I’m probably coming to NYC at the end of this week to stay with a friend who lives in midtown. At least I think it’s midtown…is 38th&5th midtown? Anyway, I have no special plans while I’m there. I just adore New York on general principles and pretty much love anything and everything about it. I’m perfectly happy just walking around.
But still, it might be nice to make it a point to see or experience something in particular. Any ideas on short notice with no money to speak of?
Thanks!
Get a visitor’s metro card and a free subway map to use the subways to travel.
Take a free ride on the Staten Island Ferry.
The Bronx Zoo’s admission on Wednesdays is by donation.
Walk around Central Park, there is a lot there and the Central Park Zoo is cheap. Look for as many different things as you can.
http://www.centralpark.com/ & http://www.centralpark.com/pages/map-it/maps.html
Take the Subway to Coney Island. Walk the Boardwalk, visit the amusement park & visit the Aquarium. Only $12.
If you can afford $55 get the City Pass:
More details here: CityPASS® Official Site - Save up to 50% Off Top Tourist Attractions in Major Cities
Visit Chinatown, Little Italy and go to the Statue of Liberty. Spend a lot of time walking around Manhattan. Go visit Yankee Stadium, the tours are not too expensive.
You might want to visit the more famous stores and window shop. FAO Swartz is just south of Central Park on the east side. The Giant Toys-R-Us & Macy’s are interesting.
While you are in NYC, make sure you try and Egg Cream, nearly unique to NYC and an awesome drink of mysterious origins.
Jim
The Staten Island Ferry – it’s completely free, and gives you a good sight-seeing of South-West Manhattan as well as Liberty and Ellis Islands.
From the site:
From the Wiki page:
From personal experience: they aren’t exaggerating. It’s a beautiful ride.
Also, while there is a hefty “suggested” price for both the Metropolitan Museum and M.O.M.A. entrance fees, you can offer to pay less or nothing for your visit, and the ticket vendor cannot (AFAIK) refuse to sell or even give you a ticket at whatever “donation” you offer. Ditto for the Cloisters (technically part of the Met.) (Wiki link)at the very Northern tip of Manhattan Island.
The Museum of the American Indian is always free (it’s a Smithsonian institution). This is large, and could take a full morning or afternoon.
The Forbes Gallery on 5th Ave. and 12th St. is one of those small, quirky collections of neat stuff (antique toys and maps, that sort of thing) and it’s also free. This is more of a drop-by.
The main New York Public Library (with the lions) in mid-town is also free, and neat to walk around inside. They have gallery space on the upper floors, with rotating exhibits.
The walk up 5th Avenue is that classic New York shopping corridor – I usually advise people to start at 50th, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and go up to 59th, which is the park. This walk gives you all the big name stores, and works (IMHO) equally well whether you are a person who likes window shopping, or if you are a person who likes to be appalled by gross commercialism (in that “it’s fun to be scandalized” sense). If you are a more sturdy walker, you could start at the library on 42nd, and go north from there.
Central Park, of course, is free to wander around in, and there are a lot of things to see.
Rockefeller Center has these neat self-guided map/tour booklets, you can pick one up at the info center in the lobby and they’re really quite informative.
The Union Square Greenmarket is probably my favorite market in the city, obviously the things at the booths cost money, but a cider doughnut is probably worth it. Most of the vendors are fairly local and it’s an interesting look at what’s going on with organic/eco-friendly food in an urban setting. The Union Square Partnership sponsors a free walking tour of the park on Saturday afternoons.
The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) is free on Friday nights. It does max out and they stop admitting when they hit capacity, so early might be better. The American Folk Art Museum is right in that same neighborhood (midtown) and also free on Friday evenings.
You can take the Roosevelt Island tram for $2, and is a neat view, unless you don’t like heights and/or going over water (my mother, when this was proposed to her, said she would pay $2 NOT to take the tram). Once you get to Roosevelt Island, there is not very much to do/see so the point is to turn around and go back. If you do this, do it in the daytime, the area gets a little desolate at night. In other public transportation news, the Staten Island Ferry is free, so one can ride it to Staten Island and back (last I did this, you had to disembark and get back on). This time of year, I would say this is a nice thing to do if you have a great clear weather day, but not if the weather is overcast or raining or insanely cold.
Manhattan is the ultimate walking city. Start at Battery Park, hop on the Staten Island ferry for the best view of the Statue of Liberty, then take it back and walk through the battlements. Mosey east until you get to South Street Seaport and admire the tall ships and the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges. Walk along Pearl street until you hit Chinatown and the Bowery’s five corners, then just keep going along Bowery until you hit Union square (with its Greenmarket 4 days a week), and follow Broadway all the way up to Madison square, then Macy’s. Make sure to keep an eye out for the Empire State building, then continue on Broadway to Times Square, Columbus circle, and the Lincoln Center. Go hit Central Park and walk all the way up around the Reservoir and through the Conservatory Garden. This time of year they won’t hand out a fishing pole for Harlem Meer, but head all the way up to 125th anyway.
I had a wonderful time just wandering around Manhattan about 6 years ago. I spent very little. I walked down Broadway from Midtown and up to Central Park just taking in the sights and sounds of one of the most wonderful places in the world. Nearly every street had something of interest on it.
Confirmed, I have a friend who would pay $1 whenever she went to the Met, they didn’t even blink.
You can go in for one penny if you wish.
To the OP, this looks like a decent list of free/cheap things to do in NYC.
http://www.nycvisit.com/content/index.cfm?pagePkey=372
Also, check out the magazine TimeOut NY when you come to visit. It usually has a decent list of free/cheap events to enjoy.
AFAIK, barring Friday evenings, there is no such option for MOMA.
I didn’t get the understanding that there was anything optional about the ticket price, but I have been there on a Friday and as long as you line up about 10 minutes before it opens you should have no problems getting in.
When I was in high school I used to take the subway to Grand Central (42nd street) and walk down to Astor Place and Cooper Union, about 6th street. You can walk around the East Village and head to the West Village. My favorite used bookstore is long gone, but there are still plenty there.
And whole MoMa and the Met are good, I’d strongly recommend The Cloisters also. Wonderful view, and quite different from any other museum (in the US) that I’ve been to. Be sure to see the famous Unicorn tapestries.
Check out Freenyc.net for generic free events.
Also check out Myopenbar.com for special night-life events. I have some friends that check these things out a lot.
Public museums in New York are suggested donations. The Met is public, MOMA is not.
Here’s the list.
It was free when I went last year. If my photo info is to be trusted (a big if), it was a Friday.
I’ll second the Staten Island Ferry recommendations. As a bonus, there just happened to be a ballgame going on a few hundred feet away at the Richmond County Stadium. $5 later I was in the front row next to the bullpen mound.
I’m not sure, but think it’s the J train. Take it to the first stop in Brooklyn from Manhattan and walk along the Brooklyn Promenade for a fantastic view of the Manhattan skyline. Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. Best done an hour or two before sunset.
Eep! The J is, quite extremely in the wrong neighborhood!
Its the 2, 3 (2nd stop), or 4, 5 (1st stop) to Borough Hall. This will put you roughly at Court Street and Remsen. Its about 4 blocks to the Promenade. Time it for sunset if you can.
BTW, you can check subway maps here:
http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/submap.htm
Check out this site. especially the show called $9.99. The shows features how to spend a day in NYC on $9.99 or less.
If you like improvisational theatre and have some money, the following all have $5.00 shows on weekdays and oftentimes will have free shows also. Sometimes those are late (11 or midnight), sometimes earlier. The Upright Citizens Brigade plays ASSSSCAT 3000on Sunday nights at 9:00 or 9:30 for free, but you have to stand in line for probably an hour or more to get in. You can see it for only $8 at 7:30 though; be sure to make a reservation ahead of time or you won’t get a seat. It’s one of the funniest shows you’ll ever see.
Second this (and springing the eight bucks). SNL’s Amy Poehler runs things, and even when she’s not there it never fails to entertain.
It’s definitely worth the $8 if you can spring for that.
The group is headed by Amy Poehler and includes various other actors from SNL, 30 Rock, The Office, Daily Show/Colbert Report, various movies (it’s always a different group, some are first-timers, others are regulars). Seth Meyers frequently performs; Horatio Sanz does just about every week at the later show. If you watch any of the aforementioned shows, you’ll see actors you know. If you don’t laugh your ass off, you might be coming down with a cold or something.
Having been to Asscat, I can safely say that Horatio Sanz doing improv is pretty damn lame. Everyone else at Upright is hilarious.