A New York Guide

A PROVINCIAL visiting The City is likely buy his Cue or New Yorker find "what's happening", eat at a few restaurants, see some shows, look at hieroglyphics in the Metropolitan Museum and return to his rustic existence with some small change and a reinforced conviction that New York is indeed nice to visit but no place to live. This unfortunate pattern results largely from the fact that what is most interesting in New York is often most difficult to find, and the knack of living both well and at the same time inexpensively in this most varied and wealthy of cities is not easily acquired. The purpose here is not reiterate the usual sites but rather to direct visitor's attention to some of The City's more unique and lesser known attractions.

The Casbah, an area extending from 34th to 42nd Street between Eight and Eleventh Avenues, offers an unusual selection of Arab, Lebonese and Greek nightspots. Most of these have either a minimum or cover charge, but for a little more than a dollar you can sit at the bar of the Egyptian Gardens or the Port Said, sip ritsina and contemplate dancers through a thick veil cigarette smoke.

The German section, Yorkville fine place to go for an evening. If you walk east on 86th, from Madison to Second Ave., you will find more than twenty beer halls and lokals. A lokal is any drinking place with music but distinguished by the characteristics that, a la allemande, young girls come there, usually in pairs, to find someone to dance with. The Lorelei is fairly typical. There is good beer, a band and, if you know the language and follow some local customs, it can be a lot of fun. Most important to remember: if you want to dance with a girl, go over to her table and use the formula "Darf ich bitten?" Then, do not ask her name (this is very rude), but, after two or three dances politely inquire "Darf ich 'du' sagan?", to which, if you've been at all cool about it, she will smile and answer "Du kannst mich aber Ilse nennen".

Because of the cosmopolitan quality of The City, one can find many unusual and often very good foreign restaurants. The Baghdad (23rd Street off Fifth) serves excellent Syrian food (especially shiskebeb) at reasonable prices. For Central European cooking and continental atmosphere, the Viennese Lantern (72nd between Second and Third Ave.) may be recommended. Pic n' Pac (on Lexington between 57th and 58th) is not, as the name suggests, a take-out chicken place, but a French restaurant with a very fine Belgian chef and about the only spot in New York where one can order cous cous.

As for music in New York, you can hear everything from Rhythm and Blues at the Apollo Theater through Dixieland at the Metropole to modern and mainstream jazz at Birdland and the Five Spot.

The City also has of course many well known museums and galleries. It may be suggested however that on your way down to the Museum of Modern Art you stop by at the exhibit in the Stuben Glass Building on Fifth) where extremely valuable glass sculpture and new technical developments like glass curtains, are on display.