There are five boroughs in New York City: Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, Staten Island, and Manhattan. Manhattan is not synonymous with New York, so keep that in mind. It is a thirteen-mile-long island bounded by the East River. Across the river are Queens and Brooklyn, and Staten Island is to the south. Brooklyn is best known for residential areas packed to the gills with people, while Queens boasts light industry and airport facilities. The Bronx is largely for commuters, boasting Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Zoo, but not a whole lot of caring neighborhoods. Now that we're all clear on that, here's how to get around in Manhattan.

Above 14^th Street, avenues run from north to south, and streets crisscross, from east to west. The resulting grid is simple to master, making finding a general destination as easy as matching up two lines. As a general rule of thumb, figure traffic to flow eat on the even-numbered streets and west on the odds, although this is not always the case. Uptown means "anything north of you," downtown "anything south," and cross-town means "east or west." In a more general sense, Uptown's above 59^th Street, Downtown's below 34^th Street, and anything in the middle is, appropriately enough, Midtown.

Finding a particular address can be a bit tricky. If at all possible, try to find the intersection of streets at your desired endpoint rather than its numeric full address. "51^st Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues" goes a lot further with cab drivers and New Yorkers than "420 Park Avenue." The elaborate system for finding a street address can be found in the front of any NYC Yellow Pages, but here's a brief explanation. Address numbers increase or decrease depending on their proximity along Fifth Avenue. For example, one block east of the avenue is 100, but so is one block west. Trust us, you're much better off finding an intersection rather than an address.