Lonely Planet - 48 Hours in Manhattan. Chapter from USAs Best Trips, Focus on New York City

WHY GO Bold and brash New York is a city in flux, moving from one extreme to another in a few short blocks. In 48 hours get a feel for the unique pockets of the city, and do it like a local: on the run, riding the subways, immersed in Manhattans electric diversity and energy.

Start your morning with a jolt in Lower Manhattan, where thousands of hard-charging finance types come streaming into Wall St every day, determined to make their millions. Dozens of major subway and bus lines converge here, along with the Staten Island and New Jersey ferries. Harried businesspeople with swinging briefcases will bump you along as the moribund streets come alive. Take in the morning rush over a foamy cappuccino at Financier Patisserie, a Parisian-style bakery hidden inside the historic triangle at Pearl and Mill Lane, near Hanover Sq.

This is the heart of Old New York, where George Washington once slept, ate and worshiped and was sworn in as the nations first president. The tiny byways below Wall St are crooked and cobbled, small pathways through a dizzying maze of soaring skyscrapers that eventually lead you to the main thoroughfare of Broadway.

North on Broadway youll pass two more remnants of pre-Revolutionary New York, Trinity Church and St Pauls Chapel, where Washington had his family pew; ahead is the teeming chaos of Chinatown.

Merchants line busy Canal St, pushing their fake Rolex watches and Louis Vuitton on jostling passersby. Follow the foot traffic east as Canal turns slightly uphill, turning north onto Elizabeth St. The din and excitement of Chinatown will gradually fade as you move into artsy Nolita, a tiny quadrant of streets north of Little Italy. Martin Scorsese grew up on these not-so-mean streets, serving as an altar boy at the ornate marble church on the corner of Prince and Mott Sts. Long before the massive Catholic church was built in midtown, this Irish-Italian structure the original St Patricks Cathedral was the seat of the Catholic diocese.

Following Prince St to the east brings you to the Bowery, one of New Yorks most infamous streets. It used to be the flophouse for bums and prostitutes youll see the signs of wear and tear in pockmarked graffitied buildings next to brand-new condos but now its home to the avant-garde New Museum of Contemporary Art. Constructed out of seven white boxes stacked unevenly atop each other, the light-filled museum constantly rotates exhibits, bringing emerging artists and established names and mixing them together for a cutting-edge effect.

The main byway of Nolita, leafy, residential Elizabeth St, is a polyglot of languages and cultures, and has one ancient Italian butcher shop Robert De Niro fans will recognize right away. Youll get a taste of the diversity if you stop for lunch at Caf Colonial, a French-Brazilian fusion joint with a big, tropical mural on the outside wall and the classic Parisian tin ceiling inside.

Across Houston St and heading east, you are walking the border between the funky Lower East Side on your right and the iconic East Village on your left. When you come across Ave C, head north, into what used to be called Alphabet City. Comprising Aves A, B, C and D, these four streets entered pop culture lore as the backdrop to the Broadway smash, Rent, the story of young creative types struggling to make art (and the rent) in pre-gentrification New York. This was formerly a drug ghetto full of tenement squats but there are new signs of life along these prettied-up avenues, like the bluesy bar Louis 649, on the 1st floor of a restored townhouse, with hardwood floors, a resident pit bull and a louche, speakeasy feel. The 6th & B community garden is a green space that the city let founder in the 1990s, but which was reclaimed by local residents who turned it into the glowing, fragrant urban oasis it is now. Its fronted by a wrought-iron gate with a half-dozen handprints in it signifying the hands on attitude of the garden keepers and inside has fruit trees, flowering shrubs, small vegetable plots and a towering, 37ft sculpture of recycled street treasures found around the city.

Ave B also leads into Tompkins Square Park, the center of 60s rebellion where Jimi Hendrix once gave an outdoor concert and birth-control advocate Margaret Sanger roiled crowds with fiery feminist rhetoric in the 1900s. Now the parks known more for its graceful weeping willows, park benches where neighborhood elders sit, and strong community vibe.

St Marks Pl W passes tattoo parlors and the few remaining punk-rock record stores to 4th St. South along Second Ave, to 2nd St, and one block east, take note of the name youre on Joey Ramone Pl, named after the legendary rocker from The Ramones.

At the intersection of Bowery and Bleecker, you can stop for the night at the Bowery Hotel, where red-tasseled gold keys unlock doors leading to Moroccan-inspired rooms with king-size beds, ornate gold fixtures, swirling ceiling fans and floor-to-ceiling windows. For a bite, slip into the rustic Gemma, an Italian trattoria with rough-edged wooden tables and wicker baskets hanging from wide brown beams in the ceiling.

Wake up to a brisk walk uptown to