Some cafes are made for coffee; others for meeting up with friends; others to meet new people; still others to sit and read. My favorite cafes, however, are the ones made for people-watching: where you can spend a full afternoon, evening, night, until morning - and then repeat the same routine again - sitting, drinking coffee after coffee, carefully observing everyone who is in the cafe and who walks by. The art of people-watching involves studying the subjects, guessing who they are, where they are coming from, where they are going, what they are doing, what they are thinking. The experienced people-watcher is the same as the amateur social scientist.
Two of the best places for peopel watching is the Hagen Daz cafe in Leicester Square or even Pizza Pino on the Champs Elysees during August, or even Le Rendez-Vous des Belges.
Alt.coffee -- the original Internet cafe -- is more like a cafe right down the street from a hostel in Amsterdam than in New York City. The denizens of the cafe, young with their post-grungy look, look like they have just arrived in New York straight from Amsterdam or Prague; they often have. Alt.coffee is the friendlist cafe in Manhattan; I always meet people when I'm there and, more often then not, they have something interesting to tell me. Some days women vastly outnumber men, and some days vice-versa. The great lighting, comfortable couches, strong air conditioning, and the fact that they never kick out make it the perfect place to spend an afternoon or evening reading. Check it out- at 139 Avenue A, New York, NY
