Pete Hamill reckons that he has lived in 14 different Manhattan apartments. That fact alone might make him an expert on the idiosyncrasies of the great metropolis, the colorful nooks and crannies that rarely make the tourist guides or history books. But, of course, Hamill is not merely a Manhattan resident. The city has been his beat for more than four decades now, as a newspaperman, editor, novelist and essayist. He puts all of those years to great use in his latest book "Downtown: My Manhattan." The terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the subsequent rebuilding effort, have generated great interest in downtown Manhattan. But for Hamill, downtown is not merely the area around the World Trade Center site, or around City Hall, or even below Canal Street. Hamill freely admits he has a highly subjective definition of downtown, which at times allows him to meander all the way to Times Square. But this is all for the benefit of the reader. As Hamill wanders about the city, his vivid, compelling stories of New York's people and places are told with equal dashes of journalism and poetry. Hamill leads the reader through the downtown streets, which ran red with blood during the New York City Draft Riots. Then there are the cafes and pubs, which drew artists from all over the world to the great bohemian "Village." But what makes this narrative so unique is the way Hamill is able to interweave New York's history with his own experience in the city as the Brooklyn-born son of immigrants from Belfast. One outstanding moment is when Hamill's mother, noting her son's awe at the city's skyscrapers, reminds him that he's seen such a place once before: Oz, a reference to the wondrous city from the famous Judy Garland movie. Hamill's last novel was the best selling Forever, which followed an immortal Irish immigrant from 18th-century Ireland to September 11, 2001 in Manhattan. "Downtown" can be seen as a companion volume about the city that inspired that novel. ($23.95 / 304 pages / Little Brown).