New York - Lower Manhattan

As home to an estimated 80,000 or more residents of Chinese descent, Chinatown has become a center for Chinese restaurants, antique and craft shops, temples, and festivals. This densely packed area is always a lively and colorful spot in the city, and a prominent tourist attraction. The streets are generally crowded with people and, where space allows, outdoor stalls with fruits and other goods.

The biggest festival is Chinese New Years which takes place sometime in February each year.

The Bowery Poetry Club and Cafe is housed in a Dutch Colonial building that was completed in 1850. Founded in 2002, it provides a location for established and upcoming artists offering theatre, literary readings, and music. There is always something fun going on at the club. Check the website to see what's on display and happening.

The Holland Tunnel was the first Hudson River vehicular tunnel, it opened in 1927. Considered an outstanding engineering achievement, whose principles are employed to this day, the facility was cited as a National Historic Civil and Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1984. Drivers can enter the Holland Tunnel just above Canal street on the west side of Manhattan Island, and it brings them to the eastern edge of New Jersey.

What is today known as Little Italy was the first stop for many southern Italian immigrants who came to America in the late nineteenth-century. They lived in overcrowded squalor in this section of the city.

Today, it is a lively place to shop and dine, with its own unique character. This is definitely the place to come for Italian cuisine. The most exciting time to visit is mid-September during the Feast of San Gennaro which pays tribute to the saint with parades, dancing, and food.

Old St. Patrick's Cathedral is one of New York's oldest churches, dating back to 1809. The choir loft houses a historic organ built in 1852. Below the church are vaults containing famous New Yorkers such as the restaurateurs, the Delmonicos and Pierre Toussaint, now considered for sainthood by the Vatican.