Summer in New York can feel like a Rube Goldberg device of inconvenience: a stuck train, a sweaty blouse, a perpetual cab smacking up against a perpetual red light on the hottest day of August, with the air-conditioning busted and pouring out steam. Alternately, it can feel like a verdant, minty heaven, one populated by scantily clad fancy folk on their way to the best, most interesting dinner party in town—or just out of town.
It would be easy to say that the difference is state of mind: that if you could just go with the flow, every day could feel like vacation. But that’s just so … Californian. In New York, anxiety is always prickling beneath the surface. So let’s be practical. Herein, our solutions to your major summer problems: the traffic, the heat, your obsessive quest to replicate Il Laboratorio del Gelato’s banana ice cream in your own home. Our aim is to ease your way, whether you’re teetering toward a Hamptons benefit you’ve been dreading, steering distant cousins through Times Square, or just tip-toeing out of the office for the perfect hooky day.
How to Fall in Love with New York, Again
See a movie, just skip Bryant Park
How to Arrive at Skadden, Arps Cool as a Cucumber
Discover the miracle of seven-ounce wool
How to Avoid Melting Down on the Subway Platform
Keep cool with tips from a Bikram yogi
How to Find the Best Manhattan Scenery
People-watch like a pro
How to Be a Dog’s Best Friend
Send your pooch to camp
How to Get There Before “Are We There Yet?”
Shortcutting to the Hamptons
How to Make Procrastination Pay
Make a late, lowball offer on a Hamptons rental
How to Blow Off Work (Part I)
Recipe for a decadent day
How to Blow Off Work (Part II)
Twelve hours of enlightenment
How to Blow Off Work (Part III)
Frolic on the sunny beaches
How to Get Some Sleep. Tonight.
Finding an emergency A/C unit
How to Impress an Ice Cream Snob
The coolest gelato machine
How to Live in Your Own Private California
Surf Rockaway and the Jersey shore
How to Fully Enjoy Mets vs. Yankees
Invade the enemy’s ballpark
How to Replace Your Tenth Lost Pair of Shades
The best knockoff sunglassess
How to Summerproof Your Brillo Hair
Join the Curly Girl Cult
How to Fix Up a House Without Ruining Your Life
Learn from this man’s mistakes
How to Navigate the Benefits Scene
A Hamptons cheat sheet
How to Leave Pinot Grigio in the Dust
Uncork these wines
How to Party Like It’s 1992
Solving Lollapalooza
How to Get Off the Island
Hoist a sail
How to Start a Farm in Your Apartment
Plant a pepper
How to Find the Coldest Beer
Belly up to this bar
How to Take a Plunge
The loveliest public pool
How to Eat…Out
Some really secret gardens
How to Beat the Lines
Pave (and pay) your way to the front
How to Have a Fling
Form a limited partnership
How to Be Bookish on the Beach
Light reading done right
How to Be Really Bookish on the Beach
Serious reading for the sand
How to Avoid Bickering with Your Out-of-Town Guests
Make tourist traps fun
How to Break Out of Your Routine
Fly yourself like a kite
How to Have the City to Yourself
Embrace the emptiness of a Manhattan weekend