New York City

New York is the city that I truly consider my home city. I only lived in the city for a few years, but I grew up on Long Island, currently live in NYC suburbs, and have a ton of friends and family who still live there, so I’m there a lot. As I’m sure you know, it would be impossible to write a post about New York that touched upon everything because there is just too much. If you read my last post about Philly, you’d know that I took you on a walk through most of the city. I can’t do that with New York or you’d get extremely sick of me. Plus, it’s pretty impossible to walk all of New York in a day, or even a few days, so I decided to look back at all of my pictures of time spent in New York and just write about the things I had evidence of actually doing.

Here is my photo journal of myself as a tourist in NYC. There is no rhyme or reason to the order that this is written. I just found a picture and wrote about it. The bad news is that it’s really long because NYC is really big. The good news is that you are not required to read it. SO here goes.

While you can’t walk the entire city, Marissa and I actually made an effort to do just that. We took the subway up to the northern tip of Manhattan (215th street) and walked straight down to Battery Park, making stops along the way. While this covered a lot of ground, it did not come close to the East Side and we obviously didn’t touch any of the other boroughs. However, it was awesome and if you’re up for a good 40,000 step day, I would highly recommend this walk. I’d like to do it again with more time and make more stops.

Go Ice Skating at Rockefeller Center at Christmastime, but be prepared for the crowds and the lines.

Visit Chelsea Market. It’s fun, and it’s food, making it even more fun. We did a food tour of the Meatpacking District, with Chelsea Market as one of the stops. Highly recommend.

If you happen to be in NYC for Thanksgiving, go watch them blow up the floats. It’s pretty cool, and it’s really the closest you can get to the floats without actually being in the parade.

Let’s talk about the ball drop. I would NEVER, EVER, EVER put myself through the craziness of New Year’s in Times Square. It is pure insanity, it’s cold, the bathroom situation is not for me, and the crowds are at a level I cannot handle. However, one year Marissa lived in Times Square. So we hung out at her apartment all night and strolled into Times Square at 11:50 PM ish to watch the ball drop. It was really amazing and special, and I will never get the chance to do this again. Get yourself a friend who lives there and give this a try. Otherwise, honestly, accept that you will never see this in person. 

If you want to give it a try, though, I’ve heard some stories about people taking the subway into Times Square right before midnight. This could work, just know that you might fail to break through security and miss it entirely.

Also in Times Square: See a Broadway show (or all of the Broadway shows because it’s impossible to pick just one) and stop at The Hershey’s Store and the M and M store on your way.

Find a spot on the other side of the water and take in views of Manhattan. I’ve done this on the East Side (Long Island City and Roosevelt Island) and the West Side (Hoboken).

Speaking of views, take a walk (or run) down the West Side Highway on a sunny day for some awesome views of the Statue of Liberty.

Still speaking of views, check out the views below, just because.

Go to Chinatown and just explore the different foods they sell, and the fake handbags, and the foot traffic. But most importantly, eat soup dumplings at Joe’s Shanghai.

Go to Coney Island. Eat a hotdog at Nathans, walk the boardwalk, and ride the rides.

EAT PIZZA. And bagels but I only have a picture of pizza. And learn to make pizza!

Go to Central Park during all four seasons. Check out the different fall colors, explore the snow covered park in the winter, or go to an outdoor spring or summer concert.

Go to the Circus in Lincoln Center! But also, just walk around Lincoln Center.

Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge!

Don’t leave Brooklyn without a trip to Smorgasburg. With a lot of people. So you can taste ALL the food. Not pictured: the food. Sorry, we were busy eating it.

And while you’re in Brooklyn, see a show, or a game, or both, at Barclay’s center.

Speaking of games, I’m not a football fan and couldn’t care less about the Jets or Ravens, but this is us at the Jets Ravens game in New York the day Mr. Landen got moved from the NICU to the step down unit.

If you happen to be in NYC THIS coming weekend, check out the Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival on 5th Ave. It’s pretty entertaining.

For New York’s newest attraction, stroll over to Hudson Yards for some views, shopping, food, and architecture. I would say you could probably skip this though, unless you’re Jenn and you’re really into architecture (here’s that shoutout I promised you – if you even made it this far – I probably wouldn’t – and also you seemed to have really stood out in this post in general).

Finally, eat something different. There are so many cultures in New York, and I like to explore other cultures through food. Marissa created a food tour of Harlem for her thesis in grad school, and here we are eating all of the awesome food and seeing some of the sights along the way.

Okay one more thing. This is not a tourist attraction but it’s just really cool. I do not have a picture in Eataly (which is a tourist attraction that I’d highly recommend), but I do have these pictures. LB International is my grandpa’s business. They were originally located in the space that Eataly now lives. The original wine cellar in Eataly used to have the LB logo on the door since it was not taken down over the years. I believe this has since disappeared, but I’m glad I got this picture.

Up next: Washington, D.C.