New York City in Four Days

It takes an Ireland-style tour to see this much of NYC in four days. Visiting over St Patrick’s Day weekend and the NYC 1/2 marathon was fitting. We focused on independent self-guided tours (planned by Janet) and marveled at the tremendous variety we found in Manhattan. A couple of shows and many great meals rounded off this memorable trip. We made the most of every one of the ninety-two hours while walking nearly 100,000 steps!

Day 1: Bagels, Greenwich Village, the High Line, and Hadestown

Janet, Kylie, and Peter had a 3am start in Houston, flying to Newark to meet Samuel who flew in from Denver. An efficient Uber took us to the Midtown Hyatt Place which was perfectly located, had double-queen-plus-sofa-bed rooms, and we booked using points! Our uneventful travel was quickly followed by a scrumptious lunch at The Bagel Pub. Our bagels were massive, loaded with smoked salmon, and the perfect way to start our NYC visit.

With full bellies, we headed to the metro to ride to Greenwich Village. We found it difficult to locate street signs and to navigate the Metro. We were expecting similarities to London, but we soon got the hang of it. We appreciated the difference between “The Village” and our brief sampling of Midtown. Our “tour” was a quiet meander around many sites of varying levels of fame: Mark Twain’s House; the Jefferson Market Library; Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios; Washington Mews where horses used to be stabled; the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire which killed 146 young immigrant women in 1911; Washington Square Arch and Park; NYU Campus; Cafe Wha? where Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen played. That built up enough appetite for a quick cannoli at Pasticceria Rocco, leading to part 2 of our tour: the 100-year-old Cherry Lane Theatre; a former site of CIA covert LSD experiments; a 10-ft wide house where a Pulitzer Prize winner used to live; an anonymous restaurant from when it was an illegal speakeasy; the Friends apartment; peaceful Grove Court; Marie’s Crisis Cafe where Thomas Paine died; the Stonewall National Monument where tensions between the police and the gay community led to a three-day riot in 1969; Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment from Sex and the City; and the White Horse Tavern made famous by poet Dylan Thomas.

The quiet side streets were a fine contrast to the bustling main streets, though we did see a couple of people using needles on basement steps. There was a tremendous variety of smells. The seas of green suggested that many of the partiers were celebrating St Patrick’s Day, but we were sure there was an excuse every weekend! It was more spread out and quieter than Midtown and we could see the appeal that drives these property prices so high.

Chelsea Market satisfied our need for a coffee but we had little time to explore as we needed to walk the High Line back to Midtown. The High Line is a walking trail on a converted elevated train line. It has great views of the city and it did not disappoint.

After a quick turnaround in our hotel room, we headed out again to the theatre district. A long line queued outside a Joe’s Pizza, made famous in Spiderman 2. Samuel and Kylie returned to sample their produce and we all approved! The bright lights and denser crowds declared our proximity to Times Square as we passed many theatres. We enjoyed a fine dinner at Daniela Trattoria, that we had prebooked, and arrived at the Walter Kerr theatre in plenty of time for our evening’s show: Hadestown.

We were a bit surprised by how small the theatre and stage were, but it meant no seat was far from the actors. Hadestown tells the Greek love story between Orpheus and Eurydice. The production used no dialog and a revolving minimalistic set extremely effectively and we all greatly enjoyed it. We returned to our hotel through Times Square again, and the crowds were even bigger. Samuel and Kylie returned another night to see the adverts change to artwork at midnight and it was even crazier! However, we all always felt safe with plenty of police presence and crowds of tourists everywhere.

Day 2: Exploring Midtown, Ellen’s Stardust Diner, Moulin Rouge, and Cheesecake

An on-and-off drizzly morning did not dampen our spirits as we explored the sites around midtown. The NYC 1/2 marathon and its 27,000 runners running through Times Square made navigation a little more challenging but added tremendous energy. After looking at the bottom of the Empire State Building (the top was in clouds), we had a fancy coffee at Matto Espresso. Much of the Chrysler Building was also in clouds. Grand Central Terminal remained grand, but finding a way to cross the 1/2 marathon route needed quite the detour. Sunday morning mass in St. Patrick’s cathedral meant we could only look in from outside before heading to the Rockefeller Center where skaters were on the ice in the rain and we joined a crowd visiting F.A.O. Schwartz toy shop.

Our plan had been to start queueing for Ellen’s Stardust Cafe at about 1pm, but we’d had to skip the NYC library (opens at 1pm on Sunday), and we saw all the crowds watching the 1/2 marathon, so we were happy to join the queue at about 11am. We waited for a little under an hour, but it was so worth it. As the M.C. tells the guests, you don’t come for the food (even though it’s good). You come for the performances of musical theatre numbers by the waitstaff, who are actors trying to get parts in Broadway shows. The performances ranged from a Grease medley to the Lion King. It was so much fun.

After lunch, the NYC library was open and a great visit. Our highlight was seeing the original Winnie The Pooh, a gift bought from Harrod’s for Christopher Robin Milne’s first birthday in 1921. While there are touristy things, it remains a functioning library with many area inaccessible unless you are researching or working quietly.

That evening’s show started at 5pm. Moulin Rouge was a love story based in the Parisian cabaret venue. It included medleys of many musical pieces from throughout the last forty years, so Janet and I particularly enjoyed that! The theatre was a bit bigger than the previous night, and had been lavishly decorated. Bye Bye Birdie (which Samuel performed in as Randolph MacAfee in 2019) opened at this theatre in 1960. It was another fabulous evening, which we finished off with some great New York cheesecake at Juniors. Samuel and Kylie headed off to Brooklyn to find a specific bakery, though they might have been briefly lost on the way!

Day 3: Lady Liberty, Ellis Island, Wall Street, World Trade Center, Brooklyn Bridge, Chinatown

Another full day was planned, starting with the 8:30 am ferry to the Statue of Liberty. The port at Battery Park on Manhattan’s southern tip was about 30 minutes by metro from our hotel. It was a cold, wet morning, which seemed appropriate for visits to Lady Liberty and Ellis Island. We had tickets to visit the statue’s pedestal but not her crown, which was fine. Ellis Island was virtually hidden in the mist, though we were barely able to keep our eyes open during its film about the history of immigration.

Janet’s tour took us via Fraunces Tavern and a fish and chip shop (for lunch) on our way to the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street, the Trump Building, “The Continental” from John Wick, and various buildings and exhibits associated with 9/11.

Next up was walking across Brooklyn Bridge. Great views!

Weariness was setting in, and we still had a food tour of Chinatown to undertake, so we took the metro from Brooklyn Bridge. We started by visiting three different fried dumpling restaurants, followed by various treats like sesame pancakes to buns. Many of the restaurants on Janet’s plan had closed, so Kylie quickly looked at several TikTok reviews and we had a new plan. The food did not disappoint and the service reminded Janet and Peter of China – abrupt yet friendly! We finished our food tour with boba teas before a straightforward metro ride back to our hotel. Once again, we slept well!

Day 4: Central Park

Our final day’s plan was simple: take the metro to the top of the park, and walk back. The top of the park, at 110th Avenue, was nearly four miles away from the hotel, on 36th avenue. Even though it was a simple day, we started early with breakfast in the hotel. The clear view of the Empire State Building from our hotel window was quite different from the previous three mornings and bode well.

The clear skies brought crisp temperatures in the low 30s, with a stiff wind. The bright sun brought a new life to the city, and Kylie especially enjoyed starting her final day with a Cha Cha Matcha before we headed north on the metro.

The northern most third of Central Park was very quiet. While there are plentiful walking trails, the woodland is wild and undulating. We were surprised to see waterfalls and rivers with many birds and flowers announcing the spring.

In the middle of the park is the Jacquie Onassis Reservoir. It’s great for reflections and wildlife.

We enjoyed a coffee, rather than a night, at the museum, reminiscing about the movie.

Back into the park, we found Belvedere Castle, ponds, crocuses, a John Lennon tribute in Strawberry Fields, the bow bridge, “turtle island” as we named it, an Alice in Wonderland sculpture, before enjoying a fine lunch at Le Pain Quotidien overlooking a lake. During lunch, we got a text notifying that our 9pm flight had been delayed 2-3 hours. The prospect of getting home at 3am was unattractive in our tired states, but we were able to rebook on the 7:30pm flight.

With an earlier flight, we had less time to kill, but still plenty to enjoy walking the rest of the park and past the glitzy shops on 5th Avenue back to our hotel. Another efficient Uber took us to the airport where we chilled before an uneventful flight back home, arriving at about 11pm, 92 hours after we had departed. We had walked nearly 100,000 steps, which is about 44 miles, during our four days in NYC.

When we got home, Saydee was very pleased to see us! But she had also been having a fine time with the Echols (thank you!!).