It has been performed by the Supremes, Lee Wiley, Oscar Peterson, Blossom Dearie, Tony Martin, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mel Torme, among many others.

In 1925, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart had been song-writing partners for six years but only sold one song to be put in a Broadway show, "Any Old Place with You", that was bought by former vaudeville performer, now a producer, Lew Fields.

Rodgers was so discouraged he briefly considered going into a business when they got an offer from the prestigious Theater Guild to contribute all the songs for a two–performance benefit musical review on Sunday, May 17, 1925.

The joke is that these "delights" are really some of the worst, or cheapest, sights that New York has to offer; for example, the stifling, humid stench of the subway in summertime is described as "balmy breezes", while the noisy, grating pushcarts on Mott Street are "gently gliding by".

In the first stanza, the couple is obviously too poor to afford a honeymoon to the popular summertime destinations of "Niag'ra" or "other places", so they claim to be happy to "save our fares".

[2] In later stanzas, other places they will go to are likewise free – Central Park, "the Bronx Zoo", Coney Island, Brighton Beach, and to view the much-criticized statue of "Civic Virtue".

The Ella Fitzgerald rendition from 1956 mentions My Fair Lady, as does Dinah Washington's 1959 recording, while Lee Wiley and Rosemary Clooney reference South Pacific.

In the early and mid-1950s, singer Julius La Rosa became a national celebrity for his exposure on several of the shows hosted by one of the most popular television stars of the era, Arthur Godfrey.

On another CBS radio program, the crime drama Broadway Is My Beat, its closing theme was a version of "Manhattan" played piano-bar style.