Not For Tourists Guide to New York City 2015

by Not For Tourists

The Not For Tourists Guide to New York City is a map-based, neighborhood-by-neighborhood dream guide designed to lighten the load of already street-savvy New Yorkers, commuters, business travelers, and yes, tourists too. Each map is marked with user-friendly icons identifying our favorite picks around town, from essentials to entertainment, and includes an invaluable neighborhood description written by locals, highlighting the most important features of each area.
The book includes everything from restaurants, bars, shopping, and theater to information on hotels, airports, banks, transportation, and landmarks. Need to find the best pizza places around? NFT has you covered. How about a list of the top vintage clothing stores in the city? They’ve got that, too. The nearest movie theater, hardware store, or coffee whatever you need, NFT puts it at your fingertips. This pocket-sized book also

- A foldout map for subways and buses
- Over 130 city and neighborhood maps
- Details on parks and places
- Listings for arts and entertainment hotspots

It is THE indispensable guide to the city. Period.

Genres: Travel, Reference, Nonfiction, New York

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Lori Twining · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fantastic little black book, full of maps and information for the NYC area.

However, the text is quite small and the margins are non-existent by the spine, making it difficult to read all the text unless you break the spine (which book lovers DO NOT like to do). Otherwise, it is a tremendous asset to have if you are visiting Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx... or in my case, if you are writing about the area and you live in another country, you can't just drive over to see what streets are intersecting with Broadway. Google maps are great, but this book gives you that added information and descriptions of all your favorite restaurants, shops, cafes, libraries and museums. It's basically a handful of information you didn't know you needed, until you have it. It is perfect for me! :)

[Shira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's the problem with this book - it claims to be not for tourists, but it won't fully commit to that position. It talks about plenty of tourist sites and tourist traps using the copout disclaimer "when your relatives from Iowa come to visit you." But this book isn't for when your relatives from Iowa come to visit you. Or is it?

Including touristy things in the Not for Tourists book would be all very well and good if the book at least served as a comprehensive guide, and included all the major tourist spots. There is absolutely nothing about the Statue of Liberty in the book. I'm not a tourist, and I very much want to go to the Statue of Liberty. But this book won't help me, presumably because in its infinite wisdom it has decided that going to the Statue of Liberty is a Tourist Thing to Do.

And the book has no comprehensive index, so I can't tell you with absolute certainty there's nothing about the Statue in the book, but I'm pretty sure there isn't. If you have no idea where you currently are, it's going to be hard to use this book to get where you're going. Even non-tourists get lost sometimes!

For each map segment, NFT plops down a series of icons corresponding to things like restaurants, gyms, banks, pharmacies, libraries. Notably absent from the list is dry cleaners, a fact which disappointed me when I was a non-tourist looking for a dry cleaner. Anyway, the icons are different for each type, but there is no way to differentiate between places of a certain type, so to see what restaurant an icon corresponds to, you have to go to the opposite page, find the "restaurants" list, and read it and figure it out for yourself based on the address. Inefficient and a pain - good only for when I'm thinking to myself, "GIVE ME THE NEAREST FOOD TO MY GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION NOW."

Anyway, this book is not completely useless. Once you figure out how to read it, it has some solid information. The prose is often funny (at other times, tries too hard). It did help me figure out which gym to join graphically. And it's good for what I perceive to be its main purpose: explaining transportation across the city.

[Sebastien · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry, but I thought this book was mostly a waste of time. It was created with my parents in mind, i.e. people who don't know how to use the internet while traveling. It's small and easily fits in a back pocket, which is great; however, my phone is even smaller. I did not get any useful information out of it. I appreciated the effort.

[Jodi G. · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book has teeny tiny print

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the small purse sized book and the block maps. Super handy and easy to refer to find locations.
The High Line entry points were well marked on the tiny maps. Suitably up to date except maybe Hudson Yards and gardens nearby. More than enough detail for this occasional tourist to get oriented.
Nicely packaged in a tightly edited paperback version. My favourite new to me find in tour books.
I still trust Lonely Planet for restaurants but this was really handy for getting around and plotting a day out and about.

[Phyllis · Rating 4 out of 5]

read 2017 edition. Walking tours of nyc with landmarks and restaurants to see along the way. Double check the website for places you might want to go too. A couple of the restaurants that looked interesting were closed.

[Rivkah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous, fabulous, absolutely great guide to New York City.

Can you tell I like it?

Published annually, this book organizes New York City (i.e. Manhattan, not all 5 boroughs) into neighborhoods, and presents several maps for each neighborhood that indicates where all the essential locations are in each neighborhood, as follows:
Essentials map: ATMS, bagel stores, fire departments, hospitals, landmarks, post offices, schools and supermarkets.
Sundries/Entertainment map: Bars, Coffee,Copy Shops, Farmers Markets (I didn't notice this before! Yay!), Gyms, Hardware Stores, Liquor Stores, Restaurants, Shopping, Video Rental.
Transportation Map: Subways, Trains, Bus Lines, Car Rental, Parking.

The back of the book (about half of the book) includes short profiles of the outer boroughs (Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn etc), then has sections about parks throughout the city (including maps of each park, very necessary for places like Central Park, which is *huge*), information about each airport, information about driving into the City, Kids Attractions throughout the city, and then loads of other useful information about New York City.

This book is tremendously useful, even for people already familiar with Manhattan. I have just summarized some of the information...there is much, much more.

The best part is that this is a small book with a durable binding, and a useful elastic band sewn into the cover, so that you can bookmark a page or keep the book closed. You can easily slip it into a pocket or purse.

We love them so much that we purchase every year, customized with our company logo. Our customers *love* them.

These books are also published for Washington DC, Boston, Brooklyn, Seattle, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, London and San Francisco, and NFT adds cities constantly.

Note that some of the cities have larger books and are not as conveniently sized, but are probably just as essential.

[Todd N · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a little put off by the title "not for tourists." I mean, I just want a guide for an upcoming extended visit to NYC. I don't want to get hung up in whether or not I'm a tourist. I don't expect to drop into New York and completely blend it, but at the same time I'm not going to be looking around like Jon Voight when he first arrived in the city in Midnight Cowboy. Put me somewhere between Ratso and Joe Buck.

Anyway, despite the title I was amazed at how densely packed with information the book is and how practical the information is. Plus it fits in a pocket or bag as opposed to the DK, Insight, or Knopf guides. (The Knopf guides are great, and I have the San Francisco and Paris ones. But those are more valuable for the perspective and historical context. Actually, you don't even need to visit the city after reading one of the Knopf guides.)

Not For Tourists have this entire book available on their web site if you want to check it out. They have the San Francisco one available too, which I might get as well for new ideas for things to check out.

One last thing. After checking out the various guide books on NYC, I have to wonder if someone passed a law that all guide books have to be written in the voice of a know-it-all, spunky yet hip twenty-something who is desperate to save $2 whenever possible? From the travel I've done that seems to be a small minority of actual tourists, but maybe that's the way they like to see themselves. Even the travel-with-kids books are written in this voice. Very odd. Maybe I'm not a typical traveler but when I'm in an unfamiliar city I don't want someone's wry observations on the neighborhood. I want a map to the closest burrito and bookstore, then maybe a description of a nearby museum to check out. But then again I'm probably not that much fun to travel with.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a Godsend when I traveled to New York City all by myself. I had been to the city several times before, but I wanted to go off the tourist path for once.

Not For Tourists is a great go-to book while staying in the city. It's divided into sections based on the various neighborhoods of Manhattan. In each, it notes some points of interest and must-see places, but it also provides lists of local banks, coffee shops and anything else you can think of. You can look up restaurants based on the type of food you're craving, and even look up churches categorized by denomination. There's information on how to get around the city using public transportation (bus, subway, taxicab), and a section detailing the airports serving Manhattan, complete with airline lists and terminal info.

A great little guide book for those moving to Manhattan and want to familiarize themselves with the ins and outs of the city, but also wonderful for visitors who want to see more than the typical tourist spots.

[Jaenett · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've lived in a city your whole life, or for just a portion of time, I find it useful to look through the guide books so you can really see what the city has to offer...then find your own hidden gems.

While flipping through this at Borders I happened fall on the Tennis Courts page... how awesome is it that if I wanted to play tennis I'd know exactly where to go...in every inch of the city... .. I mean, I don't really play tennis like that... so that's just an example, but that's kind of cool

[Beth Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent in-depth guide to experiencing the best of New York City.

I loved the neighborhood-by-neighborhood breakdown of food, shopping, and attractions. The book is also candid in their evaluations of some attractions that are mediocre and overpriced.

Avoid the touristy crap and eat and play like a New Yorker.

The book also includes helpful transit guides, and information on major attractions such at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A must-read if you're going to New York any time soon. Or even if you're not and wish you were.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, I bought it just hoping they’d reproduce the MTA subway map in a Kindle friendly format. It’s a good, quick read, but perhaps a bit too Manhattan-centric. Manhattan, as always, gets excellent coverage despite being the smallest borough geographically. Brooklyn gets some decent coverage, but the other outer boroughs definitely don’t get the coverage they should. Queens is larger than all the other boroughs and, while things get less dense the further east you get, there’s still so much to do there. And Staten Island gets largely ignored, as usual.

[Efrat · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are great guide books. They have explicit maps for shopping, dining, entertainment divided by neighborhoods. They also have the transportation maps.

They are tiny, so they can fit in your purse or jacket's pocket. Very handy.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice pocket-sized book filled with detailed easy-to-read maps. Not much else going on though.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book saved my ass multiple times when I first moved to NYC. I take it with me everywhere and I swear by it!

[Meesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I found for navigating the city - and it fit in my pockets!

[Lexsenthur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically just a listing book, albeit a thorough one, which would probably be more useful in a far less dynamic city.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The maps were fabulous. Even used one in a complete bind to find a ladies room. But the lists of food places were just ehh, so four stars for the amazing maps. Will use again.

[Kate Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far I am loving this guide. We shall see how it holds up during my month in NYC this June.

[Dana · Rating 1 out of 5]

While I'm sure the information is wonderful, this book was very difficult, if not impossible, to use on my Kindle app. If you want this book, buy the paper copy!

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

helpful but I like lonely planet better

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always an indispensable resource, but the margins on the inside pages are so small that you lose some of the text.

[Phyllis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Map based guide for New york city. Not a typical tourist guide.

[Jennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. It was compact enough that I could carry it everywhere in NYC. Very informative and didn't steer us wrong.

[Fulvio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent guide. I used it in NYC to find places to eat and some "out of circuit" curiosities.

[Neha D'souza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything about New York City in one place.