City Music Hall marquee, which flanks an entire city block in midtown Manhattan's Rockefeller Center, "the greatest urban complex ever created," according to New Yorker James Sanders. In the April issue of Traveler, Daisann McLane describes how the landmark art deco project set off a trend of "mini-cities" still evident in global cities like London and Hong Kong. "But like all derivatives or copies, these cities within cities fall short of the grandeur of the original," McLane opines.

Read more about "Authentic New York" in the April 2008 issue of National Geographic Traveler.