Belvedere Hotel

Once the late night spot where, according to a 1953 issue of The New York Visitor, the "glitterati [would] spin in their best evening gowns to [a] live orchestra, " the Hotel Edison has had its fair share of celebrity. Built in 1931, it had modern amenities for the period – air-conditioned dining rooms, radios, and private baths – and an accompanying ballroom fit for any New Yorker spending a night on the town. Currently, the hotel has done its best to preserve the Old New York charm with murals in the lobby, and wine tastings twice a week that welcome their guests to New York. With a location near Times Square, its popularity has endured and, unlike most other hotels built around the same time, its history has survived.

citizenM is not very concerned with tradition. It is quite the opposite, in fact. With one-minute self-service check-in on a touch-screen computer, no bellboys and a sleek interior that resembles MoMa more than the Waldorf, this hotel is the millennial generation incarnate. Its concept is simple: a modern hotel for the modern traveler. Affordable rooms that are all priced the same with the exact interior layout. This international concept began in Amsterdam in 2008 and was brought to New York in 2014. Designed by the Dutch firm Concrete, citizenM (standing for Mobile Citizen of the World) is also an aesthetic feat. White walls, minimalist furniture and bright paintings and murals - including a specially commissioned Julian Opie piece entitled "Walking in Times Square" - make the lobby feel more like a living, breathing piece of art. Also featured on the main floor is a Dutch book shop and the twenty-four hour canteenM area that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner in a grab-and-go style. Like the lobby, the hotel's rooms are simplistically chic, featuring a wall-to-wall window, a king-sized bed, free movies, Wi-Fi and a tablet from which guests can control anything from the temperature to the color of the lights in the shower. Although the room is tiny - 170 square feet to be exact - its convenience and comfort certainly override its size. citizenM has an eye for detail, with carpet in the hallways that are maps of the area and a stunning rooftop bar created solely for hotel guests. Without a doubt, this is a unique enterprise that has plans to continue expanding, including the Bowery in 2017.

It was not entirely what I was expecting when I entered the lobby of the Paramount Hotel while walking on 46th. The chic, modern space with dark walls and comfortable leather couches came as a bit of a surprise as the exterior retains its original French Renaissance style. It opened in 1929 as the Hotel Paramount, but has since gone through an entire interior renovation and numerous owners. When Ian Schrager purchased the hotel in 1990 (for a short period of time), he hired Philippe Starck to redesign it, and, subsequently, renamed the building the Paramount Hotel.

Initially serving as a resting stop for Scandinavian sailors when they disembarked in lower Manhattan, the Swedish Seaman's Church opened its doors on Water Street in 1873. The neo-Gothic building in which the Church currently resides was constructed in 1921 for "The Bible House" before being sold to the Church of Sweden in 1978. The Church's nautical past is evidenced in the model boats placed among the large collection of Swedish books. With a chapel, a library, and a coffee shop, the Church's doors are always open to Swedes. While tasting their delicious Swedish buns, I chatted with the staff who spoke enthusiastically about the function that the center plays in people's lives. For families, it provides a "wind" of Sweden whenever they miss their homeland. There are also multiple weddings conducted in the chapel each week, and people come from all over to celebrate holidays and shop at their Christmas Bazaar.

Clinton Garden is a striking testament to the power of residential communities in New York. One of the earliest examples of urban agricultural reclamation, the garden was created in 1979 in a lot that had been abandoned for twenty-eight years. Seeing potential in the space and hoping to improve the area around the neighborhood, residents (with the help of Operation Green Thumb, which leased the lot from the city) transformed the VACANT property into a garden using reclaimed and salvaged bricks, concrete, and slate. Finding the gates open on a beautiful spring Saturday, I wandered in and strolled down the paths filled with magnificent flowers and shrubs. I also met committed people tending to their small plots of land, of which there are now over one hundred. I have since been back many times, as I think this is a magnificent retreat on those days that I am in a need of a place to rest while walking the side streets of Manhattan.

Tucked between a Swiss and an Italian restaurant, Scent Elate brings Eastern spirituality to the neighborhood. With the doors swung open, the aromas were an enticing trail that led me into this tiny boutique packed with an array of incense, candles, soaps, oils and lotions. Scent Elate also has books on meditation and yoga scattered among crystals, jewelry, chimes and hanging ornaments. In fact, it might just be "the" place to go when searching for sticks of incense - not only is there a vast selection, but Mo, the owner, makes a special effort to find the perfect scent to enhance each individual customer's environment.

The Midtown West School (PS 212) and the Professional Performing Arts High School cohabitate in the same grand Beaux-Arts building, which housed PS 17 until 1989.

Named after Bible verses in Isaiah (the wolf and the lamb shall feed together), this restaurant opened in Manhattan in 1998, and expanded to Brooklyn the following year. Initially a traditional kosher deli, it later reinvented itself as a steakhouse. The extensive menu ranges from matzo ball soup to salmon burgers, veal Bolognese gnocchi and, of course, includes a variety of steaks and chops. Drawing on influences as diverse as Vietnamese, Tex-Mex, and French-country, Wolf and Lamb adapts its more customary function to a cosmopolitan venue. "Just because you're keeping kosher doesn't mean you have to sacrifice on quality, " shared a waitress. And while we were told that the majority of customers keep kosher regularly, the crowded space was testament to Wolf and Lamb's broad culinary appeal.