...New York

Ever since the distant day in 1524 when a Florentine captain named Giovanni da Varrazano dropped anchor in the Hudson and thereby became Manhattan's first out-of-town visitor ("A very agreeable situation," he penned approvingly of the harbor), the idea and the fact of New York City have sparked the dreams of explorers -- from the original robust advocates of adventure and independence to latter-day Jasons on age-old quests for power and pelf, status and fame, balm and sensual pleasure. And, in the three and a half centuries that have elapsed since the trading post of the West India Company of Amsterdam began its startling metromorphosis into today's glittering panoply of marble, steel and glass, the city has burned its image on the national psyche and made itself known, through legend and song and accomplishment, as the most remarkable and magnificent metropolis in the world. Today, the cachet of quality is more persuasively persistent than ever: in the minds of most knowledgeable travelers, modern New York offers the wayfaring male the most sophisticated and elaborate buffet for the senses ever assembled.

Situated at the mouth of the Hudson River, New York City sprawls across the five great boroughs called the Bronx, Queens, Richmond, Brooklyn and Manhattan -- but the buttressed and spired island of the latter is the real core (text cont. on page 114)New York(continued from page 78) and essence of the city and, in many ways, of the country itself. Thrusting upward from a rock-ribbed island 12 miles long and two and a half miles wide, Manhattan is an often incredible amalgam of urbanity and impetuosity, crassness and culture, riches and wants. O. Henry called it "the wonderful, cruel, enchanting, bewildering, fatal, great city"; Walt Whitman sang of "noisy, roaring, rumbling, tumbling, bustling, stormy, turbulent New York"; poet Byron Rufus Newton, in a less permissive mood, muttered "crazed with avarice, lust and rum, New York, thy name's Delirium." Whatever the reaction of the rider on the metropolitan carrousel -- red-blooded relishment or blue-nosed disapprobation -- the city of superlatives has never aroused ennui.

Foremost among the intangible sensual pleasures that the male visitor will encounter here is the curiously exhilarating sensation of being at the figurative center of things, of swinging at the vortex of the nation's vitality. Arbiter of national taste, unparalleled in the magnitude of its theatrical, publishing and advertising yield, American capital in affairs financial, commercial and cultural, New York exudes a sense of primacy that will, in turn, impart a subtle patina of excitement to your stay and add to your awareness of and receptivity to the kaleidoscope of entertainments proffered.

For many first-timers, the sheer bulk and jostling complexity of the city scene are more than a bit bewildering, and the leaden rain of statistics poured forth by Gotham's barkers tends to obscure rather than illuminate. To be sure, one can't help but be impressed by the knowledge that the city's 8,000,000 inhabitants -- a population exceeding that of 43 states -- consume 155,000,000 dozen eggs each year, worship at better than 4000 churches and synagogs, can improve their minds with 7,000,000 books in the New York Public Library, 365,000 works of art in the Metropolitan Museum, and 9000 stars in the Hayden Planetarium, and live in a locale upon which is deposited 525,000,000 pounds of soot each year, beneath which is a subway system transporting 4,600,000 souls a day, and around which lie 578 miles of waterfront. But you'd be well advised to contemplate the city not in such statistics of abstract bigness, but in terms that convey its manageable, human proportions. The key to a proper understanding of New York is a realization that the city is not an unwieldy megalopolis, but an area consisting of small, distinctive neighborhoods, each with a unique character and a special brand of hospitality.

These neighborhoods run a wide gamut of individuality, from the chic elegance of the East 60s and 70s, where plush apartment buildings, austere brownstones and smart hotels decorously rub roofs with intimate clubs and haute cuisineries, to the lively, brash section of Greenwich Village, the pushcart and espresso district where informal negligence and experimental creativity erratically and erotically coexist; from the treasure-trove row of art galleries and music and antique shops which lie in a cultured-pearl necklace along the wide swath of 57th Street, to the frenetic swirl and neon pizzazz of Times Square, where prospering pornography parlors, cavernous flick palaces, throbbing penny arcades and klaxon-loud taxi-cabarets flashily vie for the rube's and the rubberneck's wherewithal. The city's neighborhoods are sometimes as confined as a single street, as with those thorough-fares whose names have become a part of the nation's lore and language -- manipulative Madison Avenue, show-boating Broadway, smart-shopped Fifth Avenue, swank Park Avenue, enterprising Wall Street--and sometimes as broad as the labyrinthine ethnic districts, at whose overlapping boundaries Brauhauses give way to Slavic meeting halls and tiny Armenian restaurants yield to Yiddish theaters, Italian groceries and Chinese gift shops. Sometimes blatant, sometimes relaxed, these varied neighborhoods are all of absorbing interest to an inquiring intelligence, and to the man who knows how to choose from the best that is offered they present an endless array of delights.

If you are arriving from any great distance, chances are you'll jet into Idlewild, a vast Long Island complex which, with its futuristic-muraled and mosaiced free-form terminals, is easily the city's most impressive portal of entry. Letting down, you probably won't be treated to an air view of the city -- most flights make their approaches from the ocean, and holding patterns are usually over the Atlantic or above eastern Long Island. But near the end of the 45-minute spin by cab or limousine into Manhattan, just before you dip into the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, you'll have a fine panorama of the storied skyline, jagging boldly upward from Wall Street to East Harlem. If it's not too far out of your way, an even more impressive panorama lies before you if you tell your cabbie to go via the Triborough Bridge. (In the near future, travelers will be able to make this trek by jet helicopter, whirlybirding it from Idlewild to the top of the mammoth Pan Am Building adjacent to Grand Central Terminal.

If you swing into the city en route to the East Side Terminal, you will be immersed in a vibrant and mobile microcosm whose keynote is growth: on all sides soar the freshly fabricated towers and spires which are the result of Manhattan's explosive building boom, a construction phenomenon that is slowly transforming the quality of the city's skyscape from a brick-and-stone façade to one of steel and glass, has resulted in a major renovation of Park and Sixth avenues, and contributed such functionally sound and esthetically stirring modern monuments as the Seagram Building, Union Carbide, Chase Manhattan Tower and Lever House.

A measure of the city's enterprising undertakings may be seen in the 12-acre West Side site of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, an integrated nucleus of functionally advanced buildings destined to house the New York Philharmonic, an opera company, a repertory theater, a ballet company, and a myriad of other cultural activities; and in the projected pavilions which will rise at Flushing Meadow Park in Long Island, scene of the forthcoming New York World's Fair which is expected to draw 70,000,000 spectators during the summers of 1964 and 1965.

In its fascination for the present's perpetual rebirth and its vision of the future, New York is not overly concerned with the sacraments of tradition; perhaps it is this lack of remembrance of things past that makes most outsiders feel so readily at home, for the city is always ready to accommodate newness in ideas, objects and people. It is a popular theory among those given to such creative observations as "New York is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there" (usually mouthed by those who have done neither) that New Yorkers live at a killing pace, brass-knuckling and backstabbing their way in a rat race for worldly goods and status. The exaggeration is gross, of course -- Manhattan's minions are alert and energetic and often ambitious; but helpfulness, generosity and affability are just as prominent in their multifaceted character. The style and the language are often abrupt and unpretentious -- back in 1774 John Adams complained that "They talk very loud, very fast, and altogether. If they ask you a question, before you can utter three words of your answer, they will break out upon you again, and talk away." -- but, almost without exception, civility and friendliness will be met in kind.

To accommodate the influx of the 20,000,000 or so visitors who check into the city each year, over 1000 hotels are now offering surcease to the weary, including luxuriously appointed caravansaries, quietly Continental sanctums, seedy fleabags and slickly commercial (continued on page 116)New York(continued from page 114) motor hotels. The best -- and, of course, the most expensive -- hotels in town are clustered in two ultrafashionable areas: the southeast corner of Central Park, and the few square blocks extending north and east from the vast Waldorf-Astoria. The score or so hotels spotted in these posh purlieus almost all provide premier comfort, facilities and service; if you want your Manhattan hiatus to be a memorable one, you will be well advised to bed in one of these rooms at the top.

Fronting the park and grouped around the storied Plaza fountain (where the Scott Fitzgeralds once enjoyed early-morning ablutions) are a quartet of hotels devoted to the domestication of starched European service: the Pierre, the Sherry-Netherland, the Savoy-Hilton and the Plaza. They are all proximate to the chic shops, smart bistros and fashionable restaurants that bejewel the 50s and 60s, and contain a goodly number of public rooms and lounges frequently frequented by the town-house crowd. The tariffs run from roughly $15 to $35 for a day's use of a single. If you anticipate some after-hours hosting, and wish to do it in high style, you might reserve a two-person Edwardian suite at the Plaza, which range from $35 to $80. A taste for suites can be indulged in the other three as well, of course.

The St. Regis, a few blocks south on 55th off Fifth, is another top lodge and a favorite both of discriminating locals and transient cinema personalities. Prices start at $18 per single and ascend to the $66 level for elaborate bedroom-and-sitting-room extravaganzas. Farther east, on Park Avenue and 49th Street, looms the imposing Waldorf-Astoria, by cubic measure the largest hotel on earth. Without straying from its premises, you can, if the spirit so moves, purchase a $70 bottle of vintage bubbly, an impeccable new wardrobe, and a $14,000 mink to protect your inamorata from possible chills, have an offending molar extracted, and dine alone or in a private railroad car beneath the hotel or in the conventional company of 2000 others. The privilege of snoozing under the same roof that shelters Cole Porter and a rich sprinkling of expatriated royalty can be yours for as little as $10 a day or as much as $70.

A typical tab at the Beekman Tower, on First Avenue and 49th, will be more moderate than at the aforementioned hostelries; for $12 per day for a single ($19 for a suite) you can command both a comfortable pad and one of the more striking views to be had about town -- the UN buildings backdropped by the East River. The Beekman is also noted for its Top O' the Tower cocktail lounge, where diplomats oil the troubled waters of their daily cares. If this neighborhood is to your liking -- it's appreciably quieter than on the western front -- you might sign on board the Pickwick Arms, at 230 East 51st Street, which is even more moderately priced than the Beekman, having singles starting at $5.50 and doubles ending at $9. It features a sun deck and a congenial fire-watering place dubbed the Polonaise Cocktail Lounge where many of the French and English residents forgather of an evening.

Of late, there has been a trend among discerning visitors to steer away from the lobbying throngs and commercialization of the hotel behemoths, toward the smaller, slightly off-the-beaten-track hotels, where personalized service, elegance and muted charm are blended in a relaxed milieu. Most of these voguish establishments are above 59th or below 42nd Street on the East Side (New York's West Side is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there). Of these, we commend the comforts of the Carlyle on Madison and 76th (the Kennedys' favorite), the Tuscany, just east of Park on 39th (each room contains a color-TV set, a butler's pantry and refrigerator, an imported FM radio and a silent butler) and the Gramercy Park, at 52 Gramercy Park North (a stay entitles you to a key to the private park across the street).

Having installed your luggage in the chamber of your choice, and showered away the dust of travel, you'll be set for an evening foray into the glittering swirl of Manhattan's after-dark play-grounds. With the coming of dusk, you'll find the character of the city undergoing a smooth transformation -- as the commuters scurry home to their burrows and warrens in the suburbs, the streets so recently aswarm with the comings and goings of pounding commerce now murmur quietly with traffic agreeably sparse and leisurely after the homeward, day's-end rush and before the theater-hour crush. The pulse is still there, but it is one of anticipation, not anxiety, a prelude to the stimulating contrapuntal rhythms of the night life to come.

Which brings us to the pleasant problem of striking up a liaison with one of the million-plus Manhattan fillies. As you depart from your hotel to take your bearings on the sidewalks of New York, it will soon become strikingly apparent that not only are you in a city more saturated with girls than any other in the world, but that the attractiveness of the norm is remarkably high. Unquestionably, too, New York girls are the world's best dressed. Plucking their plumage from the racks of high fashion's most powerful style-setters (and their deft imitators) the city's girls dot the thoroughfares with accents of such compelling chicness that even case-hardened natives feel obliged to turn and stare. They are also feminine, often lonely and -- in a refreshing number of instances -- available.

Hemingway once remarked that "the sole purpose of the cabaret is for unattached men to find complaisant women. All the rest is a wasting of time in bad air." The remark still holds -- though of course today the air is more often conditioned than bad -- and cabarets, cocktail lounges and bars remain a bachelor's boon. In New York, at six o'clock, the 180-minute cocktail hour is in full swing, and in scores of palmy oases around town, tensions are dissolving and affairs solidifying in a roundelay of iced and potent potations.

The fashionable hour for encountering fashion models is 6:30 at Ratazzi, on 48th between Fifth and Madison, and Michael's Pub next door, two lounges currently in favor with high-style lens chicks. Flanking the life-sized models are fetching phalanxes of pert advertising girls, photogs' reps, and an occasional agency receptionist midway on her hegira from art school to status as an assistant art director. Cool and collected, these girls offer a challenge to the most silver-tongued snowman -- but the dividends are usually worth the effort of selling your own stock. The Mansfield Lounge, a short trek down Fifth to 12 West 44th Street, is an interesting hunting ground for cheesecake photographers in quest of queenly subjects, wherein many an appealing sec has parlayed her sex appeal into a professional posing career. You may find an office Girl Friday here, looking for someone she may serve as Girl Saturday and Sunday.

Other noteworthy sites for girl scouting include The Toast, on Second Avenue at 58th Street, a deep-pile, midnight-blue gin mill with dollar drinks, a piano bar played by a girl trying to sing like Chris Connor, and a mutually appreciative clientele of stags and does; and the Roundtable, on 50th a few steps beyond Third, which offers a twistful vista of heaving hips each evening, with a matinee on Sunday. Until the twist mania struck the country, this club was just another oak-paneled supper spot genteelly unobtrusive -- but as soon as the coffer-filling potential of the movement became clear, the nights of the Round-table became dedicated to the twist cult. The ladies, who arrive in pairs and trios, outnumber males at a three-to-one rate, and are quick on the pickup.

A more soothing brand of tippling awaits the imbiber at Jim Downey's, a cocktail lounge and restaurant held in high repute by theatrical pros like Paul Newman, Ben Gazzara and Mike Gazzo (continued on page 163)New York(continued from page 116) (who penned part of Hatful of Rain at the bar). Officially a steak house, Downey's is noted for having the only Irish Coffee Bar in the States, and for its far-from-plain showfolks clientele. To the stagestruck teen and postteen dolls, the place is a vital adjunct to the theater scene: booths brim with long-stemmed leotarded dancers, apprentice ingenues and incipient thrushes sipping Cokes (they're often under 18, the legal drinking minimum), and dreaming of the big break. With a break yourself, you may find comely companionship here--it's a prime spot for both filles and filets.

If you already have a date and want to sip a cocktail or two with her in an atmosphere abounding with showbiz celebrities. head for either Toots Shor's, on 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth. or Sardi's West, at 234 West 44th Street. They are both unofficial clubs for all who've ever toed the boards, from sloe-eyed understudying chicks to B.O. draws with their roving battalions of flunkies. At Sardi's and Shor's, scripts are signed up or scrapped, deals dealt, and verdicts pronounced among agents, producers, columnists and critics, and Broadway's cast system can be observed in a bright and brittle light. Sardi's is also noted as an after-theater spot: if you're there late, you may get a kick seeing the wee-hour guzzling interrupted for applause as an elated cast sweeps in after a smash opening night. Finally, for dateless pre- and post-prandial drinking, you might try Costello's, a pleasantly unpretentious Third Avenue bar that is a hangout for New Yorker staffers, photographers, flacks, press types and assorted thirsty dealers in the written word.

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Ever since the mid-17th Century, when schnapps-happy Dutchmen thronged cheery taverns at Manhattan's southern tip to munch venison and Indian corn, the ritual of dining out has been practiced with artistry and discernment by knowledgeable New Yorkers. Decades of dedicated gourmandizing, and the diverse palates of the city's ultraheterogeneous population have encouraged restaurateurs to establish a cornucopian array of eating houses: at last count, over 10,000. Clearly, the choice confronting the guy who would feed his chick in style is initially a bewildering one. Rather than taking blind pot luck, we suggest you consider the prime possibilities of the temples of provender we here-with recommend without reservation (though, of course, you'll want one yourself).

For the seeker-after-the-finest, the major production staged in unabashed luxury on a 850-plus budget, there are several haule cuisine rendezvous, cathedrals of sapient gourmadise, where superbly prepared food is served with grace and polish, and the elegance and clientele are first in their class. Here the sizable tab and the gratuities silvering the palms of such attendants as the head-waiter and sommelier become minor means to a major end: tender game in season, beef with genealogies, lobsters from the deepest and coldest seas, salmon jet-fresh from Scotland, and secret-formula sauces as well as superb renditions of the traditional repertory of Escoffier.

Foremost among those serving the fairest of the fare in an atmosphere of tasteful intimacy is Le Pavillon, 111 East 57th Street, an establishment considered by many gourmets to be the finest restaurant in America. Here, in chandeliered chic, the handiwork of chef Clement Grangier more than satisfies the expensive tastes of hungry yet discriminating diners. The food is the stuff that dreams are made on, especially if you are partial to Gallic cookery. The quality of both the wines and the service is on the same near-flawless level. Le Pavillon's old-pro proprietor, Henri Soulé, also owns La Cote Basque at 5 East 55th Street, another luxury restaurant whose prestigious and prodigious French cooking has met with instant approval among informed natives. We especially endorse the specialties from the south of France, notably the Moussaka d'agneau Côte Basque.

Le Café Chambord, at Third Avenue near 49th Street, is another favorite of Francophiles. You sit in a setting of Continental conservatism with a full view of the kitchen behind a glass wall, where chef Fernand Desbans fusses over such chef d'oeuvres as the duckling (le tendre cancton á l'orange au Grand Marnier avec pommes soufflés), the lamb with early vegetables (le carré d'agneau aux primeurs), and the grouse prepared with flaming brandy (la grouse d'Ecosse, flambée à l'Armagnac). The Chambord's wine list is a noble one, and the wine steward will be happy to help you select a winning vintage.

Tucked within the austere monolith of the Seagram Building on Park and 52nd Street is the striking four Seasons, a $4,500,000 creation of Restaurant Associates (which also operates the Forum of the Twelve Caesars and La Fonda del Sol). The opulent functionalism here represents the collective efforts of Philip Johnson, Eero Saarinen, William Pahlmann and Mies van der Rohe. Within its walls--which are ornamented by Miró tapestries and paintings by Picasso and Jackson Pollock--the man for Four Seasons will find that decor, tableware, linens and food change with each solstice and equinox. While you can hardly go wrong in selecting any of the items listed on the mammoth and munificent menu, we especially commend the beef marrow in bouillon, pear vichyssoise, and the sweet and sour pike in tarragon sauce.

The Forum of the Twelve Caesars, at 57 West 48th Street, is a remarkable re-creation of the gustatory grandeur that was Rome: meticulous research into the annals of Suetonius, Apicius and other Roman chroniclers has inspired authentic facsimiles of dishes forgotten since the time of Constantine. Parked in the plush red decor, you'll see your heady wine cooled in a warrior's helmet and have "dishes from all the empire"--including wild boar--flourished before you by legions of waiters accoutered in imperial purple. You and your orgy-mate should give thumbs up to Snails on the Silver Gridiron, followed by Partridge Britannicus, and concluding with tasty tart Messalina.

For those who would break bread in the company of Broadway's fair-haired guys and their sequined dolls, four-star Pentagon wheels, high priests of communication, high-society panjandrums and assorted junior-grade celebrities. Jack & Charlie's rates a 21-gun salute. Ensconced in a distinguished old brown-stone mansion on 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues. "21" serves gourmet chow of French persuasion in a handsomely masculine milieu. The wine cellar of this site for those who would sound their status symbols is one of the best in the city, and has been since Prohibition days when the establishment first broke the ice as a speakeasy.

Two top targets for knowledgeable trenchermen are the Tower Suite and Top of the Six's restaurants, both of which are perched on skyscraping vantage points and offer glittering and dramatic views of nighttime Manhattan. The Tower Suite, which sits astride the Time-Life Building at 123 West 50th Street, is one of the more memorable spots in town in which to impress both yourself and your girl. Aside from the spangled panorama of the city without, the inner men and women will relish the sumptuous international cuisine. The management would like you to feel that you are dining in the home of a wealthy uncle, and try to achieve this commendable aim by servicing you with a butler and a maid. The Top of the Six's is situated atop the tower of 666 Fifth Avenue, and contains dining areas of French Provincial decor in which American cooking is served. As with the Tower Suite, both the setting and the prices are high.

Other high-budget chalets wherein the feasting male may titillate his taste buds in highest style include the Colony (at 30 East 61st Street, a red-velvet rendezvous for celebs and ranking socialites who come as much to be seen as to savor the classic French cuisine). Trader Vic's (at 7 East 58th Street, it's noted for exotic Polynesian food and rum-soaked drinks), Voisin (in new quarters at 65th and Madison, it showcases Gallic specialties), Christ Cella (a venerable steak house on 46th Street), 53rd Street's Maud Chez Elle and Café Chauveron (both elegant French cuisineries), Quo Vadis (more French provender served up in an Old World Roman setting at 26 East 63rd Street), and Lutèce (on East 50th Street, a new, lush and popular French eatery for epicurian au courants).

To accommodate the assorted ethnic tastes of the city's potboiled populace, a veritable smorgasbord of restaurants feauturing national cooking have flourished and are available to the eclectic palate--usually at far more prosaic prices than in the shrines to Lucullus discussed above.

If you and your companion get a boot out of food Italian, there are several ciao halls featring the artistry of accomplished pasta masters. Those who dig North Italian foodstuffs agree that the top carte in town is provided by Signor Tony Gugnoni, who for more than 30 years has been pampering the patrons of San Marino (159 East 53rd Street) with such delicacies as his shrimps à la Tony, which are grilled after a daylong marination in garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, wine and spices. The broiled sweetbreads and prosciutto and Bouillabaisse à l'Adriatico also are fine thoughts for food.

Another elegant Italian eatery is to be found at 39 West 56th Street, where Romeo Salta pampers epicures with flawlessly prepared dishes such as veal scaloppine Zingarella and piccala, slender slices of Parma ham, and beefsteak grilled in the Florentine style. The dining room is on the intimate side and attractively decorated with Italian wine bottles and portraits of celebrity patrons of its culinary arts. As befits the glamor stock of goodies, Romeo Salta's prices are a bit more than moderate.

Borsch buffs will enjoy a plenary session or two at the Russian Tea Room, which is not a tearoom at all but an informal restaurant dedicated to the distribution of nutriment à la Russe. Situated as it is next door to Carnegie Hall, the Tea Room attracts a caviarty clientele of ballerinas, choreographers, musicians and actors: the knowing among these form a strong buyers' market for kasha (groats) and blinis (buckwheat pancakes with sour cream and either caviar or cheese) and the special vodka drinks assembled at the bar.

Partisans of Chinese chow should bear in mind that the majority of the Chinese who settled in Manhattan hailed from the province of Canton, with the result that most restaurants in Chinatown specialize in Cantonese cooking. (However, since the late Forties, northern Chinese dishes--sometimes called Pekin-or Mandarin-style--have found increasing favor among the taste-makers, who appreciate the less spicy and more subtle style.) Wah Kee, at 16 Doyer Street in Chinatown, has a straight Cantonese menu of chicken, shrimp and traditional Chinese vegetables and is a favorite haunt of connoisseurs given to won ton wish fulfillment. Bo-Bo's, a kookie cookery also in Chinatown at 20 1/2 Pell Street, is tiny, kinetically crowded and HQ for the Village foo-yong set. No menus are provided--if you're stuck for an order, a China-doll waitress will help with your orientation.

The most praiseworthy Japanese cuisine in town belongs to the Saito at 70 West 55th Street, an establishment which owner Moto Saito justifiably claims is "on a par with the best that can be found in a large Japanese city." Entering Saito's sanctum, you should first tarry at the Tempura Bar, where succulent marine life and greens are immersed in a bath of boiling vegetable oil, then served at piping hot temperatures, one piece at a time. Later, when you're comfortably ensconced at a knee-high table in a private, screened room, a kimonoed, très-geisha girl will abet you in ordering dinner. We counsel an authentic Nipponese repast: you can indulge in from five to eight entrees, including teri-yaki (beef, pork or chicken barbecued in soy sauce), Lobster sashimi-kabuto-yaki (lobster sliced into fillets and broiled in its shell), sashimi (raw fish) and a gourmet's gold mine of pickled vegetables, eggplant in miso sauce, and a tasty kelping of dried seaweed. The fee for this elaborate production comes to about $10 per person; sukiyaki can be had for $5.50.

The best of the Jewish meat and dairy restaurants are found on Second Avenue on the Lower East Side, close to the off-Broadway playhouses; here the kosher cognoscenti gird themselves with such robust fare as gefüllte fish with red horseradish, sour cream, mushk steak, and a blintzkrieg of cheese or cherry delights. Leading eateries on the borsch circuit include Ratner's at 111 Second Avenue (the best dairy restaurant in the city), the adjacent Rappaport's (smaller but deservedly rated among the sour cream of the crop), and, down the block and across the street, Moscowitz and Lupowitz (a goulash emporium enlivened by fierce conversation and a schmaltzy string trio). In all of the above you will be served by an engagingly uncivil servant, a vehement and elderly brand of waiter who never deigns to write down orders (yet remembers all), and seasons the couses with salty philosophy and peppery commentary.

A goodly number of Spanish and Latin-America restaurant--night-clubs offer an Iberian blend of nurture and entertainment. Last year, undulating Egyptian belly dancers were the rage, and swinging navel engagements packed such midsection Meccas as the Port Said (still flourishing at 257 West 29th Street); lately, however, avant-garde aficionados of the sensual life have been spurning the Nilehist movements of the seducing salons in favor of Spanish cuisine and Flamenco artistry.

Among the best of the castanetwork of restaurants now offering fiesta feasts about town is El Chico, at 80 Grove street in the Village. Here, Flamenco and gypsy guitarists, singers and dancers perform in a room modeled after the Moorish Alhambra in Granada: the decorous decor includes mosaic tiles which chronicle the tale of Don Quixote, 16th Century carriage lamps, and graceful Moorish arches. You should supplement your enjoyment of the Moor-the-merrier performers with such estimable comestibles as melon and Spanish ham, paella l'alenciana (a chicken and sea-food casserole), and Spanish caramel custard. The menu is à la carte, with a minimum of $5 on weekends.

Further uptown at 14 East 60th Street is La Zambra which, like El Chico, is friendly and informal and, because of its Old World thaw-provoking charm, a good late-snack site for you and your lady. While you partake of such prime assuagement as pollo Zambra or lonjas filete minon Zambra (filet mignon with mushrooms), you'll dig the digit-work of a top guitarist like Carlos Ramos.

The most rewarding adventure in Latin-American dining will be found at La Fonda del Sol, a gustatory haven carved in the innards of the gleaming Time-Life Building. Every detail of the restaurant, from the 30-foot broiling wall with its three open fireplaces to the challenging multilingual menus was researched in a score of Latin-American countries by Restaurant Associates' folk anthropologists. The decorative furbelows are far above average: cream-white walls showcase Latin-American artifacts made from clay, straw and wood, and brilliantly accoutered guitarists and singers add visual as well as vocal ornamentation. The nutriment, ferreted from Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego, is a commendable alliance for alimentary progress featuring such exotica as Mexican foam soup, turkey in chocolate sauce, and chicken with orange bread sauce; prices are consistent with the time and effort expended in locating and preparing these rarities.

Schnitzel and sauerbraten hounds will want to make tracks to Luchow's or the Blue Ribbon, the town's two top German dineasties. Luchow's occupies a handsome old building on 14th Street in an area noted for its thrift shops, union halls and outdoor orators (an interesting stopover can be made at nearby Union Square Park, a favorite proving ground for the schemes of assorted speech-mongers offering their views on everything from fluoridation to Logical Positivism). But Luchow's, which has been displaying culinary expertise since Diamond Jim Brady wore sequined spats, remains the biggest bargain center in the neighborhood. The service is good, the prices are reasonable, the 1880s atmosphere enjoyable, and the food, for better or for wurst, justly famed. You'll be serving yourself right if you order the Schwarzwalder Plifferlinge--imported Black Forest mushrooms sautéed in butter and served in dill sauce with boiled potatoes--or Schnitzel à la Luchow with asparagus tips and pan-roasted potatoes.

The Blue Ribbon (145 West 44th Street) is a favored rendezvous for pre-theater strudel fanciers. Diners park in the many private nooks and, in a typically Teutonic ambiance of goodnatured sobriety, display a consuming interest in sauerbraten, homemade pastries and apple pancakes--an interest that is reflected in the vast waistlands of many of the regulars.

If you're a red-meat man, you should be apprised of the prizes that await you along 45th Street between Lexington and Third, headquarters of the finest steak and chop houses in the city. There are no less than five moderately expensive beef bazaars here, including Scribe's, Pen and Pencil. Press Box, Editorial and Danny's Hide-a-Way. All cater to the edacious hordes of editorial workers from the magazine. book and newspaper offices fringing the district. Our favorite claim-your-steak prospect is Danny's Hide-a-Way, which in the past decade has grown from a six-table, one-bar David into a brawny 10-room Goliath. The milieu is bright and breezy and attracts, along with writer types, an enjoyably mixed potpourri of pugs, film stars, agency flacks, models and just plain New Yorkers. If the craving for steak strikes you in the Village, set sail for O'Henry's at Sixth Avenue and West Fourth Street, where excellent meats are served in an agreeable Gay Nineties atmosphere. The outdoor café here is a favorite headquarters for the Village suds set.

Fish fanciers should not neglect the venerable delights of Sweets. It is best in its class in New York, which, being a seaport as well as a seeport, boasts literally dozens of superior parlors for piscine provender, and perhaps in the country. Anchored just west of the financial district and across the street from the frenetic Fulton Fish Market, it sets a captain's table of commendable crustaceans and denizens of the deep with an expertise perfected by 117 years of practice. Captains of ships and industry dine here in a comfortable, simple room decorated with old stamped metal walls, ancient maps and curios of the sea. The venerable and courtly waiters will help you chart a sure course with suggestions on the freshest and most seasonal choices. Come early--the doors click shut shortly before eight. Prices are moderate.

Having fared well in the cuisinery of your choice, you will be set to saunter forth for a session of artistic town-painting. And for the pelf-sufficient man, there's hardly a form of entertainment--legit or otherwise--that isn't enthusiastically exploited in the grottoes and arenas and fringe areas of the city's glittery night-life circuit. For the voluptuaries of the night, the choice of amusements is as diverse as it is diverting.

You may want to attend a production at one of the 28 Broadway theaters, half of which are packed into the two-block area from 44th Street to 46th, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. Much of America's theatrical creativity and talent is fused in this cluster, and whether your taste runs to music, melodrama or messages, you're more likely than not to find what you seek. (If you know the dates of your visit well in advance, you should, of course, post your orders early to the appropriate box offices.)

If you arrive in town without ducats, try shopping at the box offices as soon as possible--even with an SRO bonanza, there's always the possibility of late cancellations. If it's still no go, hit the ticket agencies in the Times Square area (Tyson's and MacBride's are two of the oldest and most respected). You'll have to pay $1.65 over the regular fee if and when the agency effects a minor miracle. There may also be an agency in the lobby of your hotel where, if nothing else avails, crossing a palm with paper may bring results.

Males possessed of a key to the Playboy Clubs will find the city's most sophisticated entertainment and swingingest relaxation within the portals of the New York Playboy Club at 5 East 59th Street, whose opening is imminent as we go to press. Constructed at a spare-no-luxury cost of $3,250,000, the lavishly appointed seven-story structure will offer members such high-revel inducements as the Living Room (with a vast open fireplace and a raised circular piano bar), the Playroom and the Penthouse (two smart showrooms with continuous entertainment seven nights a week), and the decorative Playmate Bar, all distaffed, of course, by comely Bunnies in fetching rabbit habit. Added to the customary Club trademarks of closed-circuit television and providential provender (all meals, from the Living Room Buffet to the Penthouse Playboy Prime Steak Platter, cost naught but the price of a drink) will be an innovating VIP Room, a unique black-scarlet-and-gold chamber serving gourmet lunches and dinners, and featuring intime shows and a bouncy assemblage of European Bunnies clad in special attire. Dinners here will cost $15 per person, including cover.

The town's two most garishly boisterous gardens are the Latin Quarter, at 200 West 48th, and the Copacabana, at 10 East 60th: both are devoted to slick entertainment and the natural wonders of willowy chorus girls. The Quarter generally backstops its cordon of nymphs with a less-than-cosmic comic, an unsung singer, aerialists and experts in the juggling vein; the show comes on strong with a theme--in the order of Vive les Femmes--which is promptly disregarded by performers and audience alike once the pneumatic chorines and their fortunate front men have hoofed through the opener. The acts then succeed one another like Chinese firecrackers, in a stadium-size room whose decorator went for baroque. We advise skipping dinner--the food might be described as nitery so-so--and arriving stag around 9:15 in time for the early show.

The Copacabana is less brazen, more hip, and offers more quality in its headline talent. In addition to the copacetic Copa girls--permanent and fetching fixtures of the room--you'll see the likes of Sinatra or Sammy Davis, Jr., swinging solidly between the lines. Topside, in the Copa lounge, there's no cover and no minimum, and the roistering continues till 4 A.M.; at the main event downstairs the minimum is $7, an easy sum to surpass if you arrive in time for dinner.

Decidedly swanker and decibelly more subdued is El Morocco at 307 East 54th Street, the zebra-striped hangout for society's name- and money-droppers. In lieu of a floorshow, within this club you'll find a smart, small dance band to complement your dining, and a sip-supplementing piano in the adjoining Champagne Room. If your spa-ing partner is prone to glamor, this is a fine spot to further a campaign. In the same league is The Stork Club, at 3 East 53rd Street, a supper club with dance music which owes its fashionably feteful career to the shrewd generalship of majordomo Sherman Billingsley.

For an evening of dining, dancing and entertainment in less kinetic, more decorous surroundings, you can have a prime time on the hotel circuit. The sedate Plaza has two rooms well worth rejoicing in: the Persian Room, a low-wattage club with lots of style which offers the songs of top thrushes like Eartha Kitt and Diahann Carroll, and the Rendez-Vous Room, which this season has a new satirical revue staged by that avant guardian impresario, Julius Monk.

The Cotillion Room of the Pierre draws an upper-income, older group during the week, and a crowd of friskier lads and lasses on weekends. There are two shows nightly--usually a ballroom dance team and singers in the Pat Marand--William Walker league; dancing--as in all of the hotel clubs--is continuous after 8 P.M. Two other dine-and-dance salons worthy of a twosome step are the Greek-inspired Maisonette of the St. Regis and the Empire Room of the Waldorf, the latter being particularly noted for name vocalists, like Pearl Bailey and Carol Channing. The tab at all these sanctums will average $25 to $30 for dinner and drinks per pair.

The East Side in the Fifties is the area of the city richest in high-rent, medium-sized amusement lairs. In a section saturated with cabarets committed to showcasing the top talent in the country, three sure bets are the Blue Angel, Basin Street East and the Embers.

The Blue Angel, at 152 East 55th Street, has, for any man's money, one of the coziest and most agreeable lounges in Manhattan: we suggest dallying there for a drink and an earful of Bobby short's sophisticated piano and songs before entering the teeming inner playpen to watch the big acts. These usually include a vocally and visually pleasing female singer, either an upper-echelon comic like Dick Gregory or Jackie Mason or a new personality such as Barbra Streisand (the comedienne who sparked-up Broadway's I Can Get It for You Wholesale), and perhaps a folk group like Peter. Paul and Mary.

The format at Basin Street East, at 137 East 48th Street, is broad enough to combine successfully the big-band sounds of Duke Ellington or Stan Kenton with hip acts like Mort's Sahliloquies. The room is voluminous, yet casual and comfortable, and a favorite shrine for burners of the midnight oil, who in the next few months will sit at the famed feet of Peggy Lee, Benny Goodman, Louis Prima, Count Basic and Ella Fitzgerald.

The Embers, at 161 East 54th Street, sits across the way from El Morocco: for years Embers entrepreneurs made unsuccessful attempts to lure the Morocco overflow until owner Ralph Watkins took over and introduced food (notably spareribs of beef) to the steady diet of jazz and, with this sensible move, made the Embers hot. But it is still first and foremost a somewhat commercialized jazz buff's haunt, and such senior shoguns as George Shearing, Eddie Heywood, Teddy Wilson and Jonah Jones find hospitable pine-paneled shelter beneath its roof.

On the West Side, you'll find two celebrated playing fields for music masters. Birdland and the Metropole. The former, at 1678 Broadway, has the distinction of being the oldest jazz joint on the street: in a town where clubs open and shut with the rapidity of a B-girl's wink, it has survived for 12 commanding years. A big barn of a place named after the legendary Yardbird, alto man Charlie Parker, Birdland first became noteworthy as a tabernacle for the flatted fifths of bop: today it is home base for the orchestrated masters--Ellington, Basic, Gillespie, Kenton--and as such, the most famous jazz spot in the world.

The Metropole, a couple of blocks away at 48th and Seventh, makes a specialty of nonspecialization. From its skinny bandstand housed above a long gleaming bar you'll be serenaded by as many as 20 or as few as three music men blaring blues, swing or Dixieland (in recent months denizens of the nicotined den have heard Hampton and Krupa, as well as brash combos like the Dixie-Mets and The Dukes of Dixieland). Its glass portals are open seven nights a week.

If you're not in the mood for a jazz band in full cry, head for 37 West 56th Street and the twin clubs, Upstairs at the Downstairs and Downstairs at the Upstairs where, since 1956, Julius Monk has staged a succession of highly successful cabaret shows. Each room has its own compact troupe of versatile passers-in-revue who launch outrageous slings and arrows against all manner of targets in a series of tightly written, well paced satirical skits. Both rooms are small and friendly, with handsome Edwardian decor--red upstairs, green down below, connected by a winding marble staircase. Nightly minimum is $5.

For those with a date in tow and a desire for a secluded and hushed rendezvous, perhaps the ultimate in muted suasion is to be found at The Living Room at 49th and Second Avenue, a favored site for many a Manhattan conquestador. Progress, it would appear, is The Living Room's most important product: soft chairs, soft couches, and softer love seats are casually situated in a small, almost blacked-out chamber containing a tiny stage, whereon a trio emits dreamy tinklings and a female songstress abets the amorous mood. Owner Dan Segal considers his place to be a revered hangout for showbiz people, a claim which you won't be able to disprove, since the absence of wattage in the lighting system will prevent you from seeing anyone save the lady next to you and the folks on the stage. A restaurant called Room at the Top was recently opened one flight up: it's as quiet and sparingly lit as the lounge. For the club's $4.50. per-person minimum you may dine, then, descend to the dark at the bottom of the stairs to glom the show.

By the time you read this, the twist mania may well have run out of centrifugal force. If, however, the put-it-in-writhing set is still involved in entertaining motions on the floor, you may be sure that these will be on view at the now-famed Peppermint Lounge, a dimly lit, thigh-popping, smoke-screened arena on West 45th Street where high priest Chubby Checker performs rites of swing for an unlikely mélange of bobbing hoods, aristocrats, college chicks and slummers. Another twist locale for the new fashion set is--or perhaps was--Big Wilt's Smalls Paradise in the heart of Harlem.

Reserve at least one of your evenings for a sampling of the diverse divertissements of the Village, where hipniks, chicks, junkies, Beats, boheems, political evangels, sexual experimenters and assorted disaffiliates may be observed and joined in celebration of the cult of sellexpression in free-form, freewheeling style. Geographically, the Village is a mile-square area bounded roughly by 14th Street on the north, the Hudson on the West. Canal Street to the south and Broadway to the east: the maze of streets therein is in sharp contrast to the sensible grid that apportions Manhattan to the north. While the building boom reverberates here, too, and some of the shrines to restless rebels of yore have been pre-empted by the orange-crate architecture of today (the Waldorl Cafeteria, where Max Bodenheim used to hold court all night, is gone, as is the fabled artists' bailiwick, the Brevoort Hotel and many a brownstoned attic and atelier), the restless spirit of dissent persists and flourishes, notably around Washington Square--beneath whose Gallic arch folk singers and guitar pluckers gather on spring and autumn afternoons, and where outdoor art shows lure bargain-browsing patrons in the summer and fall--and along MacDougal Street a honky-tonk honeycomb of coffee shops, leather-goods bazaars, and people of every persuasion.

Of course, a goodly number of Villagers are solid nine-to-five organization types, not given to extremes of behavior or belief. But the self-searching state of mind and questing creativity that drew such resident writers as Washington Irving, Edgar Allen Poe and Walt Whitman in the 19th Century continues to exert a seductive attraction to the talents and would-be talents of today, Greenwich Village is still the nerve center of American rebellion--and, as such, a Shangri-La for informal, iconoclastic relaxation.

In the last decade, headquarters for the disparate descendants of the James-Millay-Bodenheim freedom writers has come to be the coffeehouse, a phenomenon that has flourished most notably amid the casual conviviality of MacDougal Street. Originally enclaves for espresso bugs and assorted chess fanatics, they have come to embrace entertainment in a variety of guises, and the wayfaring shop-hopper will encounter live chamber music, livelier jazz, silent flicks, folk wailers, art and photo exhibits and the publicized combo of poetry and progressive jazz. While the spectrum of atmosphere within the espresso dens ranges from seedy to smart, all will allow you to nurse your Rum Cappuccino (strong black Italian coffee, steamed milk and cinnamon with rum) or Yerba Mate (a green-grass South American tea) for hours as you relate to your date.

The Rienzi, at 107 MacDougal, split-leveled and festooned with photo exhibitions, is one of the hipper Continental-style cafés in the area. Here rep-tied buttondowners and gaunt guys wearing solo earrings and abstract pendants, imbibe one of 20 kinds of coffee and lamp the progressive movements of the dungareed dolls with rump-brushing tresses who circulate among the caffeine crew. Springing from a variety of sources, these lady fairs may be Village Smithies or Vassars or Sarah Lawrences tasting life between semesters, uptown copywriters seeking downtown inspiration, hempsandaled chicks fresh from the Bronx on the road from malteds to medoc, or live-wire actresses from the Living Theater on 14th Street in quest of a leading man. Whoever they are, the pleasant fact is that attractive quail far outnumber the huntsmen who stalk through the Village underbrush, and the male search for fine feathered friends is here often crowned with success.

The Figaro, on the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal, is another in Java joint; it is given to sweet sessions of silent films and chamber music sedation, and has walls emblazoned with newsclips of owner Tom Ziegler's recent battles royal with City Hall politicos who unsuccessfully tried to shutter the shop for promoting hip depravity. One can supplement one's coffee here with a meal of soup, salad and chicken with two vegetables for $1.50.

Two other likely Village espresso emporiums are the Café Bizarre, which lies within an enormous ex-stable at 106 West third Street, has walls bedecked with such artyfacts as grotesque masks, and allows creative thinkers to emit offbeat poesy into a mike while a combo cools it in the background; and the Café Wha?, a big, jumping room at 115 MacDougal where patrons of the arts are assailed by gaudy murals, salvoing bongos and unkempt courters of the muse, (For uptown colleeing, try the nutmegged and chocolated concoctions of either Orsini's or the Collee Mill: both serve Bach with their pastry, both are on 56th Street, and both are first-rate rendezvous for late-in-the-date sipping à deux.)

The Village bar scene is a microcosm of the complex intermeshed society that imparts an air of belligerent spontaneity to the quarter. We have three favorites, each with its own character and individual cachet.

For years, the Number One Bar, at I Fifth Avenue, has been one of the more civilized spas upon the firth of Fifth. In general, it caters to a bourgeois crowd and not the hippies; its intimate, tony innards are an agreeable showcase for fresh musical talent. Sunday nights, fine old-time movies are featured. Arrive with date in tow: unescorted femmes are the exception rather than the rule.

A brownstone's throw away is the Cedar Street Tavern, which is not on Cedar Street at all but at 24 University Place. In appearance the Cedar is in no way distinguishable from any other neighborhood bar; what raises it from a run-of-the-mill gin mill is the fact that it has become in the last decade the favored haunt for painters and sculptors of the New York School. Here in simple surroundings, among regulars de Kooning, Bob DiNero and Al Leslie, you may quench your thirst in the convivial company of big-league talent--a condition not always easily met in Rebelsville.

Across town, close to the West Side docks of the Hudson River at 567 Hudson Street, is the White Horse Tavern, originally an able seamen's pub. During the early Fifties. Dylan Thomas held silver-tongued court here between reading tours; the site has since been transformed into a sudsy shrine to his memory. The White Horse is as nearly akin to an English alehouse as you'll find in the city, and draws an intellectual clientele of turtlenecked cerebralites and sooty-eyed kittens with cool credos and warm bodies.

In recent years the economy-sized theater--seating under 200--has proliferated in the Village and its immediate environs, and the prototype Province-town Playhouse has been joined by dozens of other arenas dedicated to the profit-with-honor presentation of classic and experimental drama. Here, in intimate and dramatically inexpensive settings, you can ponder the theatrical pyrotechnics of such innovators as Genet, Brecht, Behan and Kafka, and enjoy the zeal and artistry of young rough-but-ready thespers. Tickets for most of these productions can be had without much trouble, but naturally you'll be playing it safer if you post an advance order (the names and numbers of all the plays can be scanned in The New York Times).

If in doubt as to which of the off-Broadway stages you should catch, remember that you may count on quality entertainment at the Living Theater and The Circle in the Square. Both are theaters-in-the-round with unsquare bills of fare; the Living Theater gained wide renown by producing the plays of Jack Gelber (The Connection and The Apple), and The Circle has recently scored with one-act presentations of Thornton Wilder life.

Another enriching evening can be spent in the informal confines of a Village improvisational theater, a brand of spontaneous theatrical combustion that first caught fire in Chicago. The Premise, at 154 Bleecker Street, is a coffeehouse-cabaret opened a few years past by producer-director Theodore Flicker, who had previously operated in St. Louis and Chicago, and was the one-time mentor of Nichols and May. The Premise was accepted immediately by the Village theatrical crowd, who are still flocking to Flicker's underground quarters to dig the fresh and far-out artistry of four say-nay kids and their satirical skits, some of which are inspired by suggestions from the audience, others developed out of ideas tested during previous performances. While you're watching the devilish dissection of the American foible-minded, you may partake of a variety of sandwiches, coffee and pastry, which are placed on tiny trays attached to your seat. Another immediate theater center is the improbably named Second City at Square East, where an equally skittish and clever band of Chicago refugees troupe their colors in a topically attuned revue.

Entertainment on a less cerebral plane may be sampled at a variety of bouncing boites de nuit sprinkled throughout the Village labyrinth. The Village Gate, at 185 Thompson, is owned and operated by a retired tree surgeon named Art D'Lugoff, who has gained a reputation as an impresario of catholic taste: in the recent past he's booked a potpourri of foreign and domestic talent that includes Haitian dancers, Ireland's Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, Nigeria's Olatunji and his Drums of Passion, folk crooner Theo Bikel, Sonny Rollins and Spain's Carmen Amaya and her Flamenco Company. Those who would swing at the Gate will find a cavernous Brauhaus-style interior lined with rows of tables which all command an unblemished vista of a stage intelligently constructed a full yard above floor level. The food is on the corned-beef-and-potato-salad level, so don't expect provender either epic or epicurean. The modest admission fee varies with the attraction.

Seven years ago, the Five Spot, just east of the Village at 5 Cooper Square, was a neighborhood groggery catering in the main to Bowery boozers; its only entertainment was the metallic cacophony descending from the late--and, for some perverse reason, lamented--Third Avenue El as it rumbled overhead. Today, the panhandlers are uninspired by the club's $1.50 drinking minimum, the El has been ripped up by its roots, and the Five Spot has won a considerable degree of fame by serving as a proving ground for some of the city's brightest and most inventive jazz sounds. The club's transition from a sot spot to a saloon-salon for progressive music was an unpredictable result of the installation of a piano and then a trio by owners Iggy and Joe Terminini; itinerant jazz buffs encouraged the two brothers to hire promising talents like Ornette Coleman and, with one of those sudden brush-fire surges in popularity that light the dreams of Manhattan's entrepreneurs, the club became one of the hippest rooms in town. The decor of the Five Spot remains that of a whiskey-and-smoke-colored old-time tavern--hut for the latest changing of the avant-garde, from Art Blakey to Sonny Rollins to Roland Kirk (a chap who blows tenor sax, manzello and strich simultaneously) it's a notably innovating site.

A more publicized playpen for modern winds blowing good is The Village Vanguard at 178 Seventh Avenue South, where the headliners include the likely likes of Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, Oscar Peterson, Cannonball Adderley and Stan Getz. Owner Max Gordon has chalked up an impressive list of firsts, including the premiere New York booking of South Africa's Miriam Makeba, has presented hip-shooting comics like Bruce and Corey, and once even had road-scholar Jack Kerouac reading aloud to a downbeat backdrop of jazz. Cover is $2.50: on Sundays there's a 4:30 matinee jam session. Other lower-Manhattan Meccas for seekers after the cool sound of truth are the Jazz Gallery (which welcomed the return of Sonny Rollins to public life) and the Half Note, a murky grotto much explored by jazz spelunkers.

Uptown, you should bear in mind the location of a clutch of after-hour eateries, where late-date cravings for sustenance can be assuaged in the company of Manhattan's brightest night people. Noisy, brash and memorable are Lindy's on Broadway at 52nd Street, the Stage Delicatessen on Seventh Avenue at 53rd Street, and the Carnegie Delicatessen, just down the block. More columnists, comics and characters assemble at this trio of regrouping camps than at any dozen other post-midnight canteens combined. Here such dining cards as Youngman, Leonard, Mason and Berle often congregate to add insult to verbal injury, and cheesecake chorus queens come in to reign and shine, with or without escorts. This is New York in its most alive, least phony phase, a perpetually open full house, serving such deli delights as corned beef, pastrami, potato salad and "specials"--plump, kosher hot dogs.

Another acknowledged leader among eateries offering the late, late chow is The Brasserie, a new 24-hour playground in the East Side's floodlit Seagram Building noted for its tall drinks, toothsome waitresses, and revivifying food. Molded after the traditional French provincial restaurant. and decorated with wall panels of teak and glass, it's awash at lunchtime with execs and at dinner with pretheater couples: after hours, however. the tinkling Brasserie really comes into its own as the endemic retreat of show-busy performers. Café Society coteries and hungry New Yorkers--even at five in the morning the atmosphere has a supercharged spontaneity. It's a chic rendezvous for a last-snack egg dish or casserole of chicken livers

Finally, at 315 Third Avenue there's P.J. Clarke's, an old-time bar on the Third Avenue saloon circuit that is a lunchtime address for medium-sized wheels in the ad game, and a noisy nighttime haunt for young people in and on the periphery of show business who crave an after-theater burger and beer. This is the bar, incidentally, that appeared in Lost Weekend. the 1945 film in which Ray Milland won his Oscar.

In the unlikely event that your wining and dining thus far have been accomplished in solitary splendor, it does not necessarily follow that the shank of the evening need be spent sans feminine solace. As the nation's entertainment capital. New York has not confined itself to the proprieties of legitimate but untouchable epidermal displays-- while not every girl has her price, a sufficiency do, and for the man who would gambol, the chippies are stacked and ready for the game. To believers in fare play, we would counsel a complete avoidance of the harpies who prowl in tall heels and short skirts through the hurly-burly of Times Square. Higher-quality members of the tart set may be encountered in a four-block square extending from Fifth to Seventh avenues between 58th and 59th Streets: fees range upward from $20. More attractive yet are the roaming legions of callgirls, the Butterfield 8 professionals whose combined talents have made the New York brothel as obsolete as the speakeasy.

Getting the number of one of these belle telephoners is not as sticky a problem to the out-of-towner as it might first appear: a few dollars donated to a knowledgeable-looking servitor in one of the better transient hotels will yield a number, often that of an answering service. Exchange students will discover that a dozen pages are devoted to answering services in the Manhattan classified: camouflaged among these are those that specialize in callgirls. You leave your name and number, and within an hour your call to arms will net a knock on your door, followed by the entry of an undercover agent so tastefully coiffed and gracefully mannered that you'll find it difficult to credit her as a professional. The pleasure of her company will, usually, amount to $20 for a tumble and $100 for the night, in cash.

Eschewing such pelf-centered pleasures, many male visitors prefer to take advantage of a uniquely metropolitan solution to the problem of pursuing the opposite persuasion. For a nominal $20 yearly tariff, townies and out-of-towners alike are invited to join the reveling ranks of The Cliff Dwellers' Deviltry and Diversion Society (write 125 Riverside Drive for membership), self-styled as "the oldest established permanent floating cocktail party in Manhattan"--a singular society for swingers in the 20--35 age bracket, mainly junior execs and private sees in search of laissez-faire liaisons. At liberally lubricated fetes held in huge ballrooms--and recently on a chartered Hudson River cruise ship--500 or more of its 12,000 mixed membership meet 20 times a year to eat, drink and be merry in 'he pleasantly permissive atmosphere of a private club.

During the succeeding days of your visit you will have little difficulty in discovering new ways of living the great and good New York life. The variety and sheer abundance of entertainments that exist beyond restaurant, theater and night-club scenes is--as with most aspects of the city--unexcelled.

Musically, a full-scale array of pleasing arenas awaits the discriminating ear. In season, opera bulls may take their pleasure in the refulgent interior of the Metropolitan Opera House (between 39th and 10th Streets, Broadway and Seventh Avenue): symphonic dilettantes will swarm to the spanking new 2600-seat Philharmonic Hall within the Lincoln Center complex to enjoy the concerted efforts of Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic; and eclectic music devotees will zero in on the New York City Center (131 West 55th Street), which presents a snappy succession of ballet, opera, light opera and drama, at a top toll of $4.35 per seat. In the summertime, others will tune in to alfresco nighttime concerts at Lewisohn Stadium on the Upper West Side where artists such as Armstrong, Belafonte and Joan Sutherland occasionally pack the concrete seats; or head for the Mall in Central Park near 72nd Street, for a free-open-air jazz or classical concert.

You should also devote a few of your free hours between late breakfast and early cocktails high-browsing through one or more of the city's sumptuously diversified museums. The Museum of Modern Art, just off Fifth on 53rd, houses the finest permanent collection of impressionist and post-impressionist art in the country and has become a shrewd champion of new trends in painting. sculpture, design and crafts. In addition to its permanent and evolving exhibits, it's enhanced by a luncheon restaurant with outdoor tables and chairs upon a terrace overlooking a sculpture garden, and a compact auditorium that screens fine old flicks daily at 3 and 5:30 P.M.

Other treasuries, artistic or otherwise, which you should take into account include the Guggenheim Museum on upper Fifth Avenue, a six-story spiral late masterwork by Frank Lloyd Wright which contains 20th Century art mounted along a quarter-mile corkscrewing ramp; the monumental Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth between 80th and 84th streets, whose exhibits span the full spectrum of Western man's artistic achievement; The Cloisters, a museum of medieval art set amid arcades and gardens on a hushed hill overlooking the Hudson: and the American Museum of Natural History (facing Central Park at 77th Street), which includes amid its rich trove of natural science exhibits brilliantly conceived habitat groups, and the star-spangled Hayden Planetarium.

Sporting bloods are continually confronted with a choice lineup of competitive events. Depending on the season, the weather and your own inclinations, you can take in the best major-league ball club (at Yankee Stadium) or the worst (at the Polo Grounds), watch Ivy League football at Columbia's Baker Field, pro football at the Stadium (Giants) and the Polo Grounds (Titans), and International Soccer League matches at Downing Stadium on Randall's Island. With in the smoky vastness of Madison Square Garden (at 50th Street and Eighth Avenue, it is far from Madison Square and is no garden) you can witness at one time or another the New York knicks playing pro basketball, prizefights, college basketball, wrestling, track meets, six-day bike races, the National Horse Show, the Westminster Kennel Club Show, ski jumping, circuses, rodeos, Presidential birthday parties, and the New York Rangers pro hockey team. You can attend polo games on Saturday nights in the Squadron A Armory at 94th Street and Madison Avenue, observe Columbia crewing on the Harlem River, patronize aquatic carnivals and auto shows at the New York Coliseum, join other improvers of the breed at Aqueduct Race Track and Belmont Park, bet on the turners at Roosevelt and Yonkers Raceways, observe the national singles tennis championship matches outdoors at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills and the United States Lawn Tennis Association Indoor Championships at the 7th Regiment Armory on Park Avenue. You can go sailing on Long Island Sound, indulge in superlative deep-sea fishing off Long Island's Montauk Point, ice-skate on the rink at Rockefeller Plaza. play badminton at the Theater and Badminton Club (498 Third Avenue), take skindiving lessons (Post Ski and Sport, on Lexington Avenue between 78th and 79th Streets), and learn to fence (Masque Fencing School, 225 West 46th Street). You can, in short, keep busy either as an eyewitness or as an able-bodied participant.

Spare an hour or so for a visit to Central Park, a two-and-a-half-square-mile oasis for loafers, lovers and other leisure classes. By summer a fragrant playground for boating, riding, bicycling, bird-watching, elephant-feeding, tennis and long lazy walks, in winter it offers an invigorating invitation for morning constitutionals. When it turns cold enough, there's skating on Conservatory Lake, and when it snows, there's even skiing of a sort on Burns Lawn at 79th Street. At the southeast corner of the park, near the Plaza fountain, horsedrawn hansom cabs may be hired; these clip-cloppers provide the carriage trade with a pleasant and mobile mode of romancing.

Don't be chary about indulging in such unabashedly touristy activities as riding the elevators to the Empire State Building's 102nd floor, or ascending the 168 steps to the Statue of Liberty's crown, or taking the standard TV studio tour at Rockefeller Center--these can be fun, doubly so if done in the company of a comely compatriot. Other exhilarating excursions can be made to the UN at 46th Street and First Avenue, to Staten Island and back by ferry (still for a niggardly nickel), and around Manhattan on board one of the staunch little steamers that ply the East River-Harlem River-Spuyten Duyvil Creek-Hudson River route (Circle Line boats depart Pier 83 at West 43rd Street, the Hudson River Day Line boats from Pier 81 at West 41st Street every season save winter), And for a high new time, head for the Heliport at West 30th Street and 12th Avenue where on weekends you can hop into a glass-enclosed whirlybird and be waited about the Statue of Liberty, the financial district, the Empire State Building and the East River's bustly waterfront for a fee of $5 per person.

In sum, whatever your habits, inclinations and aptitude for pleasures, the City of New York will leave you at once satisfied, yet eager for more. As Thomas Wolfe once observed, it is indeed "the place where men feel their lives will gloriously be fulfilled and their hunger fed." No matter how many times you touch down here, or how long you stay, the vibrancy and excitement and expectancy will never be blunted, nor will familíaríty stale the infinite variety of its urbanely urban diversions. Happily, there will always be another restaurant to be tried, a new revue to be seen. another liaison to explore, another show about to begin.