I have to go to New York periodically for work. Really, I do. I have a MetroCard and everything. Typically it’s just for day trips and I’m in an office for a few hours and then I get back on Amtrak and go home. I kinda-sorta know my way around midtown Manhattan in the Penn Station/Times Square area in broad daylight, and that’s about it.
Tomorrow I will be inflicting myself upon your fair city again, but this time it’s an overnighter and I’ll be staying in midtown in some hotel near Grand Central. (I don’t know which one yet; I didn’t make the reservations.) Therefore, I’m going to need to find some way to amuse myself in a relatively strange city tomorrow night. Which leads me to the stupid question:
What do I do?
I know, I know. Right now you’re asking yourselves “What kind of doofus doesn’t know what to do in The City for a few hours?” Well, I’m your doofus. I don’t know when the museums close, and I’m not real clear on exactly where they are anyway. I’m not averse to a fine meal and knocking back a few drinks, but I don’t want to spend a couple of hundred bucks. I’m really sort of hopeless, actually, so any advice would be appreciated.
I suppose I could just sit in my hotel room and read a book, but that seems like a waste of an opportunity.
In a shameless push for my wife’s industy, you could walk over to Times Square, go to TKTS, and pick up a half price ticket to a Broadway/off-Broadway show.
Since you mentioned book reading, you could walk down Broadway to 12th St and check out the Strand bookstore. It’s enormous and has damn near everything.
The finding of food is actually quite easy. Walk out of your hotel (or whatever building you’re in when you desire food), pick a direction, walk. You will pass many, many food establishments. Most have prices and menus posted. Choose one that looks like your speed, and there you are. If you have a yen for a specific cuisine, the hotel will have information for you about that.
I also occasionally find vast entertainment in watching some of the more colorful city-dwellers.
Or you can go to the ginormous Toys-R-Us on Times Square. That place is huge. And filled with toys.
SOME of them are at 7pm. About half of the Broadway industry does “Tuesdays at 7”, while the rest ignore it, and go on as usual at 8. Check your ticket twice
Unfortunately, the Museum of Modern Art, in midtown, is closed on Tuesdays.
The Theater pages of The New York Times has a “Find a Show” pull-down menu guide in the upper right quarter of the page, that includes all the current Broadway and Off-Broadway shows. At the bottom of every review you’ll find the next five show times, ticket prices, and more. (But go for the half price tickets at TKTS in Times Square like Cheesesteak said.)
The Grand Central area can be kind of dead once the worker bees have all gone home. Since you’ll be sitting atop the 4,5, and 6 trains you could hop on one and scoot down to Bleeker, Astor Place, or Union Square if you want to hit The Strand and wander around Broadway into the Village/NYU campus. There should be enough to keep you occupied. At the very least there’s a big multiplex at Union Square or The Angelika at Broadway and Houston (pronounced House-tun), which is an art house multiplex and you can take in a flick.
For food, I’d focus on ethnic. You can blow big bucks on a steak or French food anywhere. What’s great about New York eating is the cheap and authentic ethnic. Just scroll down the “cuisine” bar on Citysearch or the Times above and choose something you’d like to try but isn’t well represented in your market. If you have something specific in mind, we can probably help make a choice – there are several outstanding Korean places right by Penn Station, for instance.
