NEW YORK CITY.

[Kilroy56]

Hello,

I will be in NYC for a week, arriving on Sept 21st from Paris.. My 1st visit to the Big Apple !

Any suggestion welcomed...

Thank you,

Dominique

[Schofield1943]

My 2 cents as a native...

 

- Take a morning or evening walk through the lower portion of Central Park.

- Visit the WTC memorial as the sun sets and you can be there when they light up the waterfalls.

- I love the Empire State Building and yes, it's very touristy to go to the top, and it's not even the tallest building in NYC, but it's a lot of fun. I haven't been to the top of the WTC since the observation levels opened this summer.

- Times Square is worth avoiding unless you're going to a Broadway show or want to tell people you were 'there'. Most NYers who don't work there avoid it like the plague and it's mostly just a bunch of stores and people looking to rip off tourists.

- Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge from the Manhattan side to the Brooklyn side and have lunch at Grimaldi's Pizza. Walk around the recently redeveloped Brooklyn Waterfront.

- SoHo is full of overpriced art galleries and high end brand name stores you can find anywhere in the world. It does however have some beautiful architecture and cobblestone streets (and a ton of celebrities sneaking around).

- The Lower East Side is mostly a bunch of bars that cater to the bridge and tunnel crowd and those fresh out of college. Gone are the quintessentially Lower East Side things like the pickle guys and the Yiddish ladies but Katz's Deli is still there and if you want a real New York meal you can't go wrong there.

- The West Village is one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Manhattan and worth wandering around for an hour or two on a nice day. Mostly full of those same high end brand name stores found in SoHo. Go all the way over to Hudson Street and it's 3 more blocks to the Hudson River promenade.

- The East Village is full of good bars, good restaurants, and home to a large portion of the under 30 crowd.

- Meatpacking/Chelsea/West Chelsea, where you will find the High Line, is very trendy (the Whitney Museum just relocated there). Home to lots of new construction, art galleries and the like. The High Line is a very nice park/idea but it's very narrow and if you go on a day full of visitors it's more like cattle being herded through a series of pens.

 

I stay below 23rd Street as much as I can and I think all I've left out from the above is Tribeca and the Financial District. Both very cool neighborhoods with great architecture and history and worth walking around if you have the time.

 

As for what I consider uptown... there's no reason to be in midtown unless there is something specific there you are going to. That includes the area around MSG/Penn Station all the way east to Murray Hill. I am almost never on the Upper West Side so I won't comment. As for the Upper East Side... short of walking along 5th Avenue near the MET and checking out all the beautiful and insanely priced townhouses off of Central Park, there's not a whole lot to do. Definitely visit the MET though.

 

Other museums worth visiting: Museum of the City of New York (Upper Carnegie Hill), Natural History Museum (Upper West Side), the Tenement Museum (Lower East Side), MoMA (midtown East).

 

Ellis Island is also completely underrated and worth a visit if you have the time.

 

Brooklyn has been gentrifying so quickly and is so different from the Brooklyn I knew even 5 years ago that I'm going to avoid commenting (other than my suggestion of walking the Bridge and eating at Grimaldis). Brooklyn Heights is beautiful.

[Kilroy56]

Hello,

Wow ! Thank you so much for your kind answer.

Your assistance is greatly appreciated indeed.

I will be pleased to help when you visit this side of the pond...

BR,

Dominique

[Collector5516]

and if you're looking to get your WWII fill, set aside 4-5 hours to visit the Intrepid!

[Kilroy56]

Will include on the list.

Many thanks for the tip.

Regards,

Dominique