10 See where cars go to die. Once identified as the “ash-heaps” in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, now affectionately called “Karmandu,” the open-air automobile graveyard around 127th Street and Roosevelt Avenue is the largest car-part bazaar in the city. Drive down the dusty, unpaved main drag, and grease-covered men will emerge to offer you used but still good (they say) windshields, bumpers, and head gaskets, in every tongue.

11 Solve all your electronic problems at once. You may never find yourself in need of a new cell phone, a vacuum cleaner, a safe, an electric guitar, a typewriter, a pocket scale, a wristwatch, an umbrella, an Elvis-doll AM radio, and a mirrored disco ball all at the same moment. But if you do, get thee to the Electronics Discount Center (159-05 Jamaica Ave., Jamaica; 718-523-1576).

12 Scarf down meat on a stick. The distinctive Central Asian cuisine of the Bukharan Jews can’t be found at the 2nd Ave. Deli. For the full-on experience, you’ll have to travel to Salut (63-42 108th St., Forest Hills; 718-275-6860), where you’ll encounter large, boisterous parties downing vodka and devouring scarily sharp skewers/sabers of charcoal-grilled shish kebab.

Fisher Landau Center for Art.

13 Keep modern art to yourself. When you tire of battling the throng on MoMA’s fifth floor, take the N train to the Fisher Landau Center for Art (38-27 30th St., Long Island City; 718-937-0727). The immaculately renovated parachute-harness factory holds a trove of painting, photography, and sculpture by big names like Richard Prince, James Rosenquist, and Shirin Neshat, as well as lesser-knowns such as Peter Cain and John Duff.

14 Slurp the best ices in the city. In 60 years, prices at Pete Benfaremo’s Lemon Ice King of Corona (52-02 108th St., Corona; 718-699-5133) might have gone from a nickel to a dollar for the small cup, but the ices remain the slushiest in the known universe.

Custom-fitted skating from Bill Klingbeil Shoe Labs.

15 Buy skates from the same store as Sasha Cohen—and Miles Davis. Underneath the squeaky-clean suburban sheen of competitive ice skating lies a gritty urban secret: Scores of top skaters get shod inside a shabby-looking shingle-roofed building on Jamaica Avenue. If you spring for a $500 pair of custom-made leather skating boots at Klingbeil Shoe Labs (145-01 Jamaica Ave., Jamaica; 718-297-6864), you get to try the seat of honor: an ancient wood fitting throne that has been occupied by Sasha Cohen, Oksana Baiul, Sarah Hughes—and, implausibly, Miles Davis, who once ordered a pair of roller skates.

16 Have Ida cook you dinner. With its bunkerlike façade, its cozily dated interior, and its devout clientele, Manducatis (13-27 Jackson Ave., Long Island City; 718-729-4602) is the avatar of anti-style—so reassuringly unhip, it’s hip. It’s the epitome of the Italian-American family business: patriarch Vincent Cerbone manning the phones and the door, wife Ida presiding over the kitchen, and son Anthony affably assisting with the extensive and somewhat famous wine list. Regulars bypass the menu for the specials, if they order at all. More often, Ida knows what they like, and her finely calibrated red-sauce radar is seldom off.

17 Go to a real dive bar. On the industrial fringe of Long Island City, you’ll find the ill-named Easy Street Lounge and Bar (36-18 Greenpoint Ave., Long Island City; 718-361-5784), a cavernous ex-auto-repair shop. Take a seat (there are plenty to be had) near the exit, order a Wild Turkey, and discreetly absorb the atmosphere, which alternates between catatonic and ballistic.

18 Try the Third Way of grocery shopping. The tiny Greek markets that dot the landscape of 30th Avenue in Astoria form a sort of latter-day agora that represents an alternative to Manhattan’s supermarkets and corner delis. A clamorously sociable alfresco atmosphere pervades as representatives of every Balkan canton go about their business. As you take it all in, you can’t help feeling a little like Vito Corleone in The Godfather as he considers alighting from his car to investigate the homely allure of oranges at his local fruit stand.

19 Get into grappa. Your burgundy-cummerbunded waiter’s a lifer. Your burly, cuff-linked neighbors are straight out of GoodFellas. And if you’re smart, you’re downing a hefty portion of gnocchi alla Gorgonzola or fusi alla grappa, two specialties of Piccola Venezia (42-01 28th Ave., Astoria; 718-721-8470), a 32-year-old Astoria stronghold specializing in the Northern Italian cuisine of Istria. If the captain takes a shine to you, you’ll get a sample of powerful house-infused grappa.

20 Find suburban bliss. A stroll through Sunnyside Gardens (take the 7 train to 46th St.) brings the scent of freshly tilled earth, the chirping of birds, and the sight of garden gnomes. It’s the country’s first “garden city,” developed in the late twenties on 77 acres, with each block forming a common landscaped court. Through the middle runs aptly named Bliss Street: Sky-grazing London plane trees arch over unfenced, flower-filled front yards.