New York City
 September 29 – October 2, 2006

By: Lynn Erickson

Having traveled to various destinations throughout the world, I thought it was finally time to see New York City. My husband and I decided on a nice extended fall weekend to take in the sights, cuisine, and entertainment that the city has to offer.

Our first day was spent in Greenwich Village with friends that we met in Kenya back in May. We found Greenwich Village to be a quite charming area, with a nice variety of shops, restaurants and entertainment. If you’re going to live in Manhattan it seems like a pretty desirable area. It was a great opportunity to stay with someone who lives in Manhattan to experience New York from that standpoint rather than just as a tourist staying in a hotel. Our first evening we enjoyed a fabulous dinner at Malatesta Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village, then took in a comedy show a few blocks away. How great to see so many headline comedians that are recognized from Saturday Night Live, HBO and Comedy Central. I have to say though that our best experience that evening was prior to dinner and the comedy show, when we enjoyed a glass of wine on the roof of the apartment building. Since Greenwich Village is not right in the middle of all of the high rises, we had a panoramic view of the city including landmarks such as the Empire State Building, The Chrysler Building and the Statue of Liberty.

The next morning we headed down the streets of Greenwich Village past many cute brownstone houses to the tiny Pink Tea Cup restaurant . The Pink Tea Cup has been around for many years, serving soul food to several celebrities including Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg. We filled up on fried chicken, grits, home fries, bacon, eggs, pancakes and out of this world apple fritters – now that’s breakfast! After breakfast we strolled through the village, the Meat Packing District, Chelsea and along the Hudson River. Then it was time to say good bye to our friends and check into our hotel for the next two nights, the Millennium Hilton in Lower Manhattan. Being an editor for Frommer’s, before parting ways our friend gave us a copy of Frommer’s New York City day by day travel guide to get us through the rest our trip. What a handy little guide! I am a travel guide fanatic and I found these little guides to be just jam packed with the best information on the city including great maps.  After I got back home I had her send me the day by day guides for Paris and Rome for my upcoming trip.

After checking in to the Millennium Hilton, we were immediately drawn to the view from our floor to ceiling windows.  There it was from 28 stories above the ground – the World Trade Center site. What an interesting perspective we had from this angle. Each time we entered our room for the rest of the stay we were always drawn to that window, evoking various thoughts and memories. Some people may find this extremely depressing; we found it to be that, but also uplifting just the same. We were very happy for many reasons with our hotel choice. The facilities, service and accommodations were fantastic. The thing we liked best though was the location. Many visitors to New York City are under the impression that Times Square is where you have to stay. We found Lower Manhattan to be much more enjoyable. We were within walking distance to the financial district, Brooklyn, Soho, China Town, Little Italy, and Tribeca. I guess depending on how far you want to walk you could reach other neighborhoods on foot as well. Otherwise several of the subway lines were right outside of our door. Lower Manhattan is so much quieter and less touristy than Times Square. We also found it to be far less expensive too.

Over the next couple days we walked and walked seeing quite a bit of the city along the way. We walked through all of the neighborhoods I mentioned above including a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. It was pretty surprising how many people were actually on the bridge. The bridge was built in the 1800’s and is pretty fascinating for those interested in architecture. The statue of liberty was visible from the bridge and that’s about as close as we got to her besides seeing her at night from Battery Park, which wasn’t much closer. Next time I would like to do the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tour. I’ve heard great things about that tour, especially the Ellis Island experience.

The only time we ended up taking the subway was to get to Times Square and the surrounding areas of Midtown Manhattan. Here we saw the Trump Tower, Rockefeller Center, many of the high end shops on 5th avenue, Radio City Music Hall, several Broadway theaters, and of course all of the flashy billboards in Times Square.  After the morning rain cleared we headed to Central Park, where we chatted with some of the locals walking their dogs. Then it was time to make our way to Broadway to see “Wicked”.  I don’t know what we were looking forward to more, seeing the play or just having somewhere to sit down. The play was fantastic, if you’ve seen the Wizard of Oz (I hope there isn’t anyone who hasn’t) you have to see “Wicked”, you’ll have a whole new outlook on the two witches and the story in general. After the play we decided to have dinner at Applebee’s. Well that didn’t happen after we walked in and found out the prices were more than double than they are at our local Applebee’s. I understand that the rent and wages, etc. are more expensive in Manhattan; however we didn’t find the prices to be so inflated at any other restaurants in Manhattan outside of Times Square. We went back to lower Manhattan and had dinner there.

During my stay I also visited three other hotels besides the one we stayed at. One was the Marriott in the financial district. This hotel was very similar to the Millennium Hilton. It offered a nice location, restaurants, a health club and modern rooms. Just like the Millennium Hilton they also have a swimming pool, which can be rare in Manhattan. I should also mention the size of the rooms at both of these hotels is larger than average for New York City standards. Many rooms in New York tend to be more along the lines of European hotel rooms in size. The other two hotels I explored were the Hotel Edison and the Belvedere Hotel. I honestly would not recommend the Hotel Edison unless you’re looking for something inexpensive in Times Square. It was clean enough but very basic in amenities and a little old and worn in appearance.  On the other hand I would recommend the Belvedere, which is also in the Times Square area. It’s on a quiet street but yet within a block or so of all the hustle and bustle. All of the rooms at the Belvedere have kitchenettes and again are larger than the standard New York  City hotel room. This hotel has several amenities to offer and was very neat in appearance.