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If you like restaurants, clubbing, crowds, fun, you will enjoy Rush Street. Clubs tend to be more in the nature of entertainment clubs rather than bars, and restaurants aren't so much fast food as they are good sit-down places. It's a short street, near Division, and of course it gets a lot of runoff from the Friday/Saturday night crowds looking to have fun. It can get pretty wild!

Lake Shore Drive actually starts out East-West briefly, at the lower end of Lake Michigan, and curves upward along the western border of the lake for the rest of it. It is generally not commercial at all; it goes through areas like Lincoln Park, which of course has a zoo and is a neighborhood where young, hip and full of money types live and spend their money, but really Lake Shore Drive is a destination all its own. For the most part the apartment buildings, whether rented or owned, are more expensive when they are below, say Diversey (2800 N) and in fact those are some of the most beautiful mansions in the city. But even those that are much further north have the advantage of being on or very near the lake. A sprawling and beautiful thoroughfare.

Michigan Avenue is extraordinarily beautiful. Of course, there is the incredible view with the Lake right there. There is a lot of new architecture, expensive hotels and condominiums, etc., but then you have the Water Tower, that survived the Chicago Fire in 1971, and Water Tower Place, an amazing indoor shopping mall. Beautiful high end restaurants and clothing stores, great shopping and a great atmosphere. Go there!

West Iowa Street goes through the neighborhood I grew up in, and my grammar school building is there. It is full of older two- and three- and more flat brick buildings, some beautifully taken care of, some in terrible disrepair. Recently the city saw the need to put islands in the middle of intersections, one has to assume to slow down the people who were drag racing through the streets. Pity because it was once a strong, middleclass neighborhood. Just before getting to Pulaski Road is Our Lady of the Angels Church and rectory and the School, which is now a charter school for the city. In 1958 the school burned down and 92 children and 3 teachers died. In 1960 the archdiocese built a new school on the site of the old one. The church is in pretty good repair considering, but is no longer a Catholic church.

Pulaski Road has seen better days. When we were kids it was called Crawford, I think it got named after a war hero of some sort, or a general. As it comes up from Madison and toward Chicago Avenue, Division and Armitage, it goes through some very, very rough areas. There are a lot of fly by night businesses and parts of it, as with Chicago Avenue, have surveillance cameras. When you get a little bit further north than say Belmont, it improves a bit; there is shopping and there are some homes. A lot of formerly bustling factories were here and are now closed down. I wouldn't say don't drive through there, but for the most part I'd stay away from a lot of North Pulaski after dark.

I've lived on Division St. near Sacramento. Further east, near Dearborn,Clark,etc., it's a lot of fun and the crowd is young and excited and there are clubs and bars and good shopping etc. Further west it gets pretty seedy for a while, though there are some pretty busy intersections with large stores and long-established smaller ones. In the Wicker Park area, they've done tons of rehabbing of very old buildings, residential and commercial, and are waging a pretty good campaign to make it too expensive to live in. Past Western Avenue and on to Humboldt Park and further, past Pulaski Road, Central, etc., parts are ok but it can be a bit dangerous if you're not careful. I lived next door to a community garden space and no one (including the landlord) told me that 3 times a week there would be drumming classes into the night, sometimes 10 p.m.! Wasn't crazy about it there.

Quiet and Pretty. Oriole north of about Grand-Attractive housing, a lot of somewhat alike-looking housing that was built in the 40s and 50s, but very pretty bungalows, great for families. People have lived here, some of them, all their lives. It is on the border of Elmwood Park and in some places goes through it, and Elmwood Park is another very attractive Western suburb of Chicago. Oriole is mostly residential and has little business traffic, so it is quiet. It goes pretty far north but pretty much retains its general character even when it intersects streets like Belmont, Irving, Montrose, etc. A really great place to live.

Belmont goes, East to West, through as much of Chicago as it could. Further East, especially around Halsted or Clark, there is great shopping, nice clubs and restaurants. Further West, there is usually a good cluster of commercial activity every 4 blocks or so, especially near the big subway station at Belmont and Kimball. I like Central and Belmont, even though it's a little seedy now, still some good places to shop, Belmont bus very reliable, BTW. At 7200W it connects with Harlem Avenue and then goes further west, and at that point it becomes more and more residential, and finally ends in a strip mall at Cumberland. A real microcosm!

North Dearborn Street is without a doubt one of my favorite Chicago streets. Closer to downtown there are good clubs and from about Oak Street up some exorbitantly expensive but beautiful apartment buildings, brand new, being built among the period architecture that is still there. The Newberry Library is a great place for scholarly research, and the Ruth Page Foundation a marvelous place to learn to dance. It is beautifully atmospheric, still has a good amount of leafiness (!) and nice shops. Enjoy it, it's great.

Without a doubt Chicago Avenue has got many different personalities. Further east it goes through trendy neighborhoods like the Gold Coast, has great shopping, restaurants etc., excellent bus transportation throughout. Go a bit further west and it becomes extremely rough and has a high crime rate, and there are surveillance cameras on every corner. Further west than that, you start going through Oak Park, with its pretty homes, and again the real estate is very expensive and the general environment somewhat safer. All in all it can be a great commercial street in almost every area, except for the west side from about 3000-5000 west. Be careful there.

I spent a lot of time here at one point as a family member was being treated at Children's Hospital, the health care is amazing, all in one basic location. Children's Hospital (not just for children) has some of the greatest specialists. It seems more like a destination for specific things rather than a place to live. The Gardner Museum was my favorite place to go, peaceful, beautiful and such a collection of art! And the story of Isabella Stewart Gardner herself is an amazing one, a real New England eccentric.

Washington Street really changes from one end to the other. I lived on Boylston and Tremont, adn would often walk down Washington to go shopping at Downtown Crossing, most often at Filene's, where the basement was my absolutely favorite place. The previously shuttered Opera House, which was an absolute wreck for years, has been fixed up, which makes an enormous difference, as that part of the street was very depressing for a long time because of it. When you get to Downtown Crossing (lots of shopping along the way), it's closed to traffic. At lunch time people from the office buildings around usually come there and there are a lot of places for a good lunch.

True, it's just beautiful, I have to admit. I love the way Beacon Street looks. I went apartment hunting here with a friend and was really struck by it. But as previously stated by another reviewer, the buildings we saw were lovely on the outside and all had problems on the inside; I was impressed by how cramped the feelings inside were as I usually think older buildings are more spacious than newer ones, and these were not, not at all. What shopping there was was extraordinarily overpriced, great if you live on expensive wine and cheese, but not exactly Woolworth's, you know? Overall it is almost like a movie set, not the same in back as it is in front somehow.

Well I agree a great deal, I have to admit I like Newbury Street and it's lovely, although *majorly* overpriced. Years ago I remember a friend paying something like 300 dollars for a set of sheets for her bed and I know some wouldn't flinch at it (pillowcases included) but I certainly did at the time. I enjoyed the little restaurants/cafes a lot. It compares somewhat to Columbus Avenue in New York; lots of young/rich types, still friendly. Much more comfortable if you have money than not, certainly.

Indeed in the Red Light District but although it isn't for kids, I always liked going through here (maybe not at night?). You see all sorts of characters, some of the adult businesses are kind of funny looking on the outside, wouldn't know about the inside! Also as it's in/near/around Chinatown you can do a lot of side-tracking to the Chinese grocers, restaurants, bakeries (try bakery rice cakes because they are AMAZING). Also I lived right on the edge of it on Boylston Street, and it's odd for the Red Light District to be Right There, so to speak, but aside from avoiding it at night I didn't feel uncomfortable with it, and liked the shopping daytimes.

Well it is a pretty street, and it does have a lot of pretty places; buildings with pretty exteriors. I have had friends who lived here and in one case a friend's apartment had been carved out of a space that wasn't originally meant to be one, and it was a very uncomfortable living area. In addition, like a number of them, it was entirely electric heat, which in the winter can make for some very uncomfortable bills! Being in the South End, Chandler Street is certainly nice looking and can be a pretty walk to make, and people are generally quite friendly, but I'm not sure it's worth the kind of money you have to pay to live there as a renter or a buyer.

Boylston Street from Tremont up to the Prudential, can be a really great walk about. On your right of course would be the Common; on the left a lot of great smaller stores; the back of the big Transportation Building faces Boylston and you can enter the concourse on Boylston, lots of fast food there. There's a little place called Edgar Allan Poe Way. There used to be a store with a pair of little old ladies who sold kind of "needful things", very spooky place. There are some old churches, good shopping in specialty stores and at the Prudential a great big indoor shopping mall. Great for people watching.

Clarendon Street, from Tremont West to the train station (the portion I'm writing about) is of course in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Boston. It's just packed with beautiful buildings, at Tremont is the church that was converted to condos, and along the street until you get to the train station, tons of pretty little brick buildings. There are some small businesses and of course the big Boston Ballet building there, and I have known people who lived there, but I know it's expensive, much too much, for instance, for the dancers and students who go to the ballet to live in. However, good to look at.

This is about Tremont from Arlington Street eastward. At the corner of Arlington there are theaters like the Shubert and the Wang Center, the Wang increasingly presents mass-market stage spectaculars so it's gotten less interesting. Tremont is the south end of the Common and that is a beautiful park. There's a lot of good shopping along Tremont until you get further down toward the government buildings and smaller streets that lead to shopping at stores like Filene's. I liked taking the Tremont bus east to go shopping. Great pass by the State House, old church with a cemetery,etc., very historical.

This would be about Boylston Street from Tremont down to South Station. I lived on Tremont and Boylston, and of course that is the South end of Boston Common, which is a great city park. There are some increasingly expensive apartment buildings right there; as you go further south you are in Chinatown and that district's shopping is just great, and lots of unusual little restaurants and indoor shopping malls etc. You eventually end up at the beautifully restored South Station, which has both Amtrak and Greyhound and some other bus services operating out of or near it, and that's a good place to hang out on its own, with a great food court inside. Very interesting street.

George Balanchine Way is a segment of West 63rd Street that was renamed for the founder of the New York City Ballet in June of 1990. On the western end is the Empire, a building that was first an inexpensive hotel for people to live, then an expensive hotel for people to visit and is now condos! Its biggest purpose or attraction, of course, is that it leads directly to the New York State Theater, where Balanchine created so much for the New York City Ballet, and in general to the theatres and plaza at Lincoln Center (Metropolitan Opera, Avery Fisher Hall, the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and Damrosch Park). An incredible place to be.

Of course, Riverside Drive, for the most part, is never going to have its views taken away by people building high buildings across the street, since across the street is Riverside Park and the Hudson River and a great view of New Jersey. The majority of the street from the 60s to uptown and past has an incredible group of beautiful apartment buildings, some with great histories and with the historic designation, including Marion Davies' House near 103th Street and the beautiful mansion at 106th Street. There is a pleasant walkway that runs along the west side of the park and you can enter the park at various places like 103rd Street and 79th Street and others, just go down a level to the park area. At 103rd Street there is a marvelous dog run, and a small cafe that opened some years ago. Very enjoyable all around.

Canal Street is like a lot of streets in New York and has a number of different faces. Of course there is Chinatown, where you can of course get great bargains even if a good majority of what they sell is knockoffs, fakes and illegal. Lots of good Chinese food of course, both in restaurants and Chinese groceries. Very very crowded sometimes, difficult to navigate even on foot. And the further west you get the more upscale it gets; Canal Jeans used to be a place where you could get a vintage dress from a bin on the street for a dollar or two, no more! But as always plenty of places to spend your money and lots of atmosphere. Enjoyable.

On one end 112th Street has the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the most beautiful Episcopal cathedral, worth a morning's visit just for the vastness and artwork of it. There are a lot of nice old brownstone type buildings as you go further west and at the corner of Broadway of course there is Tom's Restaurant, whose exterior was immortalized in Seinfeld. As with a lot of streets, it goes further to Riverside Park, which is one of my favorite city parks. This is a very dog friendly neighborhood filled with students. Casual, relaxed, lots of fun. Getting too expensive because of Columbia University, who have bought a lot of real estate in the area, but still enjoyable.

Well parts of Columbus Avenue, in the 60s through the 80s, might be what you're dreaming of if you want to take a Sex and the City trip to New York, but really it's more than that, like almost every street in New York. It's really more than just one group of people that make it what it is. From Lincoln Center through an ethnically diverse neighborhood further north, like Broadway in a way, you can find just about everything you want, including overpriced clothing stores, jewelry stores and food stores. But it's all quite stylish and interesting if that is what you like. Check out the Museum of Natural History too.

West 110th Street, as recently as just 5 years ago, had a lot of comfy feelings to it; there was a great family-owned market that has since closed, a marvelous Chinese (proper Chinese, not discount) restaurant on the corner of Broadway, smaller stores (there was a wonderful bagel place next to the Chinese restaurant). Since Columbia University has been developing so much real estate, there are new skyscrapers, many, many stores have closed and a lot of the feeling of it is gone or irrevocably changed. It does cross a lot of great streets, including Broadway and Amsterdam, but I think it's becoming somewhat homogenized.

Try to keep in mind when you visit Broadway how very long it is. Also give some thought to visiting parts of the street that are not in Times Square! There's more to this incredible avenue than overpriced Disney themed stores. As a tourist you might gasp at the prices for your meals or souvenirs, but I guarantee you that if you will just take, for instance, the M104 bus up to Broadway in the 70s, 80s, 90s and above, you will be stunned at how different it is. I Go to Gray's Papaya at 72nd and Broadway, to the West Side diner at 82nd and Broadway, to Zabar's in the low 80s, to Fairway Market at 74th and Broadway, to the wonderful different international restaurants all the way up and down. Stop at 125th street and go east to explore that great street too. Not to mention that the M104 also turns east at 42nd Street and goes as far east as the UN, which you were going to see also, right? You could spend your whole trip just on Broadway! Don't let it be limited.

At the corner is the newly developed place that we used to call The Castle, originally a cancer hospital, now apartments etc., which stood empty for 30 years and began to look like a horror movie set, but all spiffy and expensive now. There is a little hostel/hotel close to it. No very high buildings, many older brownstones, mostly walkups. At the corners of Amsterdam, Broadway, Columbus, etc., a lot of pizza places, retail. The neighborhood is generally pretty diverse. As you cross Amsterdam toward Broadway, it is more and more pretentious and high priced, and especially so as you approach West End and Riverside. Just at Broadway is a pretty little park, Straus Park, dedicated to Isidor and Ida Straus, who perished on the Titanic. Nicely kept. At the end of the street, near Riverside Park is a statue of some sort of general on a horse, and the view of the park and the river is beautiful.

I'm going to focus on Amsterdam Avenue between about 95th to 109th Street since that is where I lived. It's a very ethnically diverse neighborhood. Older buildings. Visit the Ayurveda Cafe at 94th Street for a wonderful vegetarian Indian menu. The American Youth Hostel building is at 104th Street. A marvelous fruit/vegetable store at 103rd at the NW corner. Very interesting shops from 106th to 109th-110th, groceries, restaurants. Not big on snob appeal, just good basics. (at least for now!).

Seaman Avenue has a lot of older apartment buildings, none of which are very high; high ceilings and larger sized rooms than a lot of newer NYC buildings. Very close to Inwood Hill Park, which is a pleasant park with a lot of amenities (and dog runs!), make it a good destination. Not generally a commercial street, though there are some delis/restaurants that do deliver (Amy's, a very good Chinese restaurant) is off 207th). Also not particularly noisy as traffic is not high volume.

I lived there many years ago and have visited recently. Many homes are being taken care of beautifully, but some are in terrible disrepair. Additionally the neighborhood in general has a dreadful crime rate and is not really all that safe for anyone day or night. Great transportation with city buses, but even on the main streets, wouldn't shop there. Once a very nice middle class neighborhood, will hopefully turn itself around, but it will take a lot of time still.

It's a very quiet street, if you live here you won't be bothered much. It's all residential, no real commercial presence. A lot of one-story homes, they are similar looking, probably date from the late 50s-early 60s. But it is pleasant, quiet, peaceful, a nice place to live.