Watching tourists walk around Times Square, you can see them looking around in a big mass of fanny-packed confusion for an actual New York resident. The sad truth of it is that Manhattanites are simply too cool to hang on the streets. In the winter, they hole up in the contaminated warmth of subway stops or, preferably, in cozy corner cafes. And now that it's summer you certainly won't find them blindly searching through their sweat for the nearest Duane Reade. No, the people of the city have taken to the roofs; there is really no reason for them to leave these cool, concrete heights, up there you can find everything you need: art, gardens, restaurants. Moreover, the roof is a unique experience in that it possesses the hard-to-find combination of being both scenic and illicit. An excellent example of this phenomenon in the Rooftop Films festival, gracing the city's roofs every summer.

You can now find this event in a number of locations across the city. What began as a projector and a slightly stained white sheet above a tenement building on 14th St. is now not just a city-wide, but a country-wide phenomenon.  Last week, the program took place on the Lower East Side on a roof with an absolutely spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline. But the more impressive aspect was the endless grafitti that served as decoration, a product of the students and staff of New Design High in partnership with a few legendary street artists.

Added to the scenic appeal of the event was the fact that it was a fantastic deal. For the low, low price of $10 you get a live concert, film(s), and a party with an open bar. At the event I attended, titled "The Pursuit of Love," the band was nothing special (immediately recognizable as too trendy-looking to be any good) and I wouldn't know about the after party, but I can testify to the superb quality of the films themselves. Little known treasures, these pieces are generally the work of up and coming filmmakers,  often premieres of features or shorts. The films I witnessed were all incredibly quirky and insightful, bridging a variety of topics stretching from an animation of the search for romance in an urban population of headless wanderers to a heart-wrenching set of interviews with the applicants on Craigslist's MissedConnections. A personal favorite was "Bottle," a film by Kristen Lepore, a sweet and lighthearted tale of a romance between a mound of snow and a mound of sand.

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So I suggest to all the out-of-staters, itching to experience something more than hot dogs from a cart or overcrowded comedy clubs, look up over the glimmering lights promising deals and NY authenticity, to the rooftops.