36 Hours in New York City

Pack in 400 years of history at the Museum of the City of New York in East Harlem ($20 suggested admission), opposite Central Park at the top end of Museum Mile. Its ongoing exhibition, “New York at Its Core,” will give you a glimpse of the neighborhoods you’ll encounter this weekend, and an overview of the many eras of the city’s development, including its few decades as the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, its 19th-century shift to an immigrant hub, the growth of the city’s park program after the New Deal and the birth of the punk and hip-hop subcultures of the 1970s and 1980s.

To the dismay of the too-cool-for-school set, Midtown is having a moment. Rockefeller Center is enticing popular restaurateurs with real-estate deals, aiming to draw locals and tourists alike. One glamorous newcomer is Le Rock, a French brasserie (from the owners of the popular TriBeCa restaurant Frenchette) with a sleek Art Deco design and a pricey (around $200 for two without drinks) menu of chilled oysters ($24 for a half dozen), bison au poivre ($60) and a long list of natural wines. For a night of grand Manhattan opulence, you’re in good hands. Other notable arrivals in the area: Detroit-style slices at Ace’s Pizza, Italian dining with outdoor seating at Lodi (a Times food critic’s favorite) and the 11-seat Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar.

The real breakfast of champions is a pastrami, egg and cheese sandwich ($12.50) at Frankel’s Delicatessen & Appetizing in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. There may be no better representation of New York deli cuisine than the happy marriage between the Jewish staple meat, and the bodega and coffee-cart hero, the bacon, egg and cheese. If securing a window seat is a bust, the benches of McCarren Park across the street are calling your name. And for breakfast dessert (you’re on vacation!): Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop. You might recognize the bakery from the 2021 movie “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” but regulars know it for the unparalleled blueberry buttermilk doughnuts ($1.75).

Hidden away from Williamsburg’s chain coffee shops and boutique gyms is City Reliquary ($7 entry) a tiny, colorful storefront wedged between buildings on Metropolitan Avenue. Inside is a quirky and fascinating collection of New York artifacts curated by this not-for-profit community museum and civic organization. Packed (really packed) into two small rooms, you’ll find defunct subway signage, souvenirs from New York World’s Fairs, samples of rocks from far below the city and an astonishing amount more. Look for the many iterations of paper deli cups, including the iconic Anthora cup (designed by Leslie Buck in the 1960s), which you’ll still see at diners and bodegas today.

Greenwich Village cynics will complain about its restaurants: Lines everywhere, many cash-only and littered with celebrities and the rubberneckers that follow. For first-time Village diners, though, Bar Pitti unfailingly delivers an entertaining night out. Get there around 6 p.m. (with cash — no cards accepted) and there should be a short wait. Order the eggplant Parmesan if it’s on the chalkboard of specials ($14.50), pappardelle in a pink cream sauce ($23.50) and a bottle of Lambrusco ($50). The best Italian food in New York? It’s probably not the best on its block. But the brash-yet-somehow-charming service, prime location and killer people-watching makes Bar Pitti a true New York affair. For a more relaxed alternative, Malatesta Trattoria has an excellent tagliatelle ragu ($17, cash-only) and a lower-key ambience.

Marie’s Crisis Café is a West Village space that’s lived many lives: It was a boarding house, then a brothel, before it became a speakeasy in 1929. (It may also be haunted by the ghost of the political theorist Thomas Paine, who died on the site in 1809). Arrive before 9 p.m. to avoid a line and descend the stairs beneath Marie’s red-and-white awning. Inside, be enamored by guests singing along to piano-led show tunes until 4 a.m. The staff is mainly made up of professional entertainers, and a night there feels like a cheat code to seeing Broadway-level talent for the cost of a couple of (cash-only!) beers.

The anchor of the East Village is the 10.5-acre Tompkins Square Park, opened in 1834, a famous site for activism since the 1874 riot following a workers’ demonstration (and, more recently, the 1988 protest against police curfews and the 2022 opposition to homeless sweeps). On a Sunday, you’ll encounter a small farmers market, skateboarders and a lovely dog run. Spot the neoclassical Temperance Fountain, installed in 1888 to encourage locals to drink fresh water instead of alcohol. Walk east out of the park and down Avenue C, also known as Loisaida Avenue, a name that references the neighborhood and its large Nuyorican — a portmanteau of New York and Puerto Rican — community. It won’t be open yet, but you can see the murals that embellish the historic Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Manhattan’s Chinatown is shrinking with “the largest exodus of Asian residents of any other neighborhood in the city,” as Aaron Reiss writes in a visual story for The Times. One enduring stalwart is Golden Unicorn, a banquet-style Cantonese restaurant since 1989 that reopened with outdoor seating after a temporary pandemic closure. It’s impossible to imagine Lower Manhattan without Golden Unicorn’s excellent baked roasted pork buns ($5.95 for three) and plump xiao long bao ($9.99 for five). Find the unassuming entrance on East Broadway and wait for the go-ahead to take an elevator to the dining room. If you’re in a rush, grab a pork bun ($1.50) and an order of steamed egg-yolk buns ($3.95 for three) from Mei Lai Wah Bakery for a walking snack.