Craig and I have both spent quite a bit of time in New York City (not even counting Craig’s time growing up in Brooklyn!), but we’ve never been there together. We decided that meant we had to do the touristy thing together in Manhattan this time around. Because of his NYC roots, poor Craig has been a die hard Jets fan all his football life. That’s been a tough road to stick to - especially last year when all the Aaron Rodgers high hopes were dashed so early in the first game. But the timing worked out great for us to catch this year’s Jets home opener. And it was against the Patriots! (The Evil Empire to anyone who doesn’t know) And the Jets won! And the Jets just KILLED them! I was very pleased for Craig and the other abused long time die hard Jets fans.
Because the stadium is actually in New Jersey (what?), we wandered around Hoboken during the day before the game. Check out this cool walking path along the Hudson River, with great views of the NYC skyline.
Back to the NYC story - We saw and did so much that I didn’t think I could write it all up and do it justice. Instead, I’ve put together a BIG photo gallery, with appropriately captioned explanations.
In summary, we walked a total of 37 miles over 4 and a half days (!), and here’s the list of the most important/interesting stuff:
A comedy show in Central Park
Tavern on the Green (in Central Park)
American Museum of Natural History
Lunch at the Central Park Boathouse - we got in without a reservation! On a Saturday! And, the food was surprisingly good.
Date Night at the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) - they do those Friday and Saturday nights, with music and adult beverages!
Ground Zero (World Trade Center Memorial)
Liberty Park
Statue of Liberty - only seen from afar - turns out that even if you reserve a spot on the Ferry, they can’t guarantee that you get on a specific ferry/get back at a specific time. We had too much to do to get stuck!
Lunch at Fraunces Tavern - Established 1783 and the site where George Washington said farewell to his Continental Army officers
New York Stock Exchange and Alexander Hamilton’s grave
Broadway Musical - We saw Six - really fun, but more pop-y than broadway musical.
Cheesecake at Juniors! (Part of the theater experience - place was packed so we got take out)
Radio City Music Hall and Rockefeller Center - just walk bys
Top of the Empire State Building - Had to take a photo from every point on the compass, it was so amazing.
And more - check out the photos
One side note - of course, I needed to know why New York City is called the Big Apple. Turns out that it’s been called that on and off for a variety of reasons. You can read more about that here, but it was even referred to for a year as the “New Orange” when the Dutch briefly had control of it in 1673 (what!?).
One more side note - since we were planning to do the crazy touristy thing and wanted to spend as little time as possible in Ubers/taxis, we decided to stay near Central Park (since it’s…..CENTRAL!). We found the Shoreham Hotel in midtown just south of the park, which we would recommend for anyone who wants to stay near the park and not pay near the park prices. It’s small, the rooms are small, it’s not fancy by any stretch, but it was comfortable and was the only hotel on our recent adventures that actually cleaned our room every day we were there.
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