The Informed New Yorker's Guide

This Guidespotter once wrote a letter to the editor about a certain misrepresentation of her neighborhood. The letter was published and dubbed “Anti-Bohemian Rhapsody”…if only that editor could see the inside of my refrigerator. Generally, however, Time Out is recognized the world over as the source for what to see and do around the city, celebrating a diverse populace and range of pocketbook breadth.

To get a glimpse of headlines in a dozen languages, catch up on The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Foreign Affairs, or New York Magazine. Sure, if you are a New Yorker you should know what’s going on in your own back yard, but it is a pretty crowded back yard. And nothing goes better with a fist full of news than a cup of tea or coffee and a baked good. Even if the headlines are less-than-sweet, your muffin should consistently deliver.

Perched on the fifth floor of a West 32nd Street building, customers might feel at first as though they’re on a fool’s errand, but this simple and relatively inexpensive internet cafe is less overwhelming than mammoths such as The Easy Internet Cafe on 42nd street. Informed New Yorkers and visitors can sip their beverage of choice while checking their e-mail, researching, and catching up on the latest campaign and extreme weather news online.

Forget Google. Handy things can be learned if one is willing to rise and shine and get themselves down to the live taping of The Today Show at 7 a.m. And if audience members think they’re just in for winks and fluff pieces, may they be reminded that Katie Couric was once the one winking and delivering those fluff pieces. And look at her now.

If you’re a New Yorker passing through Times Square, you might never bother to look up. But if you’re interested in the time, the weather, the headlines, that’s all you need do at One Times Square. But don’t blink in the City That Never Sleeps; the ticker waits for no one.