Travel advice needed - New York City

In My Humble Opinion
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I am tentatively planning a trip to New York City the week of Thanksgiving. I’ve tried searching the web and the SDMB archives to find suggestions as to what to do while I’m there. I haven’t made a lot of progress, so I thought I’d start a thread to ask for some suggestions.

Details: It will be myself and probably one friend (“S”). We’ll be there for between 4 and 7 days. I’ll be visiting another friend (“M”) who moved to the city about six months ago, but who doesn’t go out a lot. M is currently staying at a hotel called the Riverside Inn on the Upper West Side. If I were going by myself, I’d definitely stay there to be closer to M, but if S is going it’s not a necessity. We discussed staying at the Chelsea Hotel, mostly because we are Leonard Cohen fans.

Stuff I think I would be interested in: MoMA, Metropolitan Museum, shopping in “artsy” or “punk”-
type areas (any suggestions here? especially for shoe shopping :slight_smile: ), maybe the Pearl Paint store (?), flea market or thrift type stores

Stuff S would be interested in: neighborhood hole-in-the-wall bars/pubs, seeing the Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge, a driving tour (is there such a thing where some service drives you around to sight-see?), maybe going to see a television show like SNL or David Letterman (how far in advance do you have to get tickets for these?)

Things we are NOT interested in: expensive/flashy hotels or restaurants, any kind of theater, “clubs”

I figure it will be easy enough to find simple, decent food (sandwiches, soup, etc.), so I’m not too worried about food.

Can anyone with similar tastes offer specific ideas?

ps-I have VERY LITTLE experience traveling outside the Southeast, so any kind of heads-up or basic NYC primer-type stuff would also be much appreciated…

-Jerri

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Catch a poetry slam at the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe. That’s a must.

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I went there over thanksgiving a couple years ago. Very few stores close on TG, I found that weird. Of course the parade is going on, that’s one reason. We had TG dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Greenwich Village!

Get a good guide book, read thru it and write down everything you want to do. You’ll find you can do lots on the same day, so many things are close together.

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Skip MOMA and go to the Cloisters, the museum of medieval (and older) art.

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Sounds like you’ll be hanging out in the East Village. It’s definitely the place for the artsy/punk scene and dive bars. The area’s better for hanging out than for shopping, but you’ll find some good thrift stores.

There are a lot of shoe stores on 8th Street between 6th Avenue and Broadway (in Greenwich Village). Broadway below Houston is also good for shopping.

You can get same-day tickets to Letterman if you’re very lucky, but I say skip it. It was a very impersonal show - I felt like we were applause meters. A friend told me she had fun at Conan.

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My SDMB New York City advice is to search for threads in which Stuyguy has posted. He’s the board’s expert in New York Tourist Advice.

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The Chelsea Hotel is, like really ratty and not particularly convenient to the kind of things you’d like to do. I would pass. There is a very new Howard Johnson? Or Holiday Inn? on Houston St. on the edge of the Lower East side that is really convenient to Greenwich Village (shoe shopping), East Village (wierdo watching) and F train (you take the F to MoMA). The Lower East side is a low-rent-yet-upn’coming neighborhood with small bars and shops and a lot of inexpensive stores. That’s also very close to Katz’s Deli which is of the Orgamsmic Corned Beef Sandwhich in When Harry Met Sally fame, and a totally tasty all-night Turkish cafeteria, Gus’s Pickles, Yonah Shimmel knishes… – amongst millions of other food options!

I love the MoMA and unlike the Metropolitan, it is totally “doable” in one day without leaving you brain fried on art. I also love the Museum of Natural History – they renovated the Planetarium a couple of years ago and the permanent exhibit “Scales of the Universe” is rather thought provoking.

Cheap or free: Tour the NY Stock Exchange (lower manhattan), visit the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (110th st), window shop at Tiffany’s (5th ave near MoMA), go to the bathroom at the Plaza Hotel (also near MoMa)! The Whitney Museum is free one night a week… I think thursday but check.

SNL tickets are assigned by a lottery system so you have virtually no hope of getting a specific weekend unless you no someone on the cast. I’ve been once, it’s kind of fun.

BTW, yes, they have these double-decker bus sightseeing tours of the city. I have no idea where they depart from but you do see them all over. There’s also the Circle Line which goes around Manhattan on a boat, but it will be mighty brisk in November.

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I went on a mostly unplanned trip to NYC about 2-3 years ago. Go to the Metropolitan (They’re closed on Mondays–I didn’t know that at the time!). I would suggest grabbing a bus schedule or two and using the bus system. It was way cheaper for us to do that instead of using taxis, and sometimes it was fun to just get off at stops and explore the area.

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Um, MoMA isn’t in Manhattan right now. For the next two-three years, it’s undergoing a mammoth expansion and reconstruction. A sort of “greatest hits” exhibition is in swing space at a staple factory in Queens, near the No. 7 subway - check out www.moma.org. I haven’t been yet but it’s gotten good reviews.

Some other favorites, which I know I’ve mentioned elsewhere but the hamsters are tired: The Frick Collection, a jewel featuring an incredible collection, including three Vermeers (of the eight in New York). Shopping on Ninth Street in the East Village. Century 21, New York’s best discount store (opposite Ground Zero). St. Paul’s Chapel, also opposite Ground Zero, where G.W. worshipped. And two fabulous, recently-renovated public spaces: Grand Central Station and the New York Public Library, just two blocks apart on 42nd Street. (Don’t miss NYPL’s Charles Addams collection on the 3rd Floor.)

I recommend the Time Out NYC guidebook as the best, with Roughe Guides as a close second.

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I walk up East 9th every day - what do you shop for?

I second the Time Out guide. (I used to write guidebooks, so I’m pretty critical.)

Correction: “Meters” was not at all the word I meant to use in the above post. I meant “machines” or something along those lines.

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Wow! Lot’s of ideas. Thanks, everyone!

Hello Again - Gus’s Pickles? Do they have different pickled things, like pickled peppers? Sounds interesting…

chula - There’s a little neighborhood here in Atlanta called Little Five Points. It has a funky jewelry store, record stores, a few restaurants/bars, sort of an “alternative” department store, an African bazaar, etc. I guess I’d be looking for some place like that as far as shopping goes. I’ll be doing mostly browsing, anyway. Also, stores that are just plain weird. There’s a really old department store in Memphis on Beale Street called A. Schwab’s. I swear they stocked up on merchandise 30 years ago and just bring some out periodically! They also have a voodoo section that has all these little bags of spices and bottles of oil. Yeah, those kind of places would be good, too.

I went to the bookstore last night to check out the guides. They were out of the Time Out for NYC, so I’ll check somewhere else tomorrow. I did find a neat little book called .The Historic Shops and Restaurants of New York: A Guide to Century Old Establishments in the City No pictures - just descriptions that really peak one’s curiosity!

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If it’s not too windy a day, definitely walk the Brooklyn Bridge, making sure to take the subway into Brooklyn, then walking back into Manhattan.
Gus’s Pickles is Nirvana for pickle-eaters. I can’t stand pickles of any kind myself, but those who like them are always raving about the place.
Buy a Time Out New York magazine the week you’re there and go through it - they’ve got everything listed that’s going on each week, so it’s good for the temporary things that won’t be in guidebooks.

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Billdo wrote:

“My SDMB New York City advice is to search for threads in which Stuyguy has posted. He’s the board’s expert in New York Tourist Advice.”

Thanx, Bill, for your flattering endorsement.

here, jerri, check out my posts in this thread:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=29170&highlight=vacation

(Or you pick up a copy of a new guidebook called “City Secrets, New York City.” I contributed many of these same suggestions to that book.)