When I was growing up, New York always seemed like the ultimate place for theatre, for art, for sophistication. My image of Manhattan was a place where everything was first-rate. 
When I got out of the army, I began my acting career in Los Angeles, and a few years later came to New York for the first time. 

I still remember landing at the airport, getting on a bus and riding through Queens on my way to Manhattan. And then suddenly through a sort of foggy haze. I saw the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building and I began to cry. 
I felt like I’d  finally arrived in a magical place, the land of Oz. And New York didn’t let me down. 

Such wonderful things happened in the course of my next few visits to the city. 

One especially memorable experience took place in the dead of winter when my friends and I climbed over the fence and went ice skating on Wollman Memorial Rink in Central Park in the middle of the night. I was so cold that the lights of all the buildings around the park were sparkling. Little droplets were frozen all over the barren tree branches, they glistened like newly cut diamonds. 

After our skating adventure, we went to a friend’s apartment for coffee. 
By the time our group disbursed it was almost daybreak and I walked alone through the empty streets as dawn brought the first light of day to the silent city.  Nobody was around and the sky was so beautiful, with gorgeous sunrise enveloping the great buildings of Manhattan skyline. 
 

It was the kind of scene. 
That in a movie would have been accompanied by soaring saxophone solo. 
From that morning onward, I have always thought of Manhattan as the sexiest, most romantic, most stimulating, most creative place in the world. 

To me New York is like Roaring Twenties, tuxedos and furs, limousines and the excitement of the opening nights at the theatre. One of the many fascinating things about about New York is that you can happen upon extraordinary incidents on almost any given block.  One afternoon I was walking by St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue at 53rd Street. I wandered in and discovered that some wonderful singers and an excellent little orchestra were rehearing music by Bach and Handel. 
There was this amazing sense of serendipity about the whole thing, I sat down and listened and was suddenly transported to another world. 

If close friends of relatives are coming to Manhattan for a first visit, I take them to Central Park and let them breathe in the whole experience: the ice-skating ring, the charming little boat pond, the bridges, the zoo, Cleopatra's Needle and much more. And then we stroll along Fifth Avenue. I still get a thrill from window-shopping along that famous boulevard. 
We head up Fifth Avenue to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where one can walk for miles and miles and still see only a small percentage of the magnificent art on display. 
I show them the museum's Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, which houses contemporary American and European art and then we take in the museum's exhibits of African primitive art, which is personal favorite of mine.

I also take first-time visitors to the top of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, where the views of the city are staggering. We then road out the afternoon with a trip on the State Island Ferry or perhaps to the Statue of Liberty.

New York is bursting at the seams with restaurants. One of my favorites in the theatre district is Orso, a Northern Italian restaurant on West 46th Street, which has a homey, theatrical atmosphere. It is often frequented by Broadway actors who have just completed an evening's performance. Another special restaurant is Lola, located on West 22nd Street. the crowd there is quite interesting, so it's a great place for people-watching.

Regarding New York nightlife, I always love hearing Bobby Short play when he's at the Café Carlyle on the Upper East Side and I'm looking forward to seeing the great cabaret performer Julie Wilson the next time she appears in New York.

I lived in Manhattan continually from 1976 to 1979. I loved living here then and I'm always happy to be back. New York, it's a town built on the dreams of millions of people.

I'm always thrilled to be back onstage in my favorite city in the world.