New York with family - suggestions

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traineeinvestor

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We will be taking our children to NY for 5 days next month (as part of a longer trip) and want to make the most of their time there.

We have scheduled visits to the Natural History Museum, the Met and Statue of Liberty and tickets to a Broadway show. Any other recommendations would be very welcome - our daughters will be 13 and 11.

As it's been a few years since I've been to the US, (i) an update on current US tipping practices and (ii) whether I can still use signing for credit card purchases (or need to get a PIN activated card) would be very welcome?
 
We took the Hop On Hop Off double decker bus around Manhattan. The package we got also included a boat ride down the Hudson.
 
Tipping in NYC is 15 to 20% for waiters. All credit cards are universally accepted--Chip/Pin or not.

We often will take the subway down to Battery Park and take the Staten Island Ferry over and back (free.) Then we'll start walking north as far as Little Italy and Chinatown.

Last visit to NYC, we stayed in the Prospect Park section of Brooklyn in a brownstone apartment (AirBNB.com) We never even went into Manhattan. There's more to NYC than just the island.
 
Something that sounds silly but is worth doing is to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge after dark. Have a nice dinner in Brooklyn (lots of good places in the area), then walk the bridge toward Manhattan. It can be magical.
 
MichaelB linked the thread I started. We were that a week ago. My kids are 15 and 13 - so not that far off in age.

We saw a broadway show (Shear Madness - very kid friendly and FUNNY). We bought the tickets at the TKTS booth in Times Square for half off.

We took the subway to the brooklyn side of the bridge and walked into manhattan. (Better views in that direction.) From there we walked up to Soho -looking at the architectural differences between downtown and Soho.

We did the Natural History Museum.

We walked through Central Park - people watching, etc.

We did the statue of liberty (including climbing to the crown) - and then went to the 9-11 memorial (very well done memorial - beautiful use of negative space in the reflecting ponds.).

One thing we considered doing - but ran out of time... taking the subway to Coney Island.
 
We took a cruise around Manhattan that we enjoyed.... it went out near the Statue of Liberty as part of the trip. It embarked near the USS Intrepid Air, Sea and Space Museum.

If you are there in late August you could plan to spend part of a day at some of the qualifying or early rounds of the U.S. Open at the National Tennis Center.

There are a lot of nice affordable restaurants on Restaurant Row near Times Square, W46th between 8th and 9th Ave that we enjoyed.

DW enjoyed a tour of Radio City Music Hall.
 
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A Slice of Brooklyn Bus Tours | New York Pizza Tours & More fun bus tour of Brooklyn and stops at a couple famous pizza restaurants. Showed DVD segments of famous movies filmed in the area - Saturday Night Live, French Connection. Fun afternoon, and if you get him, Tony is a great host. We were there about 10 years ago, but we ate at Grimaldi's (thin crust) and Spumoni Garden (Sicilian thick crust). Would have never gone there otherwise. Our other favorite spots were the church by ground zero (Geo Washington went there) and Katz's Deli (a must do). McSorley's is one of the oldest pubs in the country and they only offer two beers - light or dark. A fun, noisy place with sawdust on the floor.
 
The church is probably Trinity Church. Surround by skyscrapers - this old (and beautiful) church is right by the stock exchange.
 
Go to the MTA Museum in Brooklyn. It's located underground at the old Church Street Station. There's a lot of interesting history of NYC transportation. They also have every car that's ever been on the subway line. Each car is decorated with ads and messages of their era. It's a great museum. I think all ages would enjoy it.
 
Many places do not take credit cards-- cash only.


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Thanks for all the suggestions and the link to the earlier thread. I've passed the info along to committee (aka DW) who will let me know what we are doing in due course.
 
The Museum of American Finance was really interesting. I think the kids would love seeing all of the gold and currency.


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I always suggest the New York City Tenement Museum and the Tastings Tour that they provide.

https://www.tenement.org/tours.php

May also want to take the ferry to Ellis Island which is where immigrants gained entrance to the USA in the 19th and early 20th centuries. At the same time you can visit the Statute of Liberty

I might also suggest a baseball/basketball or hockey game.

Also visit the Chrysler Building and The Plaza Hotel. May want to walk by the Dakota Apartment Building (where John Lennon was shot and a beautiful example of late 19th century gilded age architecture). See what concert is playing at Lincoln Center/Avery Fisher Hall or Carnegie Hall.

Walk over the Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn Heights and walk down Montague Street to the Promenade. Best view of Manhattan.

Out of Towners don't realize this, but Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill are beautiful places to visit.
 
You probably have more than enough suggestions on what to see & do already...

August is normally HOT in NYC with high humidity. Be prepared for that and try to do most of your "outside" sightseeing early in the morning. Subway stations can be insanely hot in the afternoon/evening hours, but the subway trains themselves are air conditioned. Make your peace with the smells :)

I love NYC any time of the year. Hope you have a great time there.
 
walkinwood said:
August is normally HOT in NYC with high humidity. Be prepared for that and try to do most of your "outside" sightseeing early in the morning. Subway stations can be insanely hot in the afternoon/evening hours, but the subway trains themselves are air conditioned. Make your peace with the smells :)

I love NYC any time of the year. Hope you have a great time there.
Click to expand...

Thanks - we're from Hong Kong so heat and humidity is normal for us.
 
PERSonalTime said:
The Museum of American Finance was really interesting. I think the kids would love seeing all of the gold and currency.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
Click to expand...

Thanks - I'll pass that one up the chain of command to the travel committee.
 
phil1ben said:
I always suggest the New York City Tenement Museum and the Tastings Tour that they provide.

https://www.tenement.org/tours.php

May also want to take the ferry to Ellis Island which is where immigrants gained entrance to the USA in the 19th and early 20th centuries. At the same time you can visit the Statute of Liberty

I might also suggest a baseball/basketball or hockey game.

Also visit the Chrysler Building and The Plaza Hotel. May want to walk by the Dakota Apartment Building (where John Lennon was shot and a beautiful example of late 19th century gilded age architecture). See what concert is playing at Lincoln Center/Avery Fisher Hall or Carnegie Hall.

Walk over the Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn Heights and walk down Montague Street to the Promenade. Best view of Manhattan.

Out of Towners don't realize this, but Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill are beautiful places to visit.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all these suggestions - the Brooklyn Bridge was already on our list and I will try and squeeze some of the others into the agenda.
 
rodi said:
The church is probably Trinity Church. Surround by skyscrapers - this old (and beautiful) church is right by the stock exchange.
Click to expand...
Hamilton, THE Hamilton, is buried there near the iron fence to left of church.

Guggenheim Museum usually has good exhibitions.

Madison Square (not the Garden) with nearby Eataly restaurant is good. Flatiron Building is there.
 
Here are a few more to consider: Not sure they still do this, but the Laser Rock shows at the Planetarium used to be awesome; Empire State Building observation deck; Central Park Zoo; 9/11 memorial; Circle Line cruise around Manhattan; St Patrick Cathedral; Metropolitan Opera; walk down 5th Ave; South Street Seaport.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. We had an awesome time in New York (in spite of the best efforts of Delta who gave us a 6 hour flight delay).

The Circle Line boat trip around Manhattan was excellent, as was the Met and MOMA was good although the photography section we wanted to see was closed on the day we visited (we passed on the Natural History Museum as the kids were museumed out by the time we got to NY), Central Park was very pleasant, a couple of Broadway shows (wish we could get more high quality live theatre out here) and the Empire State Building was impressive. We left wishing we could have spent a couple more days.
 
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