Avoid the tourist destinations around Rockefeller Center, especially in the winter, when they illuminate the tree with magic electric fire and the ice-skaters. Go to the area around Radio City Music Hall and buy a gyro or a shish kebab. There are vendors scattered on side streets running off the right side of 5th Ave facing South, on 53rd St., 52nd St. You can get chicken and rice if you don't want a gyro or kebab. Buy a soda or spring water with your meal. It will cost $5 or $6 together.

Walk over a block and lean against a low wall. Look at the people.

Remember the variety of colors, the varieties of skin and voice. Look for necklaces, watches, shoes, neckties, dresses, and T-shirts. Look for families, listen for accents. Notice where people raise their cameras, and what they point to. There is constant pointing in this part of Manhattan. The worst pointing is over to the right, in Times Square on Broadway, but it's still pretty bad here.

I used to do this almost every night, when I worked on the Upper West Side. I would walk from 86th and Amsterdam to 50th and 5th to get the Ftrain. The buildings here are like dominoes. Flashbulbs go off but the streetlights and neon absorb their glow.