Best of Manhattan ’10: Services
Best Cheap Gift Destination: Fish’s Eddy
889 Broadway, at W. 19th St., 877-347-4733
Need a quirky gift but don’t have the cash? Fish’s Eddy is still your place. The store has been a destination for decades, but may have been forgotten with all the new boutiques and chain stores that have moved in to hawk their wares for the price-conscious. With beautiful votives for $10, kitschy coasters for $3.95 and sets of Japanese garden glasses for $20, you can stock up on distinctive stuff for your pals—and maybe even have a little left over to spend on yourself. Read more
Best of Manhattan ’10: City Living
Best New Nabe Makeover: Nomad
OK, we admit that we’re certainly biased with this category since our editorial office is located right in the middle of the area north of Madison Square Park. We can totally go for grunge, but this neighborhood was a sad place to spend at least nine hours every day. We tripped over the haphazard hawkers lined up and down 28th Street, walked by the Oriental rug shops on Madison and eagerly awaited any new restaurant that tried to surface. We didn’t expect much to change in our daily work lives, but then the Ace Hotel opened and a bleak area of Manhattan finally became a destination. Unlike some dubious neighborhood titles, we even like the term Nomad for this unloved brown blot on the taxi map. With the recent inauguration of The Hurricane Club, a yuppie-Polynesian douche-pit, and the Gansevoort Park Avenue, however, we’re already feeling the gentrifier jitters. Could an area that had no identity suddenly cross over into a place to avoid so soon? Read more
Best of Manhattan ’10: Arts & Entertainment
Best Reason to Hate One-Person Shows: The Fringe Festival
Ask any professional theater critic about the Fringe Fest, and you’re bound to get an eye-roll or a heavy sigh. The sprawling annual theater festival is increasingly a tedious exercise in public masturbation for its performers, most of which isn’t even titillating. The one-person shows are usually pretty dreary, but that’s not to say that shows with casts of two and up are much better. With some of the most reasonably priced tickets in Manhattan (and plenty of press every year), it’s no wonder that theatergoing dilettantes whose only exposure to theater is the Fringe don’t see more shows. Read more
Best of Manhattan ’10: Eats & Drink
Best New Wine Bar: Tangled Vine
434 Amsterdam Ave., at W. 81st St., 646-863-3896
Head west, young man (and woman), and you will find a gem of a wine bar. The Tangled Vine opened last March with wine director Evan Spingarn in charge of the heavy menu laden with organic, biodynamic and sustainable wines, mainly from France, Spain, Austria, Germany and Italy. Not only are the servers and bartenders eager to help you choose a drink, the book of wine is set up in such a way that it’s actually easy to translate. You have reds, whites, rosés and bubbly listed not by price or region, but by dryness. And, if you fancy a real adventure, sample something you’ve never heard of before, like the rueda or refosco. Read more
Best of Manhattan 09: City Living
Best Fashion Trend that We’re Ready to See the End of: Women’s Gladiator Sandals
Just like the inexplicably omnipresent beige Burberry scarf that draped itself over every working woman from 1998-2000, or the boot that’s reminiscent of a loaf of bread (the Ugg), the gladiator sandal has taken the throne as the must-have accessory of urban professional females. And why not? These strappy numbers are versatile and go with just about everything, as long as you always want to look like a displaced Roman Centurion. Quirky throwback couture has officially given way to a fashion choice that, depending on the given circumstances, ranges from odd to downright inappropriate. There has to be a “no open-toe shoe” policy that some of these women are violating. Don’t make us call HR. Because we will. —JP Read more
THE BEST OF MANHATTAN 2008
We know the word “best” is a little presumptuous. And it’s easy to run into trouble with superlatives, especially in a city with so much to offer. Nevertheless, we took a stab at it and compiled our annual “Best of Manhattan” list, an eclectic and wide-ranging catalog of goods, services, foods, drinks, places, people, ideas, events and anything else that tickled us pink. Read more
BEST OF MANHATTAN: ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Best of Manhattan: Arts 
Entertainment
BEST OF MANHATTAN: SERVICES
Best of Manhattan: Services
BEST OF MANHATTAN: EATS AND DRINKS
Best of Manhattan: Eats 
Drinks
BEST OF MANHATTAN: CITY LIVING
LIVING
