Patt@firstime

Off to New York a week today with girlfriend and wondered if anyones got any advice on where to go (and where not to), am staying at the Plaza (overlooking central park) for 5 nights.

Want to do a mixture of site seeing and shopping and having never been before need some help.

Matt

what would scooby do

Intrepid air-sea museam
Up the Empire state building
Grand central station
Rockafella Centre
Boat trip to Liberty Island (watch out for that pier)
South Pier area is nice

Don't eat hot-dogs from street vendors - yukky
Don't go north of top end of central park it's harlem
Everywhere else is fine - even Devils Kitchen is cool
The metro sucks and is confusing.
Go shopping on Maddison and 5th Avenues
Eat stakes in Bobby Vans or Porcelli's - budget between $50 and $150 per head..
get a burger from Burger Heaven
Visit the Whisky Bar in the W hotel - nice laydeeeeeees serving all the time
I can't advise on night-clubs to go to
Times square is busy/fun/noisy.
Union square has some of the best bar/pub/foodie places.
If it was summer I'd say hang out in Bryant Park/Square!

NACRO

Harlem is safe during the day contrary to popular belief. Probably safer than many part of London. Just don't go there at night.

Tiggs

central park zoo....midweek.

ps- 5 days is gonna kill you, i go every year for 3 days and still get knackered!

what would scooby do

oh - and it's ice skating time in Central Park

Patt@firstime

Thanks peeps - keep 'em coming.

Matt

Charlie WRXSTI

Do's

Ice skating outside the Rockafella center.
Eat at the Jekyll and Hyde club - a truely amazing experience.
Empire State Building at night.
See a show on Broadway - I saw Jesus Christ Superstar and Phantom.
Staten Island Ferry - get good piccies of the statue of Liberty.
Go to Tiffany's your G/F will love it.
Little Italy amazing people and lovely food.

Don'ts

Get stuck down town around 6pm(ish) all the cabs change shift and the ones going back uptown will not be service.

Get married - I did and am divorced now

pathetic shark

Dont
1 Bother with cabs - slow and driven by incompetents. Seriously useless.
2 Go shopping looking for bargains- you'll only get those at out-of-town hypermarts, and who wants to bother with them? The shops are nice, and some electrnocs are cheaper than high street UK, but you'd almost always do better via internet.
3 Forget that you might well get carded in bars, so take your passport
4 Bother with the Twin Towers site - mawkish and full of people from Oklahoma taking pictures of each other. Sad as ****.
5 Forget to allow flippin ages to get from Manhattan to the airport (assume JFK?) on the way back. Traffic on the freeway can make the M25 look like a kids game.


Do
1 Spend time in Greenwich Village - best taken in over a Sunday brunch
2 Grab a sandwich at Bloomingdales - still recovering from my last one
3 Take the subway, or better still walk.
4 Heak over to Brooklyn - lovely architecture, great atmosphere. Then walk back over the bridge
5 Visit Ellis Island & Statue of Liberty - cliched, but great. GET THERE EARLY (FIRST BOAT) OTHERWISE YOU'LL HAVE TO QUEUE FOR AGES
6 Central Park
7 Met Museum
8 Staten Island Ferry - last time I was there I bumped into a friend I hadn't seen for a few years, quite by chance. Best free ride in town.
9 Empire State is excellent
10 Book a limo (fixed price) to get back to the airport rather than a cab. Cabs FROM the airport to Manhattan are fixed rate, take one TO the airport on a meter and it'll crucify you!
11 Just take time to sit and watch the world go by - it's a different atmosphere to London etc, one which I much prefer.

barge

Do eat a street hot dog.

Do the helicopter flight round manhatten, 42nd Street & 12th its very very good $110 each.

Charlie WRXSTI

Barge - I forgot about the Helicopter ride I did this last time I went got some amazing photo's

H7

Buy a Metro card - available from any subway station - for unlimited travel on the subway or bus for a day, week, or whatever. Ideal for longer journeys, walk for shorter ones. Avoid cabs if you can, but definitely take a limo back to the airport - you should be able to negotiate one for the same price as a cab, but they're MUCH better. Walk through Central Park a must if you want some peace away from the streets, but stay south (the Park's really pleasant in front of the Plaza). Too many great eating places to list (and you'd only get my personal favourites anyway - Little Italy and Chinatown overrated imho, and it won't be long before the Chinese edge out the Italians anyway - they've already got 'em surrounded ). Major shopping for the gf at Bloomingdales, Maceys, Century 21. If this is your first trip, you've got to do the tourist stuff - Empire State, Liberty Island, Staten Island ferry, Battery Park, Central Park. Might as well do Ground Zero too (while the gf is in Century 21 ), not for any ghoulish reason (the site's clear now anyway) but just to understand the scale of what happened. Made me think. Great city, and you'll meet some great people

Markus

Nothing wrong with Harlem or Queens, had a bit of a laff up there last time I was in NYC.

I've been a bad boy and not gone back yet, which is appaling seeing as I'm in Toronto!

I'd recommend Empire State, v cool, maybe catch Letterman if you can. crusie round the island is good. Don't bother with getting off on Liberty island, you can't go up the statue due to the yanks being totally **** about terrorists, as if anyone would want to blow up that piece of junk

Oh, and if you see a homless person with a sign saying "give me money for booze" then do it, at least they are being honest!

Basically, enjoy yourself.