In Britain I never drink cocktails, but on arrival in New York it has become a ritual that my first drink is a Manhattan. Sipping this year’s drink, I realised that my regular two-day forays to the Big Apple have become one long ritual. We stay on Fifth Avenue to allow for a saunter among the brown baggers in Central Park, with delicatessen lunches from Zabar’s. Day one starts in Barnes & Noble to browse the latest US political biographies and pick up the new Alan Furst espionage paperback — after a diversion for Mrs Oakley to update her holiday wardrobe at Tommy Bahama.
Among New York’s formidable art collections we take our pick on day one from the Metropolitan, the Guggenheim or our favourite MOMA, where this year the splendid clusters of Cézannes and Picassos were accompanied by Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’.
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