“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”
- Matsuo Basho
Get ready for serious fun. Opera, natural history, fashion and design may seem stuffy elsewhere, but they're a good time had by all on the Upper West Side. Peek inside the glittering jewelry-box theaters at Lincoln Center, and you'll find ballerinas, Metropolitan Opera divas, and the entire New York Philharmonic. During New York Fashion Week, supermodels lumber through Lincoln Center like giraffes on safari. Jazz at Lincoln Center is over at Columbus Circle, near the controversial new ceramic-tiled home of Museum of Arts and Design. The Upper West side is all grown up, but it's also family friendly. The American Museum of Natural History was the setting for the Night at the Museum blockbuster movies, and mummies, dinosaurs and meteorites are the breakout stars of its collection of 32 million weird and wonderful specimens. For child prodigies, The Children's Museum of Manhattan offers Grinch toy-making workshops, while Symphony Space offers readings with Lemony Snickett and other children's book authors. Kids and parents worn out by Central Park's Safari Playground can nap on Strawberry Fields afterwards.