Liza Minnelli first sang “New York, New York” in Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film of the same name. Two years later, Frank Sinatra recorded the song, and it soon became the city’s unofficial anthem. One line in particular, “I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps,” seems to describe New York in one sentence. More precisely, it describes Manhattan, the most vibrant of the city’s five boroughs.

The smallest borough at 23 square miles and the most densely populated, Manhattan thrives as a concentrated center of economic power. It is home to the world’s two largest stock exchanges, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ; more than half of the country’s leading law firms; banks representing virtually every major country; and several Fortune 500 companies, among them Verizon, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup.

Manhattan also boasts one of the country’s larger convention centers, about to get still larger. The black glass-clad Jacob K. Javits Convention Center covers six city blocks along the West Side of Manhattan and offers 840,000 square feet of space. Earlier this year, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced a $1 billion expansion plan that will add more than 1.2 million square feet of space and make its ballroom, at 60,000 square feet, the largest in the Northeast.

As well as the Javits Center, several hotels offer large meeting spaces. The New York Hilton Midtown holds up to 5,000, for example, and the New York Marriott Marquis provides room for 2,800 people. Mid-sized convention spots include Spring Studios, which hosts the annual Tribeca Film Festival, and Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers on the Hudson River, accommodating 200 to 2,000.

Manhattan also offers ample room for visitors to stay. Throughout the city of New York currently more than 109,000 hotel rooms are available, a figure expected to rise to 135,000 by 2019. In Manhattan alone 52 hotels opened between the end of 2014 and May 2016, with more slated to open soon. Lower Manhattan, in its spectacular rise from the ashes of 9/11, hosts several new hotels, among them the Four Seasons New York Downtown and The Beekman, A Thompson Hotel, as well as extended-stay facilities such as AKA Wall Street.

According to Fred Dixon, president and CEO, NYC & Company, the city’s official destination marketing organization, “Manhattan has seen unprecedented development in the meeting and convention space that makes it even more attractive to meeting planners. From new hotels and an expanded Javits Center to evolving neighborhoods, we invite delegates to see what a meeting in New York can do for their business.”

Overall, Manhattan added 20,000 jobs in accommodations and food services in the past few years. And it saw employment growth in other fields as well, in professional, scientific and technical services (27,000); and education services (12,000), according to the New York City Economic Development Corp.

With the city’s strong interest in adding technology centers, NYCEDC is developing Urbantech NYC, a hub at Grand Central Tech offering space, equipment and shared resources to entrepreneurs addressing some of the city’s most important urban challenges such as energy, transportation and water. It’s estimated Urbantech will support about 3,200 jobs in the next 10 years.

As Maria Torres-Springer, president, NYCEDC, notes, “We are driving an economic development agenda in Manhattan that builds on the strengths of neighborhoods from Harlem to Lower Manhattan as hubs of commerce, culture, diversity and innovation.”

The new station for the IRT Line 7 subway train extension is part of the Hudson Yards redevelopment project. © K QUINN FERRIS | DREAMSTIME.COM

In Harlem, the city rezoned more than 1 million square feet of commercial, hotel and retail space.

And along the West Side, Hudson Yards, rezoned to commercial and residential use, represents the largest private real estate development in the country. According to NYCEDC, when complete the commercial part will add 26 million square feet of office space, 3 million square feet of hotel space and 2 million square feet of retail.

As busy as a business trip and convention can be, visitors always find time to enjoy Manhattan. The borough offers some of the world’s greatest museums, a grand opera house and the country’s major theater district. Last year, of the 13.3 million people who attended Broadway shows, an estimated 7.7 million were visitors to the city.

And its restaurants represent virtually every cuisine. Among the well-established stars are Le Bernardin for seafood, Daniel for French cuisine, Nobu for Japanese cuisine and Eleven Madison Park for contemporary American cuisine. Maysville offers American Southern food along with the city’s largest selection of bourbon. The new Eataly NYC Downtown, in Lower Manhattan, offers superb Italian food. And Nix, a vegetarian restaurant, is a highly acclaimed recent addition.

All of this, all of the time. Little wonder Manhattan has no time to sleep.

SCENIC DRIVES

A daytrip by car to The Garrison in historic Hudson Highlands, 55 miles north of New York City, offers an 18-hole Dick Wilson-designed golf course; the casual Terrace Grill; Valley, its highly acclaimed restaurant; and glorious views of the Hudson River 800 feet below and of West Point, the U.S. Military Academy.

If you don’t care to golf or to leave the city, you can stay in Manhattan but leave the century. Head north to the Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park. Here you will soon forget 2016 as you travel back 800 years. As the medieval branch of the Metropolitan Museum, the Cloisters is the only museum in the United States dedicated solely to the Middle Ages. It features a collection of cloisters, altars, apses and arches from the ruins of 12th- to 15th-century monasteries in Europe, disassembled there and reassembled here to create the Cloisters. Even some of its walls are centuries old. In all, visitors can view 2,000 pieces of medieval artwork and architectural elements. It is a magical place to dream, to be lured back in time.