Les Jones

Travel > Postcard from New York

We did all of our touristy stuff this week - the five burroughs, the City Pass, the Broadway show, the Yankees game, the New York Sightseeing Tour - and now it's Sunday. We wandered around this morning and found a flea market, and for lunch ate falafel from a street cart. I'm in a cybercafe on 48th street next to Rockefeller Center. Melissa's looking for a gift for her mom.

New York's been great and we wouldn't mind living here. Lots to do, lots of interesting people, lots of opportunity. The people have been extraordinarily nice, from the bus driver who let us ride for free before we bought a metro card to the owner of the restaurant who let us use her VIP pass to go straight to the top of the Empire State Building without waiting in line.

Here's what we liked best.

CityPass
One-priced ticket to six attractions: Empire State Building, Museum of Natural History, Guggenheim, Museum of Modern Art, U.S.S. Intrepid, and Harbor Cruise. Cost is about half what it would be separately, and you never have to wait in ticket lines. We liked the Chicago City Pass, too.

Right now the MOMA is being renovated, with a temporary home in Queens. The temporary home is kind of small, and doesn't justify the trip. Go the Metropolitan Museum of Art instead. We spent a couple of hours at the Met and still didn't see everything.

New York Sightseeing Tour
Double-decker red tour buses. The lower deck is climate controlled. The upper deck is open air, with great views and a great vantage point for pictures. The tour guides are native New Yorkers who give their own narrative. You can hop on and off at any stop and explore. We could never have seen so many parts of the city without the tour.

Frommer's Guide to New York
We looked at a lot of guides and brought three, but Frommer's was easily the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and useful. Want a free copy of Frommer's? Go to Ellis Island. I accidentally left mine on a park bench on the northeast corner. The Ellis Island Immigration Museum is terrific.

New York Yankees
Going to the Bronx for a Yankees game was incredible. The stadium is the perfect size for the crowd, and the crowd was wild. (Well, except for this guy (4 MB AVI movie). He was more dorky than wild.) The subway comes above ground just before you get to the stadium. From the subway car, you look down into the ballpark. Likewise, you can look up from your seats and see the subway pass.

Thoroughly Modern Millie
Won six Tonys in 2002, including best actress for Sutton Foster. We loved Foster. Melissa pointed out how much Foster is like Carol Burnett - tall and knock-kneed, sassy and goofball, pretty and homely, and with a comedic voice that goes from a picollo to a bassoon.

Food
The first night we took a trip to SOHO to eat at Lombardi's. The food was great, but we decided it wasn't worth the three hour trip. After that we just ate wherever we were at when we got hungry, and it was always good. If you eat at the Carnegie Deli, split the sandwiches - they're huge. We split a Reuben and still couldn't finish it. Best food was at a Mediterranean/Turkish restaurant on 3rd Avenue on the Upper East Side. We had a bunch of appetizers, from ezme (a spicy dip made from vegetables) to sardines wrapped in grape leaves. Also Efes, a Turkish beer, which even Melissa liked (and she doesn't really like beer).