Ave Q is fantastic! You will absolutely love it, I promise. Broadway is wonderful but really it isn’t magical or anything, it is just something that is hard to find many other places in the country. Living in Dallas I had the opportunity to see shows produced outside high schools and colleges for exactly 5 months a year and it was damned expensive to get tickets no matter where you sat in the house. Now that I live in NYC I get discount tickets to incredible performances starring some of my favorite celebrities all the time. For many people coming on vacation from small town America shows on Broadway may be the only live theater they see in their entire lives. And I don’t know if you have noticed yet (and if you haven’t be sure to look for it at Ave Q) the sidewalk on Broadway actually sparkles as if they mixed glitter in the cement when they paved the streets or something. It is awesome to walk down the street and see it sparkle like that!
Also, I thought Spamalot was great and that Tom Deckman absolutely stole the show. My roommate and I still occasionally look at each other and say, “What, the curtians?”
This. Go to Katz’s Deli and get the best pastrami sandwich in the entire world. Get it on club bread, not rye, and tip the counterman a dollar so he’ll slice you a sample of pastrami while you wait in line. Katz’s embodies old-school New York City, and it isn’t everyday you can eat a truly life-changing sandwich.
If you like books, go to the Strand Bookstore, which boasts 18 miles of new and used books. Heck, take a tour of the New York Public Library, the famous one with the lion statues in front. It’s beautiful and historic, and you’ve seen it in dozens of movies and TV shows.
Katz’s Deli is a dump, and the only thing life-changing about it is the realization you spent too much money, waited in a long line, and are now getting heartburn from eating crap in a place with sawdust on the floor.
With a name like A Priori Tea, you should head off to Alice’s Tea Cup. 73rd and Columbus or 64th and Lex.
I’ve never tipped the counter guy and they always give you a slice. Heck you can ask for a sample of different meats to help you decide on what you want to have.
Yes. The entire city is populated by investment bankers, lawyers, artists who live 900 sq ft SoHo lofts and spunky young women trying to have it all while balancing love and a career. We each have one hip friend who won’t settle down, a platonic but hot female friend who helps us with our love life, a wacky neighbor and an oversized dog. Women generally have a perpetually single hot best friend and a gay friend.
Every now and then we spontaneously break into a choreographed dance number on Madison Ave and start singing “New York New Yoooork!!!”
In addition to those 900 sq.ft. Soho lofts, we all manage to get tickets to every hot show and concert, dress in all the latest trends and designer clothes, get $500 hair styles and throw fabulous parties with what we earn working at coffee houses while waiting for the big break.
Take the Staten Island ferry to get a free panoramic view of the downtown Manhattan skyline. You’ll also get a very nice look at the Statue of Liberty on the way there. Once you hit Staten Island just stroll around and take the ferry back.
Well, I just got back from a really interesting stroll up Madison and back down Lex, half of it in the rain. I have discovered that seeing Manhattan in the rain is a whole different creature, and I like it! Watching the buildings affect the weather pattern and seeing how the people flow around them like an EM field is really, really awesome. I got all the way up to 79th before I had to declare an end to the going-out and start the coming-back - now I wish I’d stopped at Alice’s! (I saw it on the way by, and thought “that looks interesting… but packed!”)
There were no spontaneous song and dance numbers while I was walking - perhaps the drizzle scared them away?
Tomorrow’s quest: funky little things that I can take home with me, and books. Strand’s is already on the itinerary - anybody got wonderful recommendations for art, unique (less Cartier, more upscale flea market) jewelry ‘n’ sundries? So far you guys have been a better resource than the concierge!
Alice’s Tea Cup and Knitty City are only a few blocks apart, so if you do one, do them both. If you were just on Madison and Lex, you were nowhere near Alice’s.
I balance love and my career in NYC, but I am a dry yuppie male in 1100 sq feet uptown.
Enjoy that amazing city, A Priori Tea! I love Manhattan so much. I gladly drive the 6 hours to get there, even when we know we can’t stay long. The energy is really infectious. The city never gets old for me. I always wonder how the natives can ever get used to it.
Glad you’re having a blast. For me, the cliche “A nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there” was mostly true. If you love Ghostbusters, be sure to visit the Columbia U. campus. And walk through Central Park. And watch out for that Cloverfield monster… I hear he/she/it’s due there any day now!
