New York has never been closer to Scotland. With American Airlines operating a daily service between Edinburgh Airport and JFK, the transatlantic journey is now more straightforward than ever. No connection through London, no extra hours in a transit lounge. Just board at Edinburgh and step off in Manhattan.
The flight takes roughly eight hours westbound, and American’s newest aircraft on this route, the Airbus A321XLR, makes the crossing more comfortable than many travellers might expect on a narrowbody jet. The cabin offers lie-flat Flagship Suite seats, Premium Economy with calf and footrests, and Main Cabin seats with seatback entertainment and high-speed Wi-Fi throughout. It is a significant upgrade on older transatlantic configurations, and a reasonable reason to consider flying direct rather than routing through a hub.
For those planning the trip, it is worth knowing that transatlantic routes are among those most frequently affected by delays and cancellations, particularly during peak summer travel.
Before you travel, it’s worth checking how much compensation for a delayed flight you could be entitled to with AirHelp. Under EU and UK regulations, passengers have the right to substantial reimbursement depending on the reason for the delay and how long it lasts.
Checking AirHelp passengers may be entitled to is a sensible step before departure: EU and UK regulations can entitle travellers to significant reimbursement depending on the circumstances and the length of the delay.
American Airlines reintroduced the Edinburgh-JFK route this season with the A321XLR as its flagship transatlantic aircraft, marking the first time a US carrier has deployed the plane across the Atlantic. The daily service runs from early March to late October, covering the full range of the city’s best travel seasons.
Once in New York, the question is never what to do but where to begin. The city divides broadly into two kinds of visit: the one built around ticking off landmarks, and the one built around neighbourhoods. Both are valid, and a week is barely enough for either.
For first-time visitors, the landmarks earn their reputation. The view from the Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center is arguably better than the one from the Empire State Building. The High Line, a former elevated railway converted into a public park running through Chelsea, is one of the more distinctive and engaging urban walks in any city in the world, particularly in spring and early summer. The Brooklyn Bridge is best crossed on foot, ideally in the morning before the tourist crowds thicken, with a coffee from one of the stands on the Manhattan side. The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue warrants a full day and still will not be fully explored.
New York’s neighbourhoods, however, are where the city’s real character reveals itself, and each one operates almost as a distinct village within the larger whole.
The West Village is among the most immediately appealing for visitors arriving from Edinburgh. The scale is human, the streets follow the pre-grid pattern of lower Manhattan and wind in ways that reward aimless walking, and the density of good independent restaurants, wine bars and bookshops per block is difficult to match anywhere in the city. Bleecker Street, Perry Street and the blocks around Hudson carry a quieter, residential version of New York that surprises many first-time visitors who arrive expecting only noise and scale.
A short walk south brings you to SoHo, which has shifted considerably from its origins as an artists’ district but retains its cast-iron architecture and a concentration of design shopping and eating. The streets between Canal and Houston on the west side of the island are best explored on a weekday morning, before the weekend crowds make the pavements difficult to navigate. Spring Street and Prince Street in particular have a handful of galleries still operating alongside the retail, a reminder of what the neighbourhood once was.
Across the Manhattan Bridge, or via the L train from 14th Street, Williamsburg in Brooklyn rewards a half-day or more. The waterfront along North 7th Street offers some of the best views of the Manhattan skyline available anywhere, and the concentration of restaurants along Bedford Avenue covers cuisines from across the world at prices considerably lower than their Manhattan equivalents. Further south, DUMBO (the area under the Manhattan Bridge overpass) is compact but worth the detour for the view framed between the bridge’s stone towers, one of the most photographed perspectives in the city, and for the cluster of independent food and design businesses around the archways.
Those with more time would do well to venture further into Brooklyn. Park Slope, running along the western edge of Prospect Park, has the feel of a well-settled residential neighbourhood with good coffee, bookshops and a farmers’ market on weekends. Prospect Park itself, designed by the same landscape architects responsible for Central Park, is quieter and in many respects more pleasant for an afternoon walk.
Back in Manhattan, the Lower East Side carries a different energy: denser, louder and more nocturnal than the Village, with a concentration of bars and live music venues that makes it one of the better areas for an evening out. The neighbourhood’s history as a point of arrival for successive waves of immigration is legible in its architecture and its food, from the Jewish delicatessens that remain on Orchard Street to the more recent restaurants reflecting the area’s current demographic mix.
Harlem, further north, is frequently bypassed by visitors who concentrate their time below 59th Street, which is a genuine oversight. 125th Street is the main commercial artery, and the Apollo Theater remains one of the city’s iconic cultural institutions. The side streets between Lenox Avenue and Frederick Douglass Boulevard contain some of the finest brownstone architecture in New York, and the neighbourhood’s restaurant scene, particularly for Southern and West African food, is among the most interesting in the city.
Getting around all of this is straightforward. The subway runs twenty-four hours and, once the initial confusion of local versus express trains is resolved, covers most of what a visitor will need. Walking remains underrated. The grid layout of Manhattan above Houston Street means distances that look formidable on a map are often manageable on foot, and the experience of the city at street level is definitely richer than from the back of a cab.
Late April to early June tends to offer the best combination of bearable temperatures and thinner crowds before the summer peak. September is also excellent as the heat of August has broken, the city returns to something like its working rhythm, and the light on the Hudson in the early evening is exceptional.
