Manhattan may be an island, but it doesn't lack diversity. And for anyone with time on their hands, a day of cafe hopping can reveal much of its texture.
An esoteric place for visitors to begin their day is The Hungarian Pastry Shop. I reach it via the 1/9 subway line, sitting alongside a Harlem-bound woman with lacquered gold hair and wearing enough mink to render an animal rights activist apoplectic.
Frequented by Columbia University students and left-wing residents of Morningside Heights, the Hungarian may be the intellectual heart of Manhattan. When I arrive, before 10am, the cafe is already exuding its credentials: three bearded types are debating the American invasion of Iraq and a couple are verbally bare-knuckling it over a copy of Harper's. Elsewhere people are buried in the kind of literature rarely mentioned on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Not even a visit to the toilet will spare visitors from the dialectics - its walls are plastered with volleys of geo-political graffiti, which Peter, the Greek owner, says he paints over once a year.
Across the road, the garden of St John the Divine, New York's largest cathedral, adds a bucolic note rarely found in New York. With hamentashen, linzer tarts and strudel on offer, as well as unlimited free coffee refills, it can be a struggle to leave.
Those inclined to do so may be tempted to try Cafe Lalo, the Upper West Side faux-French eatery that enjoyed brief fame in the film You've Got Mail. I would advise you not to - nothing can convince me to queue for 30 minutes to spend an hour shoulder to shoulder with the noisy Upper West Side 'I've got twins and a double-stroller' crowd. A troop of Japanese office girls trying to recreate a 'Meg Ryan moment' does little to engender my enthusiasm either.
Instead, at a friend's behest, I head further south to Cafe La Fortuna, a hole-in-the-wall on 71st Street, just off Amsterdam Avenue. This unhurried cafe is as unassuming as the Hungarian, plastered with a century's worth of operatic memorabilia and famous for being the New York hang-out of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Fans of the former Beatle can relax here wondering what might have been, or indulge themselves with a slice of fruit pie.