Avant-Guide New York City: Insiders' Guide to Progressive Culture

Featuring comprehensive, authoritative on new, unique, and fashion-forward hotels, restaurants, shops, and nightlife in America’s cultural, culinary, and style capital, Avant-Guide New York City is packed with straightforward reviews from insiders who are not afraid to attack sacred cows or praise a hidden treasure. The guide contains essential background information on the history of the Big Apple and a savvy guide to its richly varied neighborhoods. Written to appeal to seasoned visitors looking for a new approach to their favorite destination, the guide profiles important personalities who drive the cultural scene and offers exciting ideas for visitors with or without children. Cleverly designed with lots of fully plotted, full-color maps, Avant-Guide New York City offers innovative detachable directories that provide indispensable information in a portable format.

Avant-Guide's New York City is a witty, sometimes gritty, and always entertaining and informative guide that chomps into the core of what the Big Apple is all about.

With a street-smart hipster's attitude, New York City covers attractions in each of New York City's five boroughs, as well as Manhattan's particular neighborhoods, focusing on the personalities that define them. Short essays introduce us to Cynthia Rowley, a clever fashion designer; David Hershkovits, co-editor and publisher of PAPER magazine--"New York's hippest monthly"; and controversial performance artist Karen Finley, among others. Readers see New York's stable roots and its free-flowing creative sides. The restaurant and entertainment sections are particularly notable for their "insider" recommendations. This guide wrestles with stereotypes as it goes, covering the practical information about New York City while conveying the city's attitudes vividly in its prose. This is a guidebook that at times reads like an extended counterculture essay. Trend-seekers, club-hoppers, epicures, and avid shoppers will all feel they've gotten something from this book, which so slyly follows a side current of the main stream. --Byron Ricks