New York City - Nightlife

Below 14th Street is traditionally the place to dance away the night, but the geography of New York nightlife is ever-expanding.

The Meatpacking District's name is a ruse: this is New York's most self-consciously European cluster of bars and clubs. Chelsea and the West Village boast chic French and Italian bars and brasseries that ooze atmosphere. There are some classic jazz joints here too. The East Village's bars and clubs may not look like much when the sun's out, but they spring to life at night.

Midtown is too easily dismissed as a networking opportunity for the business community; theatre-goers can seek drinking holes around Times Square, while Hell's Kitchen is drawing more and more drinkers with its swanky bars. The Upper West Side and Upper East Side boast their fair share of classy drinking holes.

Always reinventing itself, New York's nightlife is now breaking beyond traditional boundaries. As traditionally African-American Harlem and Hispanic East Harlem are gentrified, so nightspots are popping up. More interesting still is the trend to hop across the river to Brooklyn, where hipsters, musicians and artists of various descriptions tend to congregate and where some of the edgiest nightlife can now be found.

In the city that never sleeps, bars and clubs feature different opening hours but generally bars open at around 9pm and clubs from 11pm while many stay open round the clock. Remember that timing is crucial: a place may be pumping one night and empty the next; or else a place that's full before midnight may empty by the time the clock strikes twelve.

The Strokes are hyped as the modern-day New York band, and 'New York City Cops' typifies the city's buzzy chic – just don't quote the lyrics to the NYPD. Even if you aren't staying there, Leonard Cohen's 'Chelsea Hotel No. 2' is a marvellous evocation of bohemian NYC. And you may want to hunt down a song called 'New York, New York', by an old-time crooner who was once quite well-known called Frank Somebody-or-Other.