You won't want to miss this dynamic section of New York, up-and-coming and full of life (don't forget Bill Clinton has set up shop here, too). The free Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (515 Malcolm X Blvd. and 135th St., 212/491-2200, nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html) has over five million items like manuscripts, artifacts, archives, photographs, and recordings, many on permanent display. Another must is the famed Apollo Theater (253 W. 125th St., between Adam Clayton Powell and Frederick Douglass Blvds., 212/531-5305, apollotheater.com), especially for its low-cost Amateur Night on Wednesdays, when tickets start at $16. If you love all things African, haggle with the sellers at the daily Malcolm Shabazz Harlem Market (52 W. 115 St., 212/987-8131), where you'll find jewelry, clothing, masks, hats, watches, and more. And for food, a good budget choice is Miss Maude's Spoonbread Too (547 Lenox Ave., 212/690-3100), which serves up (many say) the best fried chicken in New York for around $10. --ML

Brooklyn Heights

Tree-lined streets, stately brownstones (more than 500 homes built before the Civil War), a brick-lined promenade with a magnificent view of Lower Manhattan-all this makes Brooklyn Heights the most elegant neighborhood in the borough, perhaps the entire city, and yet it is a sight scarcely known to tourists. Take just about any subway (N or R to Court St.; A, C, or F to Jay St./Borough Hall; 2 or 3 to Clark St. or Borough Hall), find your way to the cafZs and shops of Montague Street, then meander onto the Brooklyn Heights Promenade for a famous panorama stretching from the Brooklyn Bridge all the way to the Statue of Liberty. Stop by the historic Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims (75 Hicks St., 718/624-4743)-where Abraham Lincoln worshiped on occasion-on your way down to Old Fulton Street. If your legs aren't wobbly yet, stroll back to Manhattan via the walkers' lane of the Brooklyn Bridge for an old-school commute. You'll walk right into another old, grand relic, City Hall. --BT

The Staten Island ferry

A harbor cruise, for free! Each year, 19 million people use the ferry for the 5.2-mile, 25-minute trip from Manhattan's tip (beginning at the South Ferry subway station) to the northern end of Staten Island, New York's most suburban borough. Along the way is a world-class view of the harbor that put America on the map, including postcard-perfect views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Lower Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge, and historic Governor's Island. For the same lineup, tourist tubs charge $13 per spin, but on the Ferry, you see it twice-going and returning. Boats go half hourly (every 20 minutes during rush hour), day and night, but if you time your trip well, you'll enjoy one of America's finest sunset cruises. And are you ready for the best part? In 1817, it cost 25¢ to cross the harbor; since 1997, it has been free. How's that for progress? (718/815-2628; no reservations required.) --JC

The Lower East Side

The Lower East Side (lowereastsideny.com) absorbed millions of immigrants between 1880 and 1920, and their experience is preserved in the Tenement Museum at 90 Orchard Street (tenement.org). Tours are popular, so book ahead. Of more than 500 synagogues once in the area, survivors include the Moorish-style Bialystoker Synagogue (closed 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.) and the 1887 Eldridge Street Synagogue (eldridgestreet.org), ruinous but on the road to restoration. Though many Central European groups stamped the Lower East Side with their heritage, Jewish life still dominates, from Orchard Street's Sunday market to tiny Essex Street shops selling yarmulkes, tallith prayer shawls, and other religious paraphernalia. Best of all is the food. Sample a dozen different pickles at Guss Pickles (85-87 Orchard St.), nosh candies in the Olde Worlde setting of Wolsk's Gourmet Confectioner (81 Ludlow St.), or sip syrupy Maneschevitz at Schapiro Wine Company (126 Rivington St.). When it comes to baked goods, there's Kossar's Bialys (367 Grand St.) for hot bagels, Yonah Schimmel's Knishes (137 E. Houston St.), and Gertel's Bakery (53 Hester St.) for rugalach and potato kugel. And don't forget the orgasmic pastrami sandwiches at Katz's Delicatessen (205 E. Houston St.), backdrop to Meg Ryan's famous "faking it" scene in When Harry Met Sally. --RB

The ethnic restaurants of Jackson Heights

Superb ethnic eateries litter all five boroughs, but most New Yorkers agree that the finest concentration is in Jackson Heights, Queens. Grab the number 7 subway for a 20-minute ride from Grand Central to the 74th Street/Jackson Heights stop to partake of Indian, Argentinian, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Thai, and Colombian cuisines. North of Roosevelt Avenue, 74th Street comprises a thriving Little India of sari stores, Bollywood video shops, and cheap curry restaurants galore. King of the all-you-can-eat buffets is Jackson Diner (37-47 74th St., 718/672-1232), a multicolored hall with a $6.95 lunch buffet ($8.95 weekends), served noon to 4 p.m., laden with goat curries, lamb vindaloo, and chicken tikka; ^ la carte dinners are equally cheap. At the elegant Argentinian steak house La Porte-a (74-25 37th Ave. at 75th St., 718/458-8111), platters are piled with a sizzling mix of prime rib, skirt steak, pork and blood sausages, sweetbreads, and tripe for $15; wash it down with a bottle of Argentinian wine as red as bull's blood. La Peque-a Colombia (83-27 Roosevelt Ave., 718/478-6528), a cross between a diner and the Brady Bunch den, serves up Colombian home cooking; the massive $10 plato mota-ero swims with beans, rice, ground beef, fried eggs, a split sweet plantain, and a giant pork rind. And throughout the area, you'll find shops selling inexpensive imported delicacies and ingredients that you can't buy anywhere else in the country. --RB

Queens for a day

Finally, unknown to most tourists, some of New York's museum activity has temporarily moved to former factories in the borough of Queens, the most celebrated being the esteemed Museum of Modern Art (33rd St. and Queens Blvd., 212/708-9400; $12 admission), which will stay there until 2005, when its Manhattan digs will be ready. MoMA's sister space, P.S.1, which is devoted to contemporary art and housed in an old school (22-25 Jackson Ave., 718/784-2084; $5 admission), is almost as important. For lovers of sculpture, the borough offers the serenely Zen Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum (36-01 43rd Ave., its own temporary home; $5 admission) and Socrates Sculpture Park (Broadway at Vernon Blvd.; free), which hosts young artists with big ambitions-and projects. For sheer fun, there's no more entertaining (and educational) spot than the American Museum of the Moving Image, dedicated to film, TV, and video games. Interactive exhibits let you edit film, play with sound effects, even dub your voice over Audrey Hepburn's (35th Ave. at 36th St., 718/784-4520, ammi.org; $10). Linking these sites is the weekends-only Queens Artlink Bus (free), which loops from MoMA to P.S.1 every hour on the hour from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Jump on and off at will. -PF

And others

We haven't the space to discuss still more: the modern-dance scene at the Joyce and City Center; the Russian community of Brighton Beach; Chinatown; lively Williamsburg, shared by Hasidic Jews and trendy artists; inexpensive walking tours of historic areas booked primarily by residents; unexpected shopping areas (lower Broadway, SoHo); and so on. In addition to finding activities in Time Out New York, visitors should check the Weekend section of the New York Times published on Fridays, and its Sunday Arts & Leisure section. The New Yorkers who avidly read every issue of their famed "newspaper of record" are also fascinated by the "other New York"! (Official info: nycvisit.com.)