Saturday, February 09, 2008

How to spend 57 hours in New York City

1. Land.

2. Take bus into Manhattan. Get dropped off at Port Authority Bus Terminal.

3. Walk south to hotel. Stash bags until room is ready.

4. Walk back up to Port Authority and then over to Times Square.

5. Have lunch in one of the big, somewhat touristy Times Square restaurants while poring over Rough Guide, planning your afternoon. Decide on wandering over to MoMA.

6. Wander up Times Square and have plans changed when offered a ticket to watch Letterman tape.

7. Go back to hotel. Check-in and clean up and cab back up to the Ed Sullivan Theater just in time.

8. Watch Letterman from the back row - the very back row - on a folding chair. Realize show is better in person and that the band is really good even if Paul Shaffer is looking more and more like he stepped off the set of Star Trek. Enjoy Eli Manning and Vince Vaughn. Feel ambivalent about A Fine Frenzy.

9. Leave Letterman and decide maybe it is time to make like a tourist and go see a show.

10. Watch David Mamet's latest, November, which has Nathan Lane and Jackie from Roseanne and is really funny in a biting David Mamet sort of way.

11. Take some Mexican food from a 9th Ave. hole in the wall joint back to the hotel room for supper.

12. Wake up the next day still planning to go to Moma. Go the other way, instead, and take the Staten Island Ferry out and back while snapping lots of shots of ships and skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty.

13. Wander up through Lower Manhatten to the South Street Seaport.

14. Realize you've come this far so you might as well go all the way.

15. Walk the Brooklyn Bridge taking lots of pictures.

16. Go up to midtown, have lunch and head to MoMA.

17. Immerse yourself in Pollocks and Picassos, De Koonings and Monets.

18. Wander over to Times Square.

19. Take subway over the Manhatten bridge to see what the view is like.

20. Take subway back to Times Square and head for hotel.

21. Go to Rangers game. Hockey with a New York accent. Sadly, no one says fuggedaboutit.

22. Wake up, check out and stash bags.

23. Take subway to the Village and go for a wander.

24. Pop into the Village Chess Shop and talk with the clerks.

25. Buy a small set.

26. Wander over to Lower East Side and have a corned beef on rye at the mostly justifiably famous Katz's Deli.

27. Realize that, while good, Katz's pales in comparison to Montreal's Schwartz's.

28. Take subway back up and over to Grand Central Station for a quick wander and a visit to the MTA's Transit Museum gift shop. Buy shirt for niece.

29. Head back over to Times Square and down to the hotel. Grab bag and walk down to Penn Station.

30. Take train to Newark and fly back to Toronto via Chicago.

2 comments:

John Mutford said...

I would think such a post would warrant loads of photos. You seem to suggest otherwise. C'mon, let's see the Brooklyn Bridge.

Remi said...

Photos to come. . .