The stunning new 9/11 memorial, the endless appeal of Brooklyn and a luxurious revamped midtown hotel are just three of limitless reasons to plan a visit to New York city, writes Brian Campbell
IT'S FOUR weeks since workers placed the spire atop One World Trade Center in New York, raising the building to its full height of 1,776ft - filling the void left in the Manhattan skyline by the September 11 2001 attacks.
The spire makes One World Trade (formerly dubbed Freedom Tower) the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.
We visited the site a few weeks before the spire was put in place but even in its unfinished state the David Childs-designed tower was a stunning sight to behold.
We booked tickets online to visit the 9/11 Memorial site, billed as "a place of remembrance commemorating those who were killed, honouring those who risked their lives to save others and reflecting the courage and compassion shown in the aftermath" of 9/11.
The main feature of the memorial is a pair of one-acre stone pools on the footprints of the Twin Towers.
Inside each pool, cascading down the sides, are the largest manmade waterfalls in America, while the names of the almost 3,000 victims of 9/11 are etched into the stone of each pool.
They are an amazing sight - something everyone should see - and it's a real place of sanctuary. Seeing all the names brings home again the enormity of the tragedy. Admission is free, but the done thing is to make a charitable donation.
Also worth a visit is Trinity Church, adjacent to the WTC site, which was a place of refuge on 9/11. It was also where some firefighters and rescue workers rested and you can still see the scuff marks on the pews left by their boots when they put their feet up. There are also countless touching tributes and photos of those who lost their lives on 9/11.
Another place downtown worth seeing and which needs to be booked in advance is the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.
It is housed in an 1863 tenement building and a selection of tours trace the story of immigrants who flocked to New York in the 19th century and essentially made the city what it is today.
We took the 'Irish Outsiders' tour, tracing one family - the Moores - and revealing the cramped and dingy conditions they had to live in and the opposition they faced as 'fresh off the boat' immigrants. One astonishing statistic is that, by 1860, one in four New Yorkers had been born in Ireland.
It was in 1882, meanwhile, that a U-shaped group of six luxurious houses were built for Henry Villard, a German immigrant who went on to run the Northern Pacific Railroad. A 55-storey tower was built above The Villard Houses in 1980 and today the entire site is The New York Palace hotel, where we stayed while in Manhattan.
The hotel is now in the final stages of a staggering $135 million renovation and if you want a little bit of luxury and breathtaking views (overlooking St Patrick's Cathedral and the Rockefeller Center), this is well worth a visit.
It's handily located in midtown on Madison Ave between 50th and 51st Streets and it boasts a stunning courtyard (used as a backdrop in TV shows including Gossip Girl).
The Palace is the kind of hotel you never want to leave, but then it's New York so you simply have to get out and keep seeing things.
In midtown, a great spot for food and drink is the timelessly cool PJ Clarke's on Third Ave (between 55th and 56th Streets).
A recent claim to fame is that it featured in the excellent Mad Men and Clarke's has charming old-school bartenders who know their customers. The night we popped in the barman even seemed to know us: "Bel-fest? You guys are from Bel-fest, right?" he said as soon as we ordered drinks.
And as Campbells it was our clanly duty to visit The Campbell Apartment - "Cocktails from Another Era" - in Grand Central. Dating back to the 20s, it is a beautiful spot. Mad Men's Don Draper would approve.
Speaking of TV shows, we also hopped aboard a bus for the New York TV & Movie Sites Tour. As soon as the bus started moving, our guide Scott Bolohan joked, "Welcome to the seven-hour Totally Kardashian bus tour".
Scott is an actor himself, having appeared in the likes of 30 Rock and Men in Black 3 (and as a hand-double on Gossip Girl) and in the leaflet he is wittily described as "a potential award-winning actor".
In three hours, you'll see sites used in everything from Taxi Driver, Seinfeld, I Am Legend and 30 Rock to Spiderman, Enchanted and the fire station in Ghostbusters. One apartment building in the West Village, on Bedford Street, is the exterior used in Friends.
The restaurant at the bottom (which doubled as Central Perk) is now The Little Owl and after dining there one night we can highly recommend it.
Another nice mix of food and culture worth checking out is the Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour, a four-hour guided bus tour of Brooklyn's pizzerias. You get a bit of history, see some more movie locations and lots of landmarks. And lots of pizza.
In Brooklyn we stayed at Hotel Le Bleu (www.hotellebleu.com) on Fourth Ave in Park Slope, a lovely area full of bustling cafes, bars and great restaurants.
The 585 acres of Prospect Park rivals Central Park for sheer beauty and it's a perfect spot for walks, a picnic and lazing by the lake.
Brooklyn is full of fantastic neighbhourhoods to explore, with the scenic Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo both worth seeing. Dumbo (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) has been transformed from an industrial wasteland to an artsy hub, full of cool shops, galleries and great bar/restaurants including Superfine.
Williamsburg should come with a 'Beware: Hipsters' warning as you enter, but there are plenty of great spots here, including excellent gig venues such as the Music Hall of Williamsburg and the Brooklyn Bowl.
No visit to Williamsburg is complete without a visit to the Brooklyn Brewery, which is buzzing on a Saturday due to free hourly afternoon tours.
From Hotel Le Bleu's roof terrace, you can see both One World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty (which reopens on July 4 after being closed since last year due to damage caused by Superstorm Sandy).
On our last day in New York we headed to the fantastic American Museum of Natural History on Central Park West.
Going into the Hayden Big Bang Theater dome, which takes you back to the birth of the universe using a nifty 3D map, the voiceover tells us: "This isn't just a movie, it's a virtual universe." The voice is Liam Neeson's.
So one Ballymena man goes the whole way to America and ends up getting told the history of the universe by another Ballymena man.
What's not to love about New York?