The southern end of Lake George is alive with events, cruise ships, arcades, mini-golf, wax museums, hiking and biking, shopping, night life & the famous Fort Wm. Henry Historic Museum. There are many wonderful accommodations, from cottages and cabins to motels, hotels and resorts and bed and breakfast inns. The northern end is a quiet respite in the heart of the Adirondacks. It is home to what we believe is the most beautiful breathtaking lake in America. Most people come to the area because of the beauty (see the Lake George photos) of the Lake, the nearby attractions and amusement parks and the FUN FACTOR.
Naming Neighborhoods
There's no method to the names that New Yorkers have given their neighborhoods. They can be purely geographical (the Lower East Side), ethnically descriptive (Chinatown) or just plain scary (Hell's Kitchen, which takes its name from a slum area dominated by Irish gangs in the 19th century). Tribeca, an abbreviation for the area called Triangle Below Canal St.' has passed into popular use. As has the nickname SoHo, which describes the area south of Houston St (no relation to London's Soho, which was named after a fox hunting call). Nolita, a new coinage, designates the area just north of Little Italy. The city's early Dutch occupation has left its mark on some street and neighborhood names. Harlem, for example, takes its name from Haarlem, a town in the Netherlands. Some neighborhoods have long outgrown their designations. Few residents of Chelsea know their area was named after an 18th-century farm owned by a British army officer. Turtle Bay, a fashionable enclave surrounding the United Nations on the East Side of Manhattan, took its name from a riverside cove that was drained in 1868.
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The Big Apple Gets Its Name
It has long been thought that New York City was dubbed 'The Big Apple' by jazz musicians who regarded a gig in Harlem as a sure sign that they had made it to the top. But Barry Popik, an amateur historian, did extensive research into the phrase and came up with a surprising answer. He discovered that the term first appeared in the 1920s, when it was used by a writer named John FitzGerald, who reported on the horse races for the Morning Telegraph. Apparently, stable hands in a New Orleans racetrack called a trip to a New York racecourse 'the Big Apple' - or greatest reward - for any talented thoroughbred. The slang passed into popular usage long after the newspaper - and FitzGerald - had disappeared.
How to Be a Face in the Crowd
It's not hard to wave to the folks at home on television, because New York has become a popular backdrop for network morning shows from 7 am to 9 am Monday to Friday. The NBC Today show started it all with a windowed studio in Rockefeller Center. ABC then unveiled a Good Morning America studio that overlooks Times Square at Broadway and W 44th St. CBS's The Early Show followed suit with a ground-level studio in the General Motors Building on Fifth Ave across from the Plaza Hotel. MTV's US network overlooks Times Square, and the David Letterman Late Show features man-in-the-street gags near the Ed Sullivan Theater, on Broadway near 53rd St.
Night Court as Entertainment
If you find the 'Disneyfied' streets of New York disappointingly clean and safe, why not take an offbeat look at the city's dark underside by spending a few hours in Night Court? It's already popular with some more adventurous tourists. State law dictates that anyone arrested in New York must be arraigned - that is, formally charged with the crime - within 24 hours of his or her arrest. So the city that never sleeps maintains an all-day schedule of court cases in the Criminal Courts Building, a forbidding structure at 100 Centre St near Chinatown. The evening shift runs from 5:30 pm to 1 am, with a parade of sad cases passing before a judge in two courtrooms in the fortress-like building. The accused plead guilty or not guilty and usually are set free on bail until the trial begins. As all pretrial hearings must be open to the public, several benches are available for observers, who are free to come and go during breaks in the proceedings. It's a perfect way to research a crime novel - or simply see another side of life. But if you dare to attend the overnight shift, remember that there's no sleeping in the courtroom!
