New York from the Jersey Side · Dimos Mertzanidis

When I'm visiting New York I sleep in New Jersey, which sounds like a compromise and is the best decision I make on the whole trip. Exchange Place sits on the Hudson directly opposite the bottom of Manhattan, close enough that you can pick out individual windows, far enough that the whole of it fits in one look. Whichever of the Hyatts on that waterfront I end up in, the Hyatt House or the Regency on the Hudson, the first thing I do is walk out to the railing and check what the city is doing today.

It is never doing the same thing. Some mornings it is flat and gray and the towers reduce to a single tone, the water the color of a coin. Other days the sky throws long streaks of cirrus over the whole island and the city looks like it has been drawn rather than built. You get to know a skyline the way you get to know a face.

One World Trade Center rising above the Lower Manhattan skyline under heavy gray cloud, seen from across the Hudson — From J. Owen Grundy Park, the pier that runs out into the Hudson at Exchange Place. Ten in the morning, and the city has decided to be gray.

That is the arrangement, and it shapes everything below. I arrive at New York from the outside, cross to it, spend the day inside it, and come back out to look at it again in the dark. The Big Apple is always a place to be, and I have never once been sorry to be standing on the wrong side of the river at the start of a day.

Exchange Place

The waterfront here is a promenade with the whole of Lower Manhattan laid out across the water from it, and in late May it is one of the pleasantest walks in either state. The boardwalk runs north from the pier with the Jersey towers going up on one side and the river on the other, there are beds of roses along the rail, and the old piling stumps stand out of the shallows exactly as they do on the Manhattan bank.

A railing along the Hudson with the Manhattan skyline low on the horizon across the water under a clear blue sky — Between half past ten and twenty to eleven on a May morning, walking north from the pier.

A timber boardwalk running along the Jersey City waterfront with residential towers on the left and the Hudson on the right — Between half past ten and twenty to eleven on a May morning, walking north from the pier.

A field of old wooden piling stumps standing in shallow water along a pebbled shore, with a rusted iron bulkhead behind and green trees above — Ten to eleven. The same kind of stumps as the East River, on the opposite side of the island.

The full Lower Manhattan skyline seen across a calm Hudson from the Jersey shore, with a row of piling stumps in the foreground — Ten to eleven. The same kind of stumps as the East River, on the opposite side of the island.

Two animals hold this stretch. A goose sits on the grass beside the path with its feet tucked under it, refusing to be impressed by any of it, and one lunchtime a gull stands on a low roof with the Midtown skyline hazy behind it, in no hurry to be anywhere.

A Canada goose sitting on a sunlit lawn with its feet tucked under it, wire fencing and a path behind — Eleven in the morning, and the gull at lunchtime.

A gull standing on a low rooftop seen through glass, with the Hudson and the Midtown Manhattan skyline hazy in the distance behind it — Eleven in the morning, and the gull at lunchtime.

Two monuments stand on this promenade, and neither of them is about New Jersey. The first is a bronze soldier falling forward off a stone pedestal with a bayonet driven through his back, one arm flung up, the whole figure caught at the moment of going down. On the pedestal, in plain letters, it says KATYŃ 1940. Around the base there are plaques, and above them a Polish eagle. Katyń was a 1940 massacre of Polish prisoners, and responsibility for it was denied for decades. The monument stands at the edge of a commuter plaza, with people walking past it to the train.

A bronze statue of a Polish soldier falling forward with a bayonet through his back, on a stone pedestal reading KATYŃ 1940, with the Lower Manhattan skyline across the water behind it — Outside 10 Exchange Place, just after ten in the morning. Someone else's grief, filed here without ceremony, a two minute walk from breakfast.

The second is a length of buckled, rust-brown steel on a low plinth, the flanges torn open, with a small flag planted behind it and Lower Manhattan standing in the gap above it. Nothing in reach of the camera says what it is, and standing in front of it you do not need telling.

A twisted rust-brown steel beam mounted on a low plinth on a paved waterfront, a small United States flag behind it and the Lower Manhattan skyline across the water — Twenty to ten on a May morning, further south along the same promenade.

The World Trade Center

Cross over, walk in from the north, and the approach is ordinary right up until it is not. Delivery carts, a van reversing, somebody on the phone, and then a wide clean street runs ahead of you with young trees down both sides and the white spines of the Oculus rising at the end of it, and the noise level of the whole district drops.

A broad, almost empty street with a bike lane and bare young trees on both sides, glass towers rising and the white ribs of the Oculus visible at the far end — Early afternoon, and the street to the site is emptier than any street in Lower Manhattan has a right to be.

The Oculus opens overhead like the ribcage of something enormous. White steel ribs arch up to a long slot of daylight, and below them people walk to trains carrying coffee, in a hall built at the scale of a cathedral for a commute. From the balcony you look down on the whole floor and everyone on it is very small. From the plaza outside it reads as a bird, or as a pair of hands, depending on where you stand. Underneath the wing on a bright day the sun comes through the ribs in bars. In the evening the whole vault takes colored light along its length, red and blue running up to the skylight with the flag hanging over the concourse.

The interior of the Oculus seen from a high balcony, white ribs converging overhead and travelers crossing the white marble floor far below — The balcony and the plaza in March, and the wing from underneath at twenty past twelve in May.

The white winged exterior of the Oculus rising between dark glass towers, people crossing the sunlit plaza in front of it — The balcony and the plaza in March, and the wing from underneath at twenty past twelve in May.

The interior of the Oculus at night with its white ribs lit in red and blue along their length, converging on the bright skylight, a large United States flag hanging over the concourse below — The same ribs at half past seven on a May evening.

Then the pools. Two of them, each laid out on the footprint of a tower, water leaving the lip in a sheet that never breaks, falling the height of a room, gathering, and going down again into a smaller square at the center that has no bottom you can see from anywhere you are allowed to stand. In the late afternoon the towers on the west side catch the sun and pour an orange wash down onto the black granite. In the middle of the day the granite goes blue and the names on the parapet are cold to touch. Across the street the stone steeple of St Paul's Chapel is still holding its ground under One World Trade, the eighteenth century and the twenty-first in one frame, neither of them canceling the other out.

A memorial pool with the surrounding towers lit orange by the setting sun and reflected in the wet granite — Twenty to six on one afternoon, quarter past two on another, and St Paul's from the corner.

A memorial pool at midday under a hard blue sky, the bronze parapet running along the near edge and towers reflected in the still water — Twenty to six on one afternoon, quarter past two on another, and St Paul's from the corner.

A name I could read

The names are cut clean through the bronze parapet that runs around the rim of each pool, so daylight comes up through the letters from underneath. People push single flowers into them and leave them there.

I was reading along a panel with no plan, the way you do, and I stopped. George Merkouris. A Greek name, cut into that bronze directly under James Kenneth Samuel Jr, in the same letters, at the same size, in the alphabet of a city that has been taking people in from everywhere for four hundred years.

I did not know him. What the parapet does with the name is nothing at all. It does not group it, mark it, or set it apart. A Greek name sits in that list exactly as the Irish one three lines above it sits in it, because the only thing the list is sorting for is that these people were here. Standing in the middle of the most photographed grief in the world, in a country I was visiting, I found my own language in the roll and the roll treated it as completely unremarkable.

Names cut through the bronze parapet of a September 11 memorial pool in the late afternoon sun, reading Christopher Ciafardini, Meredith Lynn Whalen, Johanna Sigmund, James Kenneth Samuel Jr and George Merkouris — Merkouris, at the end of the afternoon.

The white church among the towers

Then it happened again, about two hundred meters away, and this time it was a building.

At the southern edge of the site there is a small white structure standing alone at the head of a paved plaza, and it stops you because nothing around it is that shape or that color. It is a drum of pale marble with vertical ribs running up it, a shallow dome, and a long low arch cut across the front over the doors. Everything else in view is glass and steel going straight up. This thing is round, low, and lit from inside like a lamp.

Cut into the marble beside the doors, in plain capitals: SAINT NICHOLAS, GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH & NATIONAL SHRINE, AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER.

A Greek church that stood nearby went down with everything else that day. What has gone up here is a shrine open to anyone, standing on ground where every square meter carries an argument about what should be built on it. And the city put a Greek church there, in white marble, in front of the tallest building in the country.

The front of Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine, its fluted white marble facade and long low arch over the glass doors, with the engraved name to the right — Four in the afternoon. Nobody else was on the plaza.

From the top

Then you go up the tower itself. The elevator does the whole climb in about a minute and does it so smoothly that the only evidence of movement is in your ears. At the top the argument resolves. The island narrows to a point below you, the two rivers wrap around it and meet, the far shores lie flat and hazy in every direction, and the bridges turn into diagrams of themselves. From up there New York finally reads as geography, and it becomes obvious that everything underneath you is there because of a harbor.

The Statue of Liberty on its island in the middle of a wide gray-blue harbor, seen from high above — From the observatory just after one. The Statue of Liberty is the size of a pin.

An aerial view up the East River from high above Lower Manhattan, brown water curving between Manhattan and Brooklyn — From the observatory just after one. The Statue of Liberty is the size of a pin.

Turn the other way and you can see the Jersey waterfront where the morning started, the whole thing laid out flat like a map of itself. Then you sit down at the glass with a couple of glasses of white wine and watch the harbor not move.

The Jersey City waterfront and its towers seen from high above across the brown Hudson, with piers and low industrial buildings behind — The other bank from above at one, and lunch at the glass at twenty to two. That is the hotel down there, somewhere in the middle.

Two glasses of white wine on a dark table against the sloping window of an observation deck, the city and the harbor far below outside — The other bank from above at one, and lunch at the glass at twenty to two. That is the hotel down there, somewhere in the middle.

Down at ground level, inside the complex, there is a glass case with whole wheels of Grana Padano stacked on oak shelves, the rinds stamped over and over with the name and the DOP mark and a date, and around the corner a round table in a curved green banquette with a window on two sides looking straight out at the towers.

Three whole wheels of Grana Padano stacked on oak shelves behind glass, the rinds stamped repeatedly with the name and the DOP mark — Lunch at ten past three, at a table with the towers in both windows.

A round table in a curved green banquette in a corner window, patterned tile floor, with glass towers filling both windows — Lunch at ten past three, at a table with the towers in both windows.

By night the tower goes up white above everything around it and is visible from most of the bottom of the island.

One World Trade Center lit at night above the surrounding towers, seen from a street with trees below — Just before nine on a June evening.

The East River at South Street Seaport

Walk east from the site and the island becomes a shore.

Below South Street Seaport, where the East River Esplanade runs under the Brooklyn Bridge, the water pulls back in the late afternoon and gives you something Manhattan is not supposed to have. There is a beach. Actual sand, actual small waves arriving, and the Manhattan Bridge standing out in the channel over the top of it. You are ten minutes from the Financial District and you are standing on a shoreline with wet sand under your shoes.

A stone tower of the Brooklyn Bridge rising from the East River under a blue sky with scattered white clouds — Just before five in March. The tide has to be right.

A curved strip of wet sand on the Manhattan shore of the East River, small waves arriving, the Manhattan Bridge and a glass tower beyond — Just before five in March. The tide has to be right.

What the low water really uncovers is the pilings. Whole fields of them, the stumps of piers that stopped working a long time ago and are now just timber posts standing in the current, wrapped in rusted iron bands, furred green at the waterline. They are the old harbor still there under the new one. On top of one of them a Canada goose had folded itself up and gone to sleep, entirely uninterested in the bridge, the city, or me.

Weathered wooden pilings bound with rusted iron standing in shallow water above a pebble shore, the Brooklyn Bridge tower behind — Just after five. The goose stayed asleep the whole time I was there.

A Canada goose asleep on top of a mossy wooden piling, the Brooklyn Bridge arch and Brooklyn buildings behind — Just after five. The goose stayed asleep the whole time I was there.

In May the same stretch is a different place entirely. The tide is up, the sand is gone, the esplanade is full of people walking slowly, a tall ship sits at the pier with its rigging up, and the harbor boats run out toward a Statue of Liberty small enough to cover with a thumb.

The Statue of Liberty small and distant across the harbor under a pale sky, with cranes and low industrial buildings on the far shore — From just after one to two in the afternoon at the end of May.

A white harbor ferry named MISS NEW YORK moored beyond a crowd of people waiting on a planted waterfront path — From just after one to two in the afternoon at the end of May.

The Brooklyn Bridge seen along the East River in summer with green trees on the near bank and the Manhattan Bridge behind it — Twenty past two, and the shoreline underneath is all covered.

Lunch here is outdoors and unceremonious: a cheeseburger and fries in a paper-lined basket at a picnic table, under a red umbrella against a brick warehouse wall, with the tables around you slowly filling up.

A cheeseburger and fries in a red and white checked paper liner in a basket, with ketchup and pickles on the side — Just after three and ten past.

Weathered wooden picnic tables under red umbrellas outside a brick warehouse building, with people at the far tables — Just after three and ten past.

The Financial District

The streets at the tip run narrow between stone and glass, and the district turns out to be full of things somebody decided to put outside.

At Bowling Green the bronze bull stands behind a low steel barrier with its head dropped and its horns forward, with a loose crowd working around it. Decades of hands have rubbed the horns and the nose and the flank down to a hard mirror, so the bronze is two colors now, dark where it is left alone and bright where it is touched.

The bronze Charging Bull sculpture on cobblestones near Bowling Green, head lowered and horns forward, behind a low steel barrier with people gathered on the right — Twenty past five, on Broadway at Bowling Green.

A few streets north, in the plaza at 28 Liberty, four white shapes stand four stories high with heavy black lines drawn all over them, part tree and part cartoon, looking like something that wandered in from a different century of art and refused to leave. This is Jean Dubuffet's Group of Four Trees, put there in 1972. I stood in front of it for a while thinking about how much money and how much seriousness surrounds that plaza, and how the thing at the middle of it is deliberately, gloriously unserious.

And a few streets from that there is a tower with no windows at all, a sheer concrete slab going up and up with nothing on its face but ventilation slots, which is the least explicable thing in Lower Manhattan and the hardest to stop looking at.

Jean Dubuffet's Group of Four Trees, a four-story white sculpture with heavy black outlines, standing on an empty paved plaza with towers behind — The Four Trees at five, and the blank tower on another afternoon at a quarter to two.

A tall windowless concrete tower with narrow ventilation slots rising sheer from the street against a blue sky, a glass building beside it — The Four Trees at five, and the blank tower on another afternoon at a quarter to two.

Down near the water there is a basket of wings with celery and blue cheese and a paper liner printed BURG, BURGER, BURGEST, which is a menu and a joke at the same time.

A basket of glazed chicken wings with celery sticks and a pot of blue cheese dip, beside cheese fries in paper printed with burger sizes — Quarter past six on Washington Street.

Battery Park City

The best hour down here is the one when the offices empty and the waterfront fills.

The Hudson River Greenway runs the length of Battery Park City, and in March the trees along it are still bare, so the path is all pale stone and black benches and low sky. Out past the railing, the Statue of Liberty sits small and green in a haze the color of weak tea. In May the same paths are under heavy leaf and the whole bottom of the island goes quiet and green.

A wide paved esplanade lined with benches and bare trees running along the Hudson at dusk, two distant figures walking away — Twenty to six on the greenway in March, and a squirrel who came down the trunk to check whether I had anything.

The Statue of Liberty green against a pale gold evening sky, seen across the water from the Battery Park City esplanade — Twenty to six on the greenway in March, and a squirrel who came down the trunk to check whether I had anything.

A paved plaza at the southern tip of Manhattan in full summer, heavy green trees on the left and a tall residential tower and stone building beyond — Four in the afternoon at the end of May, at the bottom of the island.

Then it gets dark, and Brookfield Place turns its trees on. Every tree along that stretch is wrapped in warm lights from the trunk to the last twig, so the whole avenue glows at head height and the towers above it go dim by comparison. It is a shopping plaza and it is doing something genuinely lovely.

Further north there is a floodlit ball field wedged in among the towers, green as a snooker table under the lights, figures spread out across it behind the netting with One World Trade standing over them. A player in catcher's gear stood watching the far end of the field, back to me, with the tallest building in America directly overhead.

An avenue of bare trees entirely wrapped in warm golden lights along a waterfront plaza at dusk, with glass towers behind — Ten to six at Brookfield Place, and the field on North End Avenue at six.

A floodlit green ball field seen through black netting, a player in catcher's gear standing with his back to the camera and One World Trade Center and other towers rising directly behind — Ten to six at Brookfield Place, and the field on North End Avenue at six.

In summer the same hour happens on grass instead of stone, and it happens for much longer. People play on a lawn above the Hudson with the sun still well up behind New Jersey, and the skyline that is normally the subject becomes the thing the light is behind.

The low afternoon sun behind cloud over the Jersey City skyline seen across the Hudson from a grassy park, with trees framing the view and people playing on the lawn — Half past six in June, from the lawn on the Manhattan side, with hours of light still to come.

Tribeca

Ten minutes north of the site the buildings drop to five and six stories of red brick and cast iron, and then one of them does not. At 56 Leonard a stack of glass and concrete slabs goes up out of the middle of the neighborhood with every floor pushed a little off the one below it, so the whole tower looks like something half-finished on purpose, and at dusk the lit rooms sit in it like drawers left open.

Half an hour later and a few streets over, on the corner of Greenwich and Franklin, there is a room with brick vaults, green painted steel beams overhead, stained glass shades hanging low, and a mosaic tile floor with small flowers set into it. This is Tribeca Grill, Robert De Niro's restaurant, opened with Drew Nieporent in 1990 on the ground floor of the building where De Niro had just set up his film center. A framed Wine Spectator page on the wall shows the two of them with their wine director and managing partner, glasses in hand, over a line saying the place has helped shape New York City's wine and dining scene ever since. He also co-founded the neighborhood's film festival in the spring after the towers came down, ten minutes' walk from this table, to bring people back downtown. The room keeps all of that to itself and gets on with the job: a bottle of Argentinian Malbec on the wood, and a rib of beef in a green peppercorn sauce that had been reduced until it stopped being a sauce and started being a glaze.

A dining room with exposed brick vaults, green painted steel beams, stained glass pendant shades and a mosaic tile floor, tables set with white napkins — Tribeca Grill, from a quarter to seven.

A bottle of Durigutti Malbec and a poured glass of red wine on a wooden table in a warmly lit dining room — Tribeca Grill, from a quarter to seven.

Ludlow Street, and one sandwich

There is a walk I do that is really just an excuse for a sandwich.

You start on Ludlow Street, where the buildings are still five and six stories of red brick with black fire escapes zigzagging down the front of them, the whole streetscape of a hundred years ago left more or less alone. In March the escapes are bare ironwork against the brick. In June there are trees in the way.

A red-brick tenement facade on the Lower East Side with black iron fire escapes zigzagging down five stories of arched windows — Ludlow Street at quarter to three in March, and a wall like it in leaf in June.

Black iron fire escapes zigzagging down a brick building with summer tree branches in leaf reaching across the frame — Ludlow Street at quarter to three in March, and a wall like it in leaf in June.

You keep going up Ludlow until it meets Houston, and there is Katz's, which has been going since 1888 and still carves by hand. You take a paper ticket at the door and join the queue at the counter, where men in caps and white coats work behind a glass case, with the numbered stations lettered above them and a cup of dollar bills wedged between the pickle bowls. The sign over the man serving me said CUTTER 7.

People queueing at the counter inside Katz's Delicatessen beneath hanging lamps and menu boards, staff in white behind the glass case — Three in the afternoon at the counter, and CUTTER 7 eight minutes later.

The carving counter at Katz's Delicatessen with a sign reading CUTTER 7 above it, staff in caps working behind the glass case, stacked plates, bowls of pickles and a cup of dollar bills — Three in the afternoon at the counter, and CUTTER 7 eight minutes later.

The room behind it is enormous and completely full, formica tables in rows under strip lights and neon, walls covered edge to edge with photographs, and every table doing exactly what every other table is doing. One of them has a round white sign hanging from the ceiling above it with an arrow pointing straight down: WHERE HARRY MET SALLY, HOPE YOU HAVE WHAT SHE HAD. That is the table from the 1989 film, where Meg Ryan's Sally proves a point to Billy Crystal's Harry loudly enough for the whole room to stop, and the woman at the next table tells the waiter she will have what she is having. Katz's still points at the table. Donnie Brasco and Enchanted came through the same door later, but the sign is for her. Further along the wall an older one reads SEND A SALAMI TO YOUR BOY IN THE ARMY, which they have been saying since the Second World War.

What arrives is pastrami on rye, hand cut, piled so high the top slice of bread sits on it like a hat, with mustard and nothing else you need. It is heavy, it is plain, and it is one of the honestly great things to eat in this country.

The crowded dining room at Katz's Delicatessen, rows of tables full of people under strip lights and neon beer signs, photographs covering the walls and a hanging sign reading SEND A SALAMI TO YOUR BOY IN THE ARMY — The room at three, and the sandwich at ten past.

A wide view across the packed tables at Katz's Delicatessen, a round sign hanging from the ceiling reading WHERE HARRY MET SALLY, HOPE YOU HAVE WHAT SHE HAD, menu boards and neon on the far wall, and pickles and a bottle on the table in front — The room at three, and the sandwich at ten past.

Chinatown, and the bridge over it

On a May evening, further south and east, the sidewalks are stacked with fruit under awnings and strung lights, the shopfronts are in two alphabets, and all of it is still going at nine at night.

A Chinatown street at night with market stalls of fruit under awnings, strung lights overhead, cars at a crossing and Chinese lettering on the storefronts — Just before nine, and the produce is still out on the pavement.

Walk seven minutes from there and you are up on the Manhattan Bridge with the whole of DUMBO underneath you: the clock tower with its four white faces lit, the long brick Empire Stores warehouses along the water, a glass pavilion glowing on the pier with the carousel inside it, and the Brooklyn Bridge tower standing at the edge of the frame with its cables strung in light all the way across. Turn the other way on the same walkway and Lower Manhattan is stacked up behind you with the last of the blue still in the sky.

The Lower Manhattan skyline lit at blue hour seen across the East River, the water dark and the sky still holding color — A minute before nine, and a minute after, from the walkway.

DUMBO in Brooklyn seen from high on the Manhattan Bridge at blue hour, the lit clock tower and brick Empire Stores warehouses along the waterfront, a glowing glass pavilion on the pier, and the Brooklyn Bridge tower with lit cables at the right — A minute before nine, and a minute after, from the walkway.

Greenwich Village

Keep going and you reach the part of the city a person can argue with.

Around Bedford and Grove the buildings are four, five and six stories of brick and brownstone with fire escapes down the fronts, and in June the street trees close over the roadway so you are walking down a green tunnel with parked cars in it. The corner building itself, tan brick with a fire escape zigzagging down one face and a red-fronted restaurant under a blue awning at the bottom, is 90 Bedford Street, and if it looks familiar it is because Friends used it for ten seasons as the outside of the apartment building. The apartment was a soundstage in California, but the front was shot from this pavement. Downstairs is The Little Owl, its name on the awning, with its tables out on the sidewalk, and on a June evening the people at them were doing what the show's people did, which is sitting in the Village talking.

The tan brick corner building at Bedford and Grove Streets in Greenwich Village, fire escapes zigzagging down its front, with The Little Owl restaurant in red under a blue awning on the ground floor and leafy green trees on both streets — Between quarter past and half past seven on a June evening, walking without a destination.

A residential Village street in summer with parked cars on both sides and street trees meeting overhead to form a green tunnel — Between quarter past and half past seven on a June evening, walking without a destination.

Two things stopped me further along. A cinema whose marquee had been set by hand to announce a David Lynch season, which is a very specific kind of reassurance that a neighborhood is still itself. And a firehouse with its doors rolled up and two engines nose out on the apparatus floor, ENGINE CO. 24 lettered above them, the whole place lit and open to the street like a shop.

The illuminated marquee of the IFC Center cinema reading LYNCH / OZ, FILMS OF DAVID LYNCH, MONICA / MOON GARDEN, BLACKBERRY / CHILE 76 — The cinema at half past seven, the corner at ten to eight, the firehouse at quarter past nine.

People talking on a Village sidewalk in the evening beside a planter and an engineering company sign on the building above — The cinema at half past seven, the corner at ten to eight, the firehouse at quarter past nine.

Harry Potter New York

North of the Village, on Broadway at 22nd Street, a block below the Flatiron, a shop takes up three floors and calls itself Harry Potter New York, and one afternoon at the end of May went sideways into it.

One wall is covered in WANTED posters pasted up crooked on the brick, Bellatrix Lestrange, Fenrir Greyback, Newt Scamander, a man holding his prison number under HAVE YOU SEEN THIS WIZARD, and in the middle of them all UNDESIRABLE No 1, Harry Potter himself, ten thousand galleons on his head. Beside them a directory lists the floors the way a department store would, Stationery, Knitwear, the Houses, a Cellar, a Butterbeer Bar, and MinaLima, the two designers who drew every newspaper and letter in the films and now have a room of their own here.

The bar is where the queue is. Copper pipes run across the ceiling into the ends of wooden barrels stamped with the butterbeer crest, brass lamps hang over the counter, the word BUTTERBEER is set in stained glass over the door, and a sign asks you to please form two lines, which people did, for a drink out of a children's book. Past the queue the ceiling is hung with hundreds of amber bottles lit from inside, and the menu offers butterbeer by the tankard, with the tankard to take home, butterbeer ice cream by the cup, and a Happee Birthdae Harry cake with the spelling from the film. What comes across the stone counter is a tall glass with an inch of thick white foam on it, and then a second one behind it.

A brick wall covered with WANTED posters in the style of the Harry Potter films, including one reading UNDESIRABLE No 1 with Harry Potter's face, beside a directory board for Harry Potter New York — Five past three at the posters, and the bar from half past.

A line of people waiting between rope barriers inside Harry Potter New York, below a brick wall hung with the ends of wooden barrels stamped with butterbeer crests, copper pipes and brass lamps, and a sign reading Please Form Two Lines — Five past three at the posters, and the bar from half past.

Central Park

Central Park is the only place on the island where you can forget which island you are on.

The grid stops. You walk in off a street of towers, the buildings go behind a wall of leaves, and what is in front of you is a meadow covered in people lying on it doing nothing at all in the middle of the afternoon. Blankets, bare feet, a speaker somewhere, dogs. The city is still out there past the trees, and it has been demoted to scenery.

A wide green lawn in Central Park in full summer, ringed by heavy leafed trees, with people sitting and lying on blankets across the grass under a clear blue sky — Half past four at the end of May, the lawns filled end to end.

A very wide lawn in Central Park covered with people sunbathing and picnicking, ringed by heavy trees with apartment towers rising above them — Half past four at the end of May, the lawns filled end to end.

Further in there is a lake with a boat on it and trees coming right down to the water, and if you framed it tightly enough you could be a long way upstate. That is the trick of the place. All of it was drawn, and it works so completely that it reads as ground that was always there.

A calm lake in Central Park surrounded by dense green trees coming down to the water's edge, with a small boat and figures on the far bank — Ten to five at the lake, and a squirrel with somewhere to be half an hour later.

A squirrel running across pale cobblestones on a park path with people walking away in the background under summer trees — Ten to five at the lake, and a squirrel with somewhere to be half an hour later.

From above, the whole argument is settled in one frame: the grid runs north, stops dead at a green rectangle, and starts again on the other side of it.

Central Park seen from the Empire State Building as a long green rectangle cutting through the dense gray grid of Manhattan, with the reservoir showing in the middle — From the Empire State Building at ten past six.

Midtown and Fifth Avenue

Midtown is a different city.

Bryant Park in March is bare branches over a brown lawn with a green glass tower leaning over the fence, and it is still the calmest thing for ten blocks in any direction. Ten minutes later you are in Times Square, which is loud on purpose. You look up and the buildings have been replaced by screens, all of them at full brightness in the middle of the afternoon, arguing.

Bare plane trees over a fenced lawn in Bryant Park with a green glass tower rising behind them under gray cloud — Bryant Park at ten past four, and Broadway ten minutes later.

A wide view down Seventh Avenue through Times Square with a yellow cab in the foreground and lit billboards on every building — Bryant Park at ten past four, and Broadway ten minutes later.

In among all that selling, one board was doing something else. Under a huge red screen with a Coca-Cola bottle pouring across it, a painted billboard showed a group of people on a stoop and one of them washing another one's feet, with a line across the bottom: JESUS DIDN'T TEACH HATE. HE WASHED FEET. In Times Square, at the loudest address in the western hemisphere, somebody had bought that space at that price to say that.

A painted billboard in Times Square showing people on a stoop washing each other's feet, captioned JESUS DIDN'T TEACH HATE. HE WASHED FEET., beneath a large red Coca-Cola screen — Twenty-five past four on West 47th Street. Everything on that wall is paid for, including this.

In late May the same blocks run two hours later and twice as full. The screens are still selling at seven in the evening in broad daylight, a line of sailors in dress whites crosses on the green, and on one wall, between the film posters and the phone ads, there is a recruiting station with the four service seals on it. By eight the light finally goes and the whole place turns into the version of itself that gets photographed: cabs stacked at the lights, glass going violet overhead, and a yellow school bus of all things working its way up the avenue.

Times Square in daylight with huge film billboards on the buildings and traffic and pedestrians below — Nine minutes past seven to a quarter past, at the end of May.

Sailors in white dress uniforms crossing a Times Square street on the pedestrian crossing among other pedestrians — Nine minutes past seven to a quarter past, at the end of May.

A dense crowd of people crossing Times Square in the evening beneath lit advertising screens on every building — Half past seven, then twenty past eight when the light gives up.

Yellow cabs and traffic stopped at the lights in Times Square at night with lit signs and a Broadway show billboard above — Half past seven, then twenty past eight when the light gives up.

A yellow school bus driving away up a wide Manhattan avenue at dusk with lit buildings on both sides — Twenty past eight on the avenue.

Walk east and the volume drops again. The Plaza sits at the corner of the park behind its awnings and its red carpet, with its name in restrained capitals along the front, looking like a building that has decided the last hundred years were optional. Five minutes further down Fifth is Apple Fifth Avenue, which from the street is a glass cube at 761 with the logo hanging in it and nothing else, the whole shop being underground and open all day and all night. That spring a white outline of a Vision Pro had been drawn around the logo, because that was the thing that spring. You go down the glass spiral staircase into a room full of trees and daylight, and there is one of them sitting on a stand like a museum piece, which in a way it already was.

The pale stone facade of The Plaza hotel with its name in capitals along the front and awnings over the entrance, seen from across the street — The Plaza at ten to five at 59th Street, and 761 Fifth Avenue five minutes later.

A little further down, at 545, a shop window hung with old basketball jerseys, and I stopped, because there was a Kukoč 7 on the rail. That name on that shirt belongs to a very specific set of evenings watched a long way from here, and there it was on a hanger in Midtown with a price on it.

A red Chicago Bulls jersey printed KUKOC 7 hanging on a rail in a shop among other jerseys — Six in the evening at 545 Fifth Avenue, and a tower further up the same street.

A tall dark glass tower on Fifth Avenue seen from the street below, with a police car parked at the entrance — Six in the evening at 545 Fifth Avenue, and a tower further up the same street.

A flag I did not expect

And then, on the glass front of a building further down Fifth, opposite St Patrick's, two flags on two poles at the same height, angled out over the pavement. One of them was the Stars and Stripes. The other one was blue and white with a cross in the corner.

It hung there the way a flag hangs on any building on that street, at the same height, on the same kind of pole, with the number 645 on the glass underneath it.

That is what I keep coming back for. New York files the fact that your language is in it. A Greek name goes in the list with the other names, a Greek church goes up on the most argued-over ground in America, a Greek flag goes on a pole at the same height as the American one, and the city treats all of it as ordinary. Being unremarkable is the highest compliment a place like this can pay you.

A Greek flag and a United States flag hanging side by side at the same height from poles on the glass front of a Fifth Avenue building, with the number 645 on the glass below — Half past five on Fifth Avenue, across from St Patrick's. Same pole, same height, no ceremony.

From the Empire State

There is an older way to get above all this. The Empire State Building stands in a district that grew up around it later and lower, so from the street you get it in pieces, limestone setbacks stacked back and back with the mast on top. Then you go up, and instead of a harbor you get the grid. South, the whole run of Midtown drops away to the Lower Manhattan towers and the water beyond them. Straight down, the streets go to canyons and the traffic to specks.

The Empire State Building seen from the street below, its limestone setbacks and mast rising into a clear blue sky above the lower buildings around it — Twenty past five from the street, and the building selling itself in its own lobby at five to six.

An illuminated advertising panel reading THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING beside a photograph of the tower lit up with fireworks bursting around it — Twenty past five from the street, and the building selling itself in its own lobby at five to six.

The view south from the Empire State Building over Midtown to the Lower Manhattan towers and the harbor beyond, under a hazy evening sky — Ten to six to quarter past, turning on the spot. It is worth going up both towers.

A steep view straight down from the Empire State Building onto the roofs and streets of Midtown, the avenues running away as narrow canyons — Ten to six to quarter past, turning on the spot. It is worth going up both towers.

Tables

The rest of the eating happens on both banks, and the rooms tell you which side of the river you are on.

On Newark Avenue in downtown Jersey City there is a dark room with ribbed copper pendants and red buttoned banquettes, where a whole fish came out on a long white plate under a pile of cilantro and shredded scallion in an orange broth, with a wedge of lime.

A whole fish on a long white plate in an orange broth, topped with cilantro and shredded scallion with a wedge of lime — 337 Newark Avenue, from ten past eight until nearly ten.

A dark restaurant interior with ribbed copper pendant lamps hanging low over a wooden table, red buttoned banquettes and a brick wall — 337 Newark Avenue, from ten past eight until nearly ten.

In summer the rooms give up and the eating moves outside: a picnic bench at half past seven in the evening with four pizzas open in their boxes across it, paper plates, a beer going warm, and nobody in charge of who got which. That is the summer version of the same idea the Tribeca room does with vaults and stained glass: put the food in the middle and let people work it out.

Four Neapolitan pizzas open in their cardboard boxes on a dark picnic table with paper plates and a glass of beer — Half past seven, the round ones and the square one on the same table.

A thick square Sicilian-style pizza slice in a cardboard box, heavy with tomato sauce and a spoonful of ricotta on top — Half past seven, the round ones and the square one on the same table.

The rest of it came in the same loose way. A platter of grilled seafood under strong purple light, an empty dining room of white tiled columns and bentwood chairs before the evening started, nachos under a heap of jalapeños, a steak with onion rings and hand-cut fries, a cheeseburger on a proper plate a minute later, a cocktail with a dried orange wheel on a slatted table, a roof with red sofas and one small tree, and a bakery counter at lunchtime with the pastries laid out on stone under a ceiling of hanging bulbs and greenery.

A platter of grilled seafood and skewers on a dark table under strong purple and pink restaurant lighting — Quarter past seven, then twenty to eight and ten to eight on later evenings.

An empty dining room with white tiled columns, dark bentwood chairs around round tables and framed pictures on the walls — Quarter past seven, then twenty to eight and ten to eight on later evenings.

A grilled steak with thick hand-cut fries, a stack of onion rings on a separate plate and a pot of dark sauce — Six minutes past eight and seven minutes past, and a drink earlier the same afternoon.

A cheeseburger on a sesame bun on a white plate, the melted cheese and patty visible under the bun — Six minutes past eight and seven minutes past, and a drink earlier the same afternoon.

A rooftop terrace with red cushioned sofas around a low table and a single young tree in a wooden planter, glass office towers behind — Four in the afternoon on the roof, and the counter at half past twelve.

A bakery counter with pastries laid out on a stone slab beneath a dense canopy of artificial greenery and hanging light bulbs — Four in the afternoon on the roof, and the counter at half past twelve.

Back across the water

At the end of it I go back over the river, and the last thing every day is the same.

There is a terrace at Exchange Place with a long trough of gas flame running down the middle of a timber deck, chairs around it, and past the rail the whole of Lower Manhattan lit up and reflected in the black water. In the morning that skyline is a shape you check like the weather. At twenty past nine it is a wall of small yellow windows with people still in them, and the tower at the middle of it goes up further than seems reasonable.

A long gas fire trough burning down the middle of a timber terrace at night, with lounge seating around it and the lit Lower Manhattan skyline across the black water beyond — Twenty past nine on the terrace at 1 Exchange Place. The city does its best work from here.

In summer the same view arrives an hour later and from higher up, out of a window, over a sofa, with the river going pewter and the towers coming on one at a time.

A hotel room sofa and low table in front of a wide window looking out over the Hudson to the Manhattan skyline at dusk — Twenty past eight from the room, and ten and thirty minutes later from outside it.

The Jersey City waterfront buildings and the river at dusk with the Manhattan skyline low and lit on the far side — Twenty past eight from the room, and ten and thirty minutes later from outside it.

I like standing on the far bank more than I like being in the middle of it. From here the whole of it is one lit block, and somewhere inside that block is a bronze parapet with a Greek name cut through it and a marble drum nobody made a fuss about. Then in the morning you cross back over, and it hands you something else you were not looking for.