Reviews
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Washington Heights, Manhattan
Spanish, Neighborhoods
Spanish is everywhere in Washington Heights. Located in the northern end of Manhattan, the neighborhood has 155th Street as its southern border and Dyckman Street as its northern. The Hispanic Society of America is at Audubon Terrace at 155th…
J. Levine Books & Judaica
Hebrew, Bookstores/Libraries
When I visited this store in 2011 looking for Hebrew study materials, two different employees—both pleasant—helped me in my quest. I left with a couple of books, both of which I ended up using. It was not a wholly…
Midoriya
Japanese, Food and Drink
Midoriya is a Japanese mini-mart in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They sell all kinds of Japanese foodstuffs, kitchen items, and other miscellaneous useful things. It is clean, bright, and cheerful—one of the tidiest little stores I have ever seen in New…
Älskling
Arabic, Dutch, English, French, General, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Shopping, Kids
Älskling, which means “darling” in Swedish, sells baby clothes online in dozens of languages. When I first encountered this product in an Upper West Side shop some years ago, I was fortunate enough to be given a tour by…
Little Brazil, Manhattan
Portuguese, Neighborhoods
Little Brazil in New York City is little. It lies on 46th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, and there are on this particular block enough other languages/countries represented in the retail establishments that in the past, when walking…
Borough Park, Brooklyn
Hebrew, Yiddish, Neighborhoods
The majority of Borough Park’s residents are Orthodox Jews. In fact, this neighborhood is one of the largest Orthodox Jewish communities outside of Israel. In a 2010 New York Times article, Gregory Beyer wrote, “Religious tradition and…
Le Petit Sénégal, Manhattan
French, Neighborhoods
Le Petit Sénégal, or Little Senegal, is a Central Harlem neighborhood concentrated around 116th Street, from roughly Frederick Douglas Avenue on the west to Lenox Avenue/Malcom X Boulevard on the east. On a search for French there,…
The World in a City: Traveling the Globe Through the Neighborhoods of the New New York
General, Books, Neighborhoods
This 2007 book weaves together poignant and sometimes surprising immigrant tales from neighborhoods all over New York City. What happens globally changes the shape of the city, by bringing new waves of people from around the world to reinvent New York…
The JCC in Manhattan
Hebrew, Museums/Cultural, Religious, Sports/Fitness, Kids
The Jewish Community Center is very popular in my Upper West Side neighborhood. Since opening in 2002, it has offered a dazzling array of classes: on Hebrew, yoga, Israeli dance, krav maga, and many other subjects. They have a well-stocked, aesthetically…