Places to Check Out in the City

Rolling Stone: After John Lennon's death, Yoko Ono donated a million dollars to the city to create a memorial in his favorite section of Central Park, directly across the street from their home in The Dakota. Read more.

Rolling Stone: Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel took advantage of this church's fantastic acoustics to record overdubs for 1969’s “The Boxer.” Read more.

Rolling Stone: The buildings at 96 and 98 St. Marks Place appear on the cover of Led Zeppelin's 1975 album Physical Graffiti. The Rolling Stones shot the "Waiting on a Friend" video here, too. Read more.

Rolling Stone: On February 10th, 1971, Patti Smith gave her first poetry reading here, accompanied by Lenny Kaye on guitar.

Rolling Stone: Throughout April 1966, Andy Warhol hosted the Exploding Plastic Inevitable upstairs, featuring the Velvet Underground and stars from Warhol’s films,. Entry was $2 on weeknights, $2.50 on weekends.

Rolling Stone: John Lennon and Yoko Ono had their first New York apartment together in this building, and he demoed much of 1972's Some Time in New York City here. Read more.

Rolling Stone: This underground nightspot (open from 1978 to 1983) was a key punk and New Wave club. Brian Eno, David Bowie, Jean Michel Basquiat and Fab 5 Freddy hung out there; the B-52s gave an early performance. Read more.

Rolling Stone: The Velvet Underground were discovered here by Andy Warhol in 1965, and intentionally got themselves fired by playing "The Black Angel's Death Song," which the club’s owner had banned.

Rolling Stone: Sid Vicious died of an apparent overdose in this building in 1979, shortly after being arrested on charges of murdering his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. Read more.

Rolling Stone: The Velvet Underground played here at a dinner for a psychiatry society in 1966. Lou Reed, who once received electroshock therapy, treated the performance as revenge and terrified the elite audience.

The New York Times: Recommended dishes: Whelk salad with buckwheat noodles, steak tartare, pancake, japchae, sablefish, DMZ stew, fried tofu, sliders, paella Read more.

The New York Times: Recommended dishes: Sushi and sashimi, flash-fried shrimp, grilled fish liver and flash-fried eel bones. Read more.

The New York Times: Ask to be seated in the main dining room and save the evening with an order of king-crab legs, which are reliable and sweet. Read more.

The New York Times: Is the boss here? If so, flag her down and she’ll be nice to you. Otherwise, get her namesake pie, and the Diavolo. Read more.

The New York Times: Skip the infamous cupcakes at this NYC standby and give the banana pudding a try.

The New York Times: Romantic wood-oven Italian in a cool-kid downtown space, with terrific grilled meats and bright salads. Also, seriously great offal.

The New York Times: Velselka is one of the NYT restaurant critic Sam Sifton’s 50 favorite NYC restaurants. To see the full list, get The Scoop iPhone app, an inside guide to New York: NYTimes.com/thescoop