New York for Natives and Visitors

I LOVE NEW YORK GUIDE by Marilyn J. Appleberg, new edition (Collier Books: $13 paper); FROMMER’S NEW YORK ‘92-’93 ON $70 A DAY by Joan Hamburg and Norma Ketay (Prentice Hall: $16 paper); NEW YORKWALKS by the 92nd Street Y, edited by Batia Plotch (Henry Holt: $12.95 paper), and BIRNBAUM’S NEW YORK 1992 (HarperPerennial: $10). Has the Democratic Party lost its sense of direction? If so, it has gathered in the right place this week--New York City, site of the 1992 Democratic convention. For one thing, New York is an easy city to find your way around in--at least in Midtown Manhattan, where 45th Street is always one block north of 44th and suchlike. Besides that, though, there are guidebooks aplenty to the city, a veritable panoply of Baedekers, which are only too happy to tell Democrats (and everybody else) which way to go. And what to do, see, eat, listen to, watch out for, etc., etc.

A particularly good one is the “I Love New York Guide,” subtitled “The Ultimate Source for Natives and Visitors.” Author Appleberg (great name for a writer on New York!) doesn’t waste time with flowery introductions and amusing asides. This is just a comprehensive, no-nonsense, well-organized guidebook packed with practical information, from museum hours and admission charges to addresses and brief notes on interesting monuments, graveyards, bridges and skyscrapers. It has a good section on New York attractions for children, including recommended playground addresses, as well as smart tips on grown-up shopping and plenty of capsule hotel and restaurant reviews that aren’t bad (even if a few key eateries are missing--for instance, Smith & Wollensky, Eldorado Petit and Hulot’s).

There’s also a useful list of restaurants and various services that are open 24 hours a day. Good graphic design makes the book particularly easy to use, and it would indeed be valuable to locals as well as tourists, exactly as its sub-title suggests--a sort of pared-down, opinionated telephone book.

Good graphic design, on the other hand, is not one of the selling points of the Frommer’s budget guide. Blockish layouts and an excess of blaring bold-face type against bright white pages render it almost unpleasant to peruse, in fact. The information behind the blare and block, though, is good--particularly the listing of trustworthy restaurants and hotels that really don’t cost very much at all (eg., the Esplanade Hotel and Suites on West End Avenue, where up to six people can stay in an old-style but clean two-bedroom suite for $210 a night; or character-filled Fanelli’s tavern in SoHo, where main course pastas, shepherd’s pie or oversized sandwiches are priced from $5 to $7).

Batia Plotch is an old pro at New York walking tours, having founded the 92nd Street Y’s popular Tours and Talks program in 1980, and this new addition to the “Walks” guidebook series, edited by Plotch (with John Morse) but largely written by members of the Y, is both friendly and authoritative. Itineraries include old downtown New York, the Lower East Side, Greenwich Village, Midtown Manhattan, the Upper East Side and Brooklyn Heights.

I have mixed feelings about the whole idea of the Birnbaum city guides. Admirably, they attempt to break out of the usual laundry list of attractions. Instead of being divided into simple, standard categories, sections are headed “Getting Ready to Go,” “The City” (which includes the nuts-and-bolts hotel/restaurant/museum/shopping stuff), “Directions” (walking tours) and “Diversions” (which attempts to describe quintessential travel experiences and offers information on both physical and mental pursuits--from “Great Golf” to “The Great White Way,” for instance). But the guides seem padded, with lots of repetition.

MEDIEVAL TUSCANY AND UMBRIA by Anthony Osler McIntyre (Chronicle Books: $14.95 paper) and IMPERIAL CHINA by Charis Chan (Chronicle Books: $14.95 paper). Buildings are our human contribution to the structure of the universe, and the more we stop to look at, and to really see, the castles and skyscrapers and shacks that define this city or that stretch of countryside, the more we learn about the place. Chronicle Books’ Architectural Guides for Travelers books, of which these are the two latest titles, are splendid aids for anyone who wants to better understand what got built and why (and of course by whom). More descriptive than critical and, of necessity for books of manageable length, rather superficial (as the non-specialist traveler is apt to be as well), “Medieval Tuscany and Umbria” and “Imperial China” are mini-textbooks in an accessible style, better suited for on-site reference than for armchair study--but they are quite good at what they do. (Other titles include “Classical Turkey,” “Mughal India,” “Islamic Spain,” “Northern Spain: The Road to Santiago de Compostela,” “Ancient Egypt” and “Chateaux of the Loire.”)

RAILROADS OF CALIFORNIA; WHALE WATCHING & TIDEPOOLS; EARTHQUAKE COUNTRY; WINE COUNTRY; GEMS & MINERALS OF CALIFORNIA; GHOST TOWNS OF CALIFORNIA; PARKS AND MONUMENTS OF CALIFORNIA and CALIFORNIA MISSIONS (Renaissance House: each $4.95 paper). These “California Traveler” guidebooks, new additions to the American Traveler Series, are, like their predecessors, elaborate brochures rather than actual books, each one tall and thin and 48 pages long and produced in tourist-handout style. Nonetheless, their text is clear and to the point, their photos are bright and appropriately illustrative (if somewhat generic) and their maps are easy to read. I’d certainly recommend them to anyone interested in the subjects they cover--and I dare say the Earthquake Country title probably ought to interest us all at this point. More titles are coming in spring of 1993. (If you can’t find the California Traveler series locally, direct telephone orders may be placed at 800-521-9221.)