New York, in two acts.

Base yourself first at The Wallace, tucked on a side street in the West 70s. It's the Upper West Side in hotel form — pre-war old-world charm, properly renovated rather than gutted, in a neighborhood where New Yorkers actually live. You're steps from Central Park and the Museum of Natural History, and the mornings are quiet in a way Midtown will never be.

One door away is a reason on its own: Citarella, the legendary Upper West Side gourmet market that began as a neighborhood fish shop in 1912. Walk the seafood counter even if you're not buying — it's some of the freshest fish on the island, iced and laid out like a market in Tokyo. This is how the neighborhood eats, and it tells you everything about why people never leave it.

Here's a well-kept secret of Midtown geography: three of the best things on this itinerary sit within two blocks of each other on 53rd and 55th. Do them as one evening.

Spend the late afternoon at MoMA — go in with a short list (the fifth-floor collection alone justifies the ticket) rather than trying to see everything. Then cross 53rd Street, literally, to the Baccarat Hotel, where the second-floor Grand Salon is one of the most beautiful bars in the city — chandeliers and glowing red-box vitrines from the 260-year-old French crystal house, and every drink served in Baccarat crystal. Go at the blue hour, order something stirred, and hold it up to the light.

Then walk two blocks north to dinner at The Polo Bar, Ralph Lauren's clubby, equestrian-paneled dining room under one of the great ceilings in New York. An honest note: the food is good, not transcendent — you're there for the room, which is transporting, and for the sport of having gotten in at all. That part takes strategy:

For the second act, change hotels — it feels extravagant and it completely remakes the trip. Check in at The Wall Street Hotel, a polished boutique property in the old financial district, where the streets are cobbled, narrow, and nearly silent at night once the traders go home.

The move that makes this act sing: skip the subway and commute by water. From Pier 11 — a couple of minutes' walk from the hotel — the river taxi crosses the East River to Dumbo in a few minutes flat, with the Brooklyn Bridge overhead and the best skyline view in the city for the price of a sandwich. Get off and walk the cobblestones to Butler for coffee — a bright, Australian-style café that does flat whites and pastries properly. Coffee in hand, bridge above you, Manhattan across the water: it's the cheapest world-class morning New York offers.

Save one evening for the West Village and take a corner seat at B'artusi, at Hudson and West 10th — the all-day wine bar from the team behind L'Artusi, one of the city's most beloved Italian rooms. Vintage mirrors, a marble bar, Italian small plates built for sharing, and a serious wine list without any ceremony. It's walk-in friendly, which by current New York standards makes it practically a public service — go early, order the tartare and whatever pasta they suggest, and let the evening unspool.