We arrived in New York in January – the festive season was calming down but the decorations were still around. We decided to stay in an Airbnb in Brooklyn – found an apartment with more space for your money than a hotel room and only a short walk to the subway to get to and from Manhattan. It had the fire escape like in the films too! We flew in from Britain so after dumping our bags, to beat the jet lag, we took a walk around the neighbourhood and Prospect Park.
We stayed for 4 nights and planned to get to the main tourist spots. To start off, a good option to see the Statue of Liberty is the Staten Island ferry. You get a great view and it’s free! We waited for rush hour to pass and took the 10 am crossing. You can, of course, get off and visit Staten Island or just walk through the terminal and straight back on your ferry to return to Manhattan.
Next, we walked through the financial district and went to Ground Zero. This trip we didn’t go into the 9/11 museum but spent some time at the memorial. Then to the water, the Irish Hunger Memorial and a play park where the children enjoyed a run around.
On our first day, we wanted to get our bearings by going up. Our choices were the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center or One World Observatory – we went with One World Observatory which seemed the most interactive option. The panoramic views were great and we rented the iPad they offer to give some details of what we could see and keep the children entertained. We bought tickets in advance online to skip the queue and chose late afternoon so we were up there as the sun was setting. There’s a Ring Ding cake concession at the top, the kind of thing which always helps keep the children and adults motivated.
The following morning we got out as soon as we could and got to the ice rink at Central Park before the crowds arrived. Growing up in Switzerland the children love winter sports and miss outdoor skating now we’re in Miami. They would have stayed all day but after we’d people watched and had our coffee we were ready to move on. We made our way south calling in at the Plaza, the M&Ms store, Times Square, Grand Central Station, Rockefeller Center, where they were ready to skate again but instead we distracted them with the Lego shop. On Fridays from 4-8pm the Museum of Modern Art is free so our wandering route took us back there for 4pm. It gets very busy, very quickly and we were all already tired but I’d found a shortlist of must sees which we followed and this reassured the children & my husband we didn’t have to stay too long!
The following morning was wet. We headed to the Meat Packing District and Chelsea Market. Great looking cafes (we wished we hadn’t already had breakfast) and interesting shops to browse until the rain eased off. Right outside is the Highline. This is a disused, elevated railway line converted to a park. Great to walk along, through the skyscrapers, and get a different view of the city, even on a drizzly day.
New York bagels for lunch then to Broadway for the matinee of School of Rock – tickets we had just received as Christmas presents.
At the Brooklyn Museum there are events in the evening on the first Saturday of the month and again entry is free. So after our show we took the subway back and called in. A band was playing in the lobby, we found dancers in one of the exhibition halls and glasses of wine for sale.
Sunday late afternoon was our flight back to Miami so we had some time in the morning and took the subway a few stops to Williamsburg and then walked the Brooklyn Bridge for a final view of Manhattan.
