Jackson Heights Where the 7 Train Opens the World

Take the 7 train to 74th Street-Broadway in Jackson Heights and step off the platform into the most linguistically diverse square mile on Earth. Within three blocks you'll hear Nepali, Bangla, Spanish, Tibetan, and Tagalog, and the food stalls along Roosevelt Avenue and 74th Street serve the cuisines of all of them without a single franchise in sight.

Sammy's Halal on 73rd sells lamb over rice from a cart that has achieved the rare distinction of a street-food line that moves fast and rewards waiting. The Tibetan momos at Lhasa Fast Food on Roosevelt are handmade and steamed to order — pork, beef, or vegetable, each one pleated with the precision of origami and served with a chili sauce that announces itself like a headline. For dessert, the kulfi at any of the Indian sweet shops on 74th — mango, pistachio, cardamom — is denser and richer than ice cream and comes in portions that suggest the vendor considers moderation a character flaw.

The residential streets behind the commercial strip are where Jackson Heights reveals its architecture — garden apartment buildings from the 1920s arranged around private courtyards with Tudor arches and landscaped gardens, built as a planned community and now home to the most international population any planned community has ever accommodated. The contrast between the orderly brick facades and the chaotic, multilingual energy of the avenue is the whole story of New York in a single neighborhood.

Insider tip: Sunday morning, when the 74th Street temple area comes alive and the flower vendors sell garlands of marigold and jasmine for offerings, the neighborhood smells like someone crossed a garden with a spice market. Buy a garland for a dollar and wear it home on the train. Nobody will look twice. This is New York.