The Chelsea Piers athletic center makes the West Chelsea area perfect for sports lovers and fitness buffs.

MANHATTAN

Population: 1,611,581
Total area: 23.7 square miles
Length: 13.4 miles
Widest point: 2.3 miles
Narrowest point: 0.8 miles
Manhattan Real Estate Listings

When most people think of New York City, they visualize the island of Manhattan. The base for most of New York City's major businesses and cultural attractions, surrounded by the East River and Hudson River, Manhattan has Uptown, Downtown, the East Side and the West Side with the 843 acres of Central Park right in the middle of it.

WEST CHELSEA

Neighborhood Boundaries: From West 30th Street to 23rd Street, 8th Avenue on the east to the West Side Highway

West Chelsea is the "new SoHo," meaning the new contemporary art gallery center, a place where maverick Martha Stewart located her company, aware that tradition comes from the new, unrecognized talent bubbling beneath the surface of the real New York.

SoHo (short for "South of Houston"), which grew into the contemporary art gallery center of New York in the 1970s and 1980s, became so popular that rents increased to the point that art-world luminaries -- who always try to stay one step ahead of everyone else -- moved to West Chelsea, a then undiscovered area of New York consisting of warehouses (perfect for art galleries), car repair shops and not much else.

West Chelsea is a fantastic location with its proximity to the water and the new and refurbished piers jutting out into the majestic Hudson River. The Hudson River Park has miles of new bicycle and jogging paths where you can also roller blade to your heart's content from sunrise to sunset. On the far Hudson River side of West Chelsea is the sprawling sports lover and fitness buff's dream: the Chelsea Piers, an athletic center where you can ice skate; play basketball, soccer or golf; do gymnastics; and work out in every sport imaginable.

Just a few blocks from central Chelsea and Midtown, those lucky enough to live in West Chelsea can easily slip between the art world denizens to find the rest of New York. (But if you want to know where all the new up-and-coming artists really live, you'll have to go to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which has become the new Chelsea.) View Chelsea Real Estate Listings

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