DAY 5
So far, our days seem to inadvertently have themes. For example, yesterday had a nautical theme, as all of our activities involved naval vessels. Today seemed to have somewhat of a pious theme, as most of the things we did were involving churches or cathedrals. We started out by heading into North Manhattan to see The Cloisters, then down to Columbia University where we had lunch, saw the unfinished Cathedral of St. John the Divine, visited the Riverside Cathedral and Grant's Tomb, and then met up with a family friend for dessert.
Tourism
The Cloisters: Heading up to the 190th street station (which is the creepiest and most derelict subway stop I've ever seen), we walked for around fifteen minutes through a quiet park to The Cloisters, a medieval-art museum run by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Built in the style of a monastery, this stone building houses golden wood and stone statues, carvings, and tapestries which date as far back as around 1200 AD. All pieces shown are religious in some way, as all of them have been imported from cathedrals and real monasteries in Europe, namely England, France, and Germany. I imagine that any child under around age ten or eleven would find it massively boring, unless they are particularly religious, avid art fans, or studying European religious history. As few kids of that age fit any of those categories, parents with younger children who cannot easily be bound and sedated would be better off avoiding the museum, or perhaps stashing the children in the trunk of a car while they tour the museum in peace. Admission is free, although guilt trips loom ahead unless one complies with the "suggested donation." The museum was slightly boring to me at first, but later I came to appreciate it, and our family spent around two hours there, including time spent perusing the gift store. You can buy replicas of the art, music and DVDs, books, and plastic knights and dragons for the wee ones.
Cathedral of St. John the Divine: After a satisfying meal (see Tom’s Restaurant below), we moseyed on over to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, a massive structure begun in the mid-1800's, and not quite finished due to a series of delays and stalls. Despite the unfinished sections, the place is still impressive, and a place I would recommend to anyone in Manhattan. White-stone vaulted ceilings and the largest stained-glass window in North America make this a memorable trip. The Cathedral is huge, large enough to easily house two football fields or perhaps a small African nation, and it has several wings devoted to various apostles and saints. Admission is again free with the "suggested donation," and includes a self-guided tour. Visitors (like myself and family) can pretty easily spend an hour taking pictures and staring up at the ceiling, in addition to looking at a fountain just to the right of the church depicting the archangel Michael decapitating Satan while being supported by a herd of giraffes (giraffes love a good beheading).
Riverside Cathedral and Grant's tomb: Mere blocks away from the St. John Cathedral can be found the Riverside Cathedral, and mere meters from that can be found the mausoleum-style tomb of General and President Ulysses S. Grant. The cathedral sports a more impressive steeple than the last, and although closed (we arrived too late), it normally allows visitors. Its smaller size would likely only make it a half-hour stop or so.
The tomb of Grant was also closed before we arrived there, so all we did was take pictures of it from the outside. Normally, the Park Service-run tomb is open for visitors, who can go inside and likely take pictures or go on tours. Simply looking at these structures and taking pictures took around 20 minutes for us, but I don't have a proper estimate as to how long it would take us if both were open.
Food
Tom's Restaurant: After a nightmare-inducing trip through the creepiest metro station on the planet, we transferred a train or two and wound up on 116th street, near Concordia University. We planned to visit some cathedrals, but our stomachs forced us at gunpoint to first find something to eat. Not one to argue with a firearm-wielding digestive system, we complied and went on over to Tom's Cafe, a splendid old diner with an inviting neon sign. The place was pretty crowded, and we managed to slip in during a break in the action. It seems like a wait at the front door could be a possibility for any hungry traveler. I assure you, however, that it is well worth the wait. Food seems to be mostly American fare, with a slightly Greek twist, as one will notice leg of lamb and the Greek gyro mixed in between BLTs, cheeseburgers, and milkshakes. Even on a crowded day, service was quite speedy, with our food arriving within ten minutes, brought by a kindly old waitress with an obvious Mediterranean accent. The food was delicious, and the quality and portions very reasonable for the prices. I would especially recommend the milkshakes and malts, as they are highly delicious.
After all this we met up with a friend for dessert at her apartment. Sadly, I cannot review this, as she doesn't normally open her doors to travelers looking for a treat. With that, it was a metro trip, a hop, a skip, and a jump to get back to the hotel, where we tucked in for the night.
DAY 6
Really not a lot to say here. We spent most of the day in Brooklyn visiting friends, so there aren't really a lot of things to review.
BUT DON'T FEAR!
We have a few.
Food
Bryant Park Grill: The Grill is situated right outside of Bryant Park, alongside the main branch of the New York Public Library. It isn't normally a place we'd stop for lunch, but some friends of ours made reservations so we could meet up there, so it's fair game for reviewing. It's on the fancier end of places we've eaten at this trip, with entrees ranging from 15 to 40 dollars. The food's good, but it wasn't much to fill up on, more of an artsy-fartsy attempt at arranging food in an interesting way in hopes that that justifies it being more expensive. To be frank, the food and the attempt at a fanciful arrangement of it wasn't at all worth the high prices they asked. If you're taking your grandmother out to dinner, the location of this place and nice white linens make this a proper consideration. But if you're just a tourist looking for a good meal, you'd best look someplace else.
From the restaurant, it was a lengthy ride on the 'F' train into Brooklyn to meet up with more friends. As a side note, we enjoyed walking about residential Brooklyn. The brownstone houses all huddled up close and the low buildings and noise level reminded us of Boston and Virginia, and made for a very pleasant stroll.
Tourism
Empire State Building: After visiting our pals in Brooklyn, we had a few hours before it was time to return to the hotel, so we simply rode the 'F' train back under the river and got off at the 34th street station, where we walked only a block into the Empire State Building. This iconic skyscraper brings visitors up to the 86th level for sightseeing, or for an additional fee, up to the 102nd floor, which is a full 1250 feet above the New York streets. Buying a City Pass (which I highly recommend, it's a great value) gets you up to the 86th for free.
The first thing I noticed is how horrible the lines must be in the summer. We were ushered through at least three rooms full of snaking velvet ropes, obviously meant to hold the massive lines of eager tourists during the summer. I'd recommend only visiting during the off-season, as getting herded through a nightmare of sweaty, overweight tourists would be awful. If you encounter lines like that, there are plenty of other lookout decks available to the public, like the top of the Rockefeller building.
However, after getting through two elevators and a good number of velvet-rope corridors, we arrived at the 86th floor observation deck, a full 1,000 feet off the street. The view is truly breathtaking, and the general experience is enhanced by a well-done audio tour, included in a standard ticket charge (or so I believe). Visitors can see for eighty miles on a clear day, able to view all five boroughs and three states. One recommendation is to go at night, like we did. Although the view isn't as far, the lines are much shorter and a view of the New York lights is really very cool. Tourists can either see the city from an indoor area, or brave the cold and go out into a massively windy deck area, which allows for better picture-taking, along with frostbitten fingers. Winds are extremely strong, which leads to being rather cold and also losing possession of any kites that a person may have brought up (if security didn't already do that).
All in all, this is a really cool destination, but if you find the prices or general concept disagreeable, you could easily find another tall building to view the city from. Although none of them will have as cool as an art-deco theme as the Empire State Building!
From the Empire State Building, it was off to our hotel to relax and record the day's activities, but not before nabbing a hot dog as a snack.
PRO TIP: Hot dog vendors will be more willing to make a bargain for their franks at night, when the chances of selling any more food dwindle. Make sure that no other potential customers are in the area, and that it's sufficiently late enough that not many others will stop by that night. With any luck, you'll get a good deal! Simply offering the man half the stated price scored me a one-dollar dog.
DAY 7
Although easily the most tiring of all the days spent here in New York, today was also the least varied. Really, all we did was walk around Chinatown for the whole day, although we did stop in at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and also at Lombardi's Pizzeria.
Tourism
Chinatown: Getting off at the Canal street station, we ascended into the daylight and were greeted by a busy scene - Chinatown. Bumbling Asian merchants and gaping tourists pack these streets, peddling and purchasing a variety of Oriental goods. Perfumes, watches, jewelry, statues, swords, and electronics can all be purchased here, and bargaining is definitely an option. Simply offer a dollar or two less than the asking price. If refused, try to work your price up perhaps fifty cents or a dollar at a time, until you get to a compromise. Also, remember you can often find the same goods or something better in another store, so walk around and visit other shops before buying.
Asides from shopping, one can also find seafood markets with live crabs, frogs, and fish, bakeries, and noodle shops. Simply walking around, bargaining, and sampling the various foods easily takes up half a day, if not more. Depending on what your interests are and who you're with, I'd definitely recommend coming here during your trip to New York.
Lower East Side Tenement Museum: Just on the edge of Chinatown one can find this marvelous museum, situated in an area which, in the early 20th century, was a haven for newly immigrated Scandinavians, Italians, and Slavic peoples.
In the gift store/ticket office, one can purchase walking tour tickets, or tenement tickets. We purchased both, and concluded this: one is gold, the other a rusty iron at best. The lesser of the two is the walking tour. Part of the problem is its length. Takers are forced to stand for two hours on various street corners in the windy cold with little to sit on. The tour guide knew tons and was quite interesting, but the sheer length of the program and lack of chairs forced us to bail out early and instead find a snack at a nearby Subway before our tenement tour.
The tour of the tenements is fabulous. My suggestion: skip the walking tour, take the tenement tour. Visitors are lead into a five-story tenement building, built in 1863, that is owned by the museum. Your enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide will tell you some background information about the building, and then will lead you into the vintage building and through two tenement apartments. With each one, you'll be told a twenty-minute story about the real family that lived in that apartment. The rooms aren't refurbished to mint condition, just enough to give you an idea of the state of mild disrepair the rooms were in. With furniture and scant decorations that were period-accurate, you get a really good idea about what life was like in the era, and you get a feeling for the struggles and day-to-day activities of the renters. Depending on the ticket you buy, you'll be taken through two rooms, all on different floors. So really, there are five different exhibits, one for each floor, with separate tickets for all. If you're in New York, you must go to this place. It's absolutely fantastic, and possibly my favorite part of the entire trip
Food
Lombardi's Pizzeria: Our final stop before going back to the hotel was Lombardi's Pizzeria. To sum it up, this place is awesome. The only items on the menu are breadsticks, salad, and pizza. But let me assure you, you can't go wrong with any of them. The salads come in bowls the size of decommissioned cruise ships, so one's enough for the family. But the pizza, which is advertised as New York's first and finest slice, is truly a marvel. It brings pizza away from its stereotyped imagery and into something finer: no longer is it a greasy staple for high-school and college kids. Instead, patches of creamy mozzarella, coal-fired crust, and delicious sauce bring it back to a traditional Italian dish, something consisting more of bread and tomatoes than heaps of cheese and grease.
For the food quality, prices are fair - a 50-dollar tab for the four of us. Even with a four-hundred dollar tab, I say it's worth it. This is the original pizza, and boy is it ever done right! If you're in Chinatown, or if you're in California, any journey is worth it to get down to Lombardi's.DAY 8With feet still weary from yesterday's Chinatown walkabout, we decided to rely on a new method of transportation today: the bicycle. Renting some on the edge of Central Park, we rode around the area, and stopped off at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After, we relaxed at the hotel for a bit, then went back out and got dinner at a pretty unremarkable diner. More on that later.
Rentals
Bike and Roll New York City: Originally, we planned to rent our bikes from Toga bike shop, a few blocks away from Central Park. However, we soon discovered that Toga isn't the place for tourists. Although they've got a cool store with friendly and enthusiastic staff, their bike rentals are only available for 24 hours at a time, and the bikes lack any form of lock.
Instead, we ventured around and found Bike and Roll. Although a bit more expensive, Bike and Roll rents nicer bikes (a Trek cruiser/road model), includes sturdy locks and keys with every bike, and has half-day and hour rentals. For any tourist, this is the way to go. Rent a bike here and take it along the bike paths in Central Park, which I'll cover next.
Tourism
Central Park: Established back in the 1800's, Central Park is the perfect urban getaway. These 600-some acres feature lakes and ponds, small theaters and stages, open fields, baseball diamonds, and statues galore. Once you've rented a bike, take it around the well-paved loop that goes through the whole Park. It's not too hilly, with only two larger-size hills, and it's way fun. You can stop off at hot-dog vendors or statues, spending as much time as you'd like at the various locations. Depending on your stops, going around the whole five-mile loop on a bike could take you anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours.
Metropolitan Museum of Art: This glorious museum is a day trip in and of itself. Included in the price of a City Pass booklet (BUY ONE), this two-million square foot building houses art of all types and from every corner of the earth. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and stone carvings, Oriental watercolors, European armor, and, of course, classical oil paintings and impressionist works. We only got to spend around two hours here, and I only covered three exhibits of the museum, out of around fifty. Ten hours could easily be spent gaping at all this museum has to offer, so either plan one long haul (not recommended) or visit it multiple times over your trip (recommended). Personally, I found the arms and armor section thrilling, and spent a great bit of my time there.
In the basement can be found a cafeteria, which is where we ate our lunch. Food is mediocre and way overpriced, although in that neighborhood, you're not likely to find anything too much cheaper at a restaurant. Either plan on spending around fifteen or twenty dollars apiece, or hit up a hot dog stand before entering.
Back to the museum, I can't stress how awesome this place is. With classic works like Washington Crossing the Delaware and The Great Wave off Kanagawa, this museum has works of art to fit every interest. Also, I recommend coming here before the Cloisters, which is exactly what we didn't do. The Metropolitan also has a proper-size collection of religious artworks and artifacts, so I'd suggest visiting the collection here first. If you're fascinated by it and you want an entire museum full of it, then visit the Cloisters.
All in all, COME HERE COME HERE COME HERE COME HERE! You won't regret it. Also, plan ahead! Schedule a ton of time to come here. The only reason we left was because we had to return our rental bikes by five thirty. If that wasn't the case, I would have happily stayed for three hours or more.
After begrudgingly leaving the Met a little early, we finished the Central Park loop on our bikes and returned them. We traveled back to the hotel on the subway due to our mom feeling under the weather, and I had developed a killer case of hiccups. After waiting for the hiccups to fade, the three of us left again to find dinner.
Food
Blooms Cafe: Near Grand Central Station, which we also visited (it's cool, stop in there just to check out the main terminal), our stomachs kindly asked us to find some food, and we complied. Unfortunately, we found ourselves at Blooms Cafe, which we would soon discover is, to put it simply, pretty bad. Milkshakes were mediocre, tasting like they were made in a blender with just a bit of Hershey's syrup. Kitschy cookie-jar collections and candy jars simply couldn't redeem the quality of food- most items tasted like they were a day old or recently microwaved. Even the sandwiches tasted like something a middle-schooler would find in his bag lunch. In short, this place is not good, and especially for the price, far too expensive for the bad food they offered. If you're near Grand Central Station and looking for a place to eat, this isn't it. Keep walking and find another place.
Read about Aaron's last day in the city and get some hot tips in All in a Day: NYC!
So far, our days seem to inadvertently have themes. For example, yesterday had a nautical theme, as all of our activities involved naval vessels. Today seemed to have somewhat of a pious theme, as most of the things we did were involving churches or cathedrals. We started out by heading into North Manhattan to see The Cloisters, then down to Columbia University where we had lunch, saw the unfinished Cathedral of St. John the Divine, visited the Riverside Cathedral and Grant's Tomb, and then met up with a family friend for dessert.
Tourism
The Cloisters: Heading up to the 190th street station (which is the creepiest and most derelict subway stop I've ever seen), we walked for around fifteen minutes through a quiet park to The Cloisters, a medieval-art museum run by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Built in the style of a monastery, this stone building houses golden wood and stone statues, carvings, and tapestries which date as far back as around 1200 AD. All pieces shown are religious in some way, as all of them have been imported from cathedrals and real monasteries in Europe, namely England, France, and Germany. I imagine that any child under around age ten or eleven would find it massively boring, unless they are particularly religious, avid art fans, or studying European religious history. As few kids of that age fit any of those categories, parents with younger children who cannot easily be bound and sedated would be better off avoiding the museum, or perhaps stashing the children in the trunk of a car while they tour the museum in peace. Admission is free, although guilt trips loom ahead unless one complies with the "suggested donation." The museum was slightly boring to me at first, but later I came to appreciate it, and our family spent around two hours there, including time spent perusing the gift store. You can buy replicas of the art, music and DVDs, books, and plastic knights and dragons for the wee ones.
Cathedral of St. John the Divine: After a satisfying meal (see Tom’s Restaurant below), we moseyed on over to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, a massive structure begun in the mid-1800's, and not quite finished due to a series of delays and stalls. Despite the unfinished sections, the place is still impressive, and a place I would recommend to anyone in Manhattan. White-stone vaulted ceilings and the largest stained-glass window in North America make this a memorable trip. The Cathedral is huge, large enough to easily house two football fields or perhaps a small African nation, and it has several wings devoted to various apostles and saints. Admission is again free with the "suggested donation," and includes a self-guided tour. Visitors (like myself and family) can pretty easily spend an hour taking pictures and staring up at the ceiling, in addition to looking at a fountain just to the right of the church depicting the archangel Michael decapitating Satan while being supported by a herd of giraffes (giraffes love a good beheading).
Riverside Cathedral and Grant's tomb: Mere blocks away from the St. John Cathedral can be found the Riverside Cathedral, and mere meters from that can be found the mausoleum-style tomb of General and President Ulysses S. Grant. The cathedral sports a more impressive steeple than the last, and although closed (we arrived too late), it normally allows visitors. Its smaller size would likely only make it a half-hour stop or so.
The tomb of Grant was also closed before we arrived there, so all we did was take pictures of it from the outside. Normally, the Park Service-run tomb is open for visitors, who can go inside and likely take pictures or go on tours. Simply looking at these structures and taking pictures took around 20 minutes for us, but I don't have a proper estimate as to how long it would take us if both were open.
Food
Tom's Restaurant: After a nightmare-inducing trip through the creepiest metro station on the planet, we transferred a train or two and wound up on 116th street, near Concordia University. We planned to visit some cathedrals, but our stomachs forced us at gunpoint to first find something to eat. Not one to argue with a firearm-wielding digestive system, we complied and went on over to Tom's Cafe, a splendid old diner with an inviting neon sign. The place was pretty crowded, and we managed to slip in during a break in the action. It seems like a wait at the front door could be a possibility for any hungry traveler. I assure you, however, that it is well worth the wait. Food seems to be mostly American fare, with a slightly Greek twist, as one will notice leg of lamb and the Greek gyro mixed in between BLTs, cheeseburgers, and milkshakes. Even on a crowded day, service was quite speedy, with our food arriving within ten minutes, brought by a kindly old waitress with an obvious Mediterranean accent. The food was delicious, and the quality and portions very reasonable for the prices. I would especially recommend the milkshakes and malts, as they are highly delicious.
After all this we met up with a friend for dessert at her apartment. Sadly, I cannot review this, as she doesn't normally open her doors to travelers looking for a treat. With that, it was a metro trip, a hop, a skip, and a jump to get back to the hotel, where we tucked in for the night.
DAY 6
Really not a lot to say here. We spent most of the day in Brooklyn visiting friends, so there aren't really a lot of things to review.
BUT DON'T FEAR!
We have a few.
Food
Bryant Park Grill: The Grill is situated right outside of Bryant Park, alongside the main branch of the New York Public Library. It isn't normally a place we'd stop for lunch, but some friends of ours made reservations so we could meet up there, so it's fair game for reviewing. It's on the fancier end of places we've eaten at this trip, with entrees ranging from 15 to 40 dollars. The food's good, but it wasn't much to fill up on, more of an artsy-fartsy attempt at arranging food in an interesting way in hopes that that justifies it being more expensive. To be frank, the food and the attempt at a fanciful arrangement of it wasn't at all worth the high prices they asked. If you're taking your grandmother out to dinner, the location of this place and nice white linens make this a proper consideration. But if you're just a tourist looking for a good meal, you'd best look someplace else.
From the restaurant, it was a lengthy ride on the 'F' train into Brooklyn to meet up with more friends. As a side note, we enjoyed walking about residential Brooklyn. The brownstone houses all huddled up close and the low buildings and noise level reminded us of Boston and Virginia, and made for a very pleasant stroll.
Tourism
Empire State Building: After visiting our pals in Brooklyn, we had a few hours before it was time to return to the hotel, so we simply rode the 'F' train back under the river and got off at the 34th street station, where we walked only a block into the Empire State Building. This iconic skyscraper brings visitors up to the 86th level for sightseeing, or for an additional fee, up to the 102nd floor, which is a full 1250 feet above the New York streets. Buying a City Pass (which I highly recommend, it's a great value) gets you up to the 86th for free.
The first thing I noticed is how horrible the lines must be in the summer. We were ushered through at least three rooms full of snaking velvet ropes, obviously meant to hold the massive lines of eager tourists during the summer. I'd recommend only visiting during the off-season, as getting herded through a nightmare of sweaty, overweight tourists would be awful. If you encounter lines like that, there are plenty of other lookout decks available to the public, like the top of the Rockefeller building.
However, after getting through two elevators and a good number of velvet-rope corridors, we arrived at the 86th floor observation deck, a full 1,000 feet off the street. The view is truly breathtaking, and the general experience is enhanced by a well-done audio tour, included in a standard ticket charge (or so I believe). Visitors can see for eighty miles on a clear day, able to view all five boroughs and three states. One recommendation is to go at night, like we did. Although the view isn't as far, the lines are much shorter and a view of the New York lights is really very cool. Tourists can either see the city from an indoor area, or brave the cold and go out into a massively windy deck area, which allows for better picture-taking, along with frostbitten fingers. Winds are extremely strong, which leads to being rather cold and also losing possession of any kites that a person may have brought up (if security didn't already do that).
All in all, this is a really cool destination, but if you find the prices or general concept disagreeable, you could easily find another tall building to view the city from. Although none of them will have as cool as an art-deco theme as the Empire State Building!
From the Empire State Building, it was off to our hotel to relax and record the day's activities, but not before nabbing a hot dog as a snack.
PRO TIP: Hot dog vendors will be more willing to make a bargain for their franks at night, when the chances of selling any more food dwindle. Make sure that no other potential customers are in the area, and that it's sufficiently late enough that not many others will stop by that night. With any luck, you'll get a good deal! Simply offering the man half the stated price scored me a one-dollar dog.
DAY 7
Although easily the most tiring of all the days spent here in New York, today was also the least varied. Really, all we did was walk around Chinatown for the whole day, although we did stop in at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and also at Lombardi's Pizzeria.
Tourism
Chinatown: Getting off at the Canal street station, we ascended into the daylight and were greeted by a busy scene - Chinatown. Bumbling Asian merchants and gaping tourists pack these streets, peddling and purchasing a variety of Oriental goods. Perfumes, watches, jewelry, statues, swords, and electronics can all be purchased here, and bargaining is definitely an option. Simply offer a dollar or two less than the asking price. If refused, try to work your price up perhaps fifty cents or a dollar at a time, until you get to a compromise. Also, remember you can often find the same goods or something better in another store, so walk around and visit other shops before buying.
Asides from shopping, one can also find seafood markets with live crabs, frogs, and fish, bakeries, and noodle shops. Simply walking around, bargaining, and sampling the various foods easily takes up half a day, if not more. Depending on what your interests are and who you're with, I'd definitely recommend coming here during your trip to New York.
Lower East Side Tenement Museum: Just on the edge of Chinatown one can find this marvelous museum, situated in an area which, in the early 20th century, was a haven for newly immigrated Scandinavians, Italians, and Slavic peoples.
In the gift store/ticket office, one can purchase walking tour tickets, or tenement tickets. We purchased both, and concluded this: one is gold, the other a rusty iron at best. The lesser of the two is the walking tour. Part of the problem is its length. Takers are forced to stand for two hours on various street corners in the windy cold with little to sit on. The tour guide knew tons and was quite interesting, but the sheer length of the program and lack of chairs forced us to bail out early and instead find a snack at a nearby Subway before our tenement tour.
The tour of the tenements is fabulous. My suggestion: skip the walking tour, take the tenement tour. Visitors are lead into a five-story tenement building, built in 1863, that is owned by the museum. Your enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide will tell you some background information about the building, and then will lead you into the vintage building and through two tenement apartments. With each one, you'll be told a twenty-minute story about the real family that lived in that apartment. The rooms aren't refurbished to mint condition, just enough to give you an idea of the state of mild disrepair the rooms were in. With furniture and scant decorations that were period-accurate, you get a really good idea about what life was like in the era, and you get a feeling for the struggles and day-to-day activities of the renters. Depending on the ticket you buy, you'll be taken through two rooms, all on different floors. So really, there are five different exhibits, one for each floor, with separate tickets for all. If you're in New York, you must go to this place. It's absolutely fantastic, and possibly my favorite part of the entire trip
Food
Lombardi's Pizzeria: Our final stop before going back to the hotel was Lombardi's Pizzeria. To sum it up, this place is awesome. The only items on the menu are breadsticks, salad, and pizza. But let me assure you, you can't go wrong with any of them. The salads come in bowls the size of decommissioned cruise ships, so one's enough for the family. But the pizza, which is advertised as New York's first and finest slice, is truly a marvel. It brings pizza away from its stereotyped imagery and into something finer: no longer is it a greasy staple for high-school and college kids. Instead, patches of creamy mozzarella, coal-fired crust, and delicious sauce bring it back to a traditional Italian dish, something consisting more of bread and tomatoes than heaps of cheese and grease.
For the food quality, prices are fair - a 50-dollar tab for the four of us. Even with a four-hundred dollar tab, I say it's worth it. This is the original pizza, and boy is it ever done right! If you're in Chinatown, or if you're in California, any journey is worth it to get down to Lombardi's.DAY 8With feet still weary from yesterday's Chinatown walkabout, we decided to rely on a new method of transportation today: the bicycle. Renting some on the edge of Central Park, we rode around the area, and stopped off at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After, we relaxed at the hotel for a bit, then went back out and got dinner at a pretty unremarkable diner. More on that later.
Rentals
Bike and Roll New York City: Originally, we planned to rent our bikes from Toga bike shop, a few blocks away from Central Park. However, we soon discovered that Toga isn't the place for tourists. Although they've got a cool store with friendly and enthusiastic staff, their bike rentals are only available for 24 hours at a time, and the bikes lack any form of lock.
Instead, we ventured around and found Bike and Roll. Although a bit more expensive, Bike and Roll rents nicer bikes (a Trek cruiser/road model), includes sturdy locks and keys with every bike, and has half-day and hour rentals. For any tourist, this is the way to go. Rent a bike here and take it along the bike paths in Central Park, which I'll cover next.
Tourism
Central Park: Established back in the 1800's, Central Park is the perfect urban getaway. These 600-some acres feature lakes and ponds, small theaters and stages, open fields, baseball diamonds, and statues galore. Once you've rented a bike, take it around the well-paved loop that goes through the whole Park. It's not too hilly, with only two larger-size hills, and it's way fun. You can stop off at hot-dog vendors or statues, spending as much time as you'd like at the various locations. Depending on your stops, going around the whole five-mile loop on a bike could take you anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours.
Metropolitan Museum of Art: This glorious museum is a day trip in and of itself. Included in the price of a City Pass booklet (BUY ONE), this two-million square foot building houses art of all types and from every corner of the earth. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and stone carvings, Oriental watercolors, European armor, and, of course, classical oil paintings and impressionist works. We only got to spend around two hours here, and I only covered three exhibits of the museum, out of around fifty. Ten hours could easily be spent gaping at all this museum has to offer, so either plan one long haul (not recommended) or visit it multiple times over your trip (recommended). Personally, I found the arms and armor section thrilling, and spent a great bit of my time there.
In the basement can be found a cafeteria, which is where we ate our lunch. Food is mediocre and way overpriced, although in that neighborhood, you're not likely to find anything too much cheaper at a restaurant. Either plan on spending around fifteen or twenty dollars apiece, or hit up a hot dog stand before entering.
Back to the museum, I can't stress how awesome this place is. With classic works like Washington Crossing the Delaware and The Great Wave off Kanagawa, this museum has works of art to fit every interest. Also, I recommend coming here before the Cloisters, which is exactly what we didn't do. The Metropolitan also has a proper-size collection of religious artworks and artifacts, so I'd suggest visiting the collection here first. If you're fascinated by it and you want an entire museum full of it, then visit the Cloisters.
All in all, COME HERE COME HERE COME HERE COME HERE! You won't regret it. Also, plan ahead! Schedule a ton of time to come here. The only reason we left was because we had to return our rental bikes by five thirty. If that wasn't the case, I would have happily stayed for three hours or more.
After begrudgingly leaving the Met a little early, we finished the Central Park loop on our bikes and returned them. We traveled back to the hotel on the subway due to our mom feeling under the weather, and I had developed a killer case of hiccups. After waiting for the hiccups to fade, the three of us left again to find dinner.
Food
Blooms Cafe: Near Grand Central Station, which we also visited (it's cool, stop in there just to check out the main terminal), our stomachs kindly asked us to find some food, and we complied. Unfortunately, we found ourselves at Blooms Cafe, which we would soon discover is, to put it simply, pretty bad. Milkshakes were mediocre, tasting like they were made in a blender with just a bit of Hershey's syrup. Kitschy cookie-jar collections and candy jars simply couldn't redeem the quality of food- most items tasted like they were a day old or recently microwaved. Even the sandwiches tasted like something a middle-schooler would find in his bag lunch. In short, this place is not good, and especially for the price, far too expensive for the bad food they offered. If you're near Grand Central Station and looking for a place to eat, this isn't it. Keep walking and find another place.
Read about Aaron's last day in the city and get some hot tips in All in a Day: NYC!