6 days in New York

How a party of Very British Ladies (three fifty-something and a twenty-one year old) spent six days in New York March 2015.... 

 
Thursday 12th March 
LHR to JFK Virgin Atlantic –booked direct with http://www.virginatlantic.com/ very impressive flight (if a bit chilly) lovely cabin staff,  reasonable food (which they ran out of and gave us lots of gin and wine instead!) and even Afternoon Tea !! 

We had a less impressive transfer by minibus http://www.a2btransfers.com to Manhattan. 

We stayed in the Roosevelt Hotel http://www.theroosevelthotel.com/ 45th E & Madison Avenue , (booked with http://www.expedia.com ) which had a very impressive lobby , and very comfy beds in cosy rooms, but the staff were indifferent - we were greeted with four words on reception: "Credit card and ID". 

Wi-Fi was $14.95 for 24 hours and $29 dollars for buffet breakfast– which we thought was a bit pricey. Also as we found out later being right on a busy junction it was noisy all day and all night with traffic – and there were night roadworks going on too. But it is SO central it's hard to beat for that and the beds were so comfortable !

 
Within an hour of arriving we went out exploring and discovered a doorway across the road from the hotel that led us underground to the Grand Central Terminal- and were utterly wowed; it was oh so familiar from hundreds of films and TV shows. As there is an Apple Store in the terminal there is also completely free Wi-Fi, which was a bonus for WhatsApping and Vibering home to the loved ones.

We bought our 7 day subway pass for about $30 and had our first trip on the (very confusing) subway downtown to the new branch of Grimaldis Pizza  http://www.grimaldisnyc.com/ 
We got quite lost straight away but were very impressed by the kindliness and helpfulness of the locals. Delicious pizza, once we got over the shock of the words on the menu "liquor license pending " (eeek!) so we made do with Snapple and Root Beer and other American sounding treats.

We walked back to hotel along 6th Avenue intending to find a place for a glass of wine but didn't find anywhere promising. But came via Times Square - our first view ... Amazing at night. Heather and Karen managed to get themselves on the big screen!

 
Friday 13th March 
We overslept as had been woken by a work call at 5.20 am (9.20 in UK- which I hasten to add I didn't answer) so had a mad dash down to Wall Street for our 9am walking tour on downtown subway.  Relished a very welcome breakfast at Crumbs Bake Shop (40 Broad Street, New York 1000) http://www.crumbs.com/ Great Cawfee, beautiful cupcake display and cream cheese bagel that was enough for breakfast AND lunch .....

We met our guide Linda for the Wall Street, 911 Memorial and Statue of Liberty full day tour booked through http://www.viator.com/ outside the New York Stock Exchange. It was sooooo cold but she was so thoroughly engaging and informative that it was easily forgotten that it was 1 degree Centigrade !! 
We had a fascinating tour of the Federal building, Wall Street, and onto the 9/11 memorial site which was so poignant. There was no time to go into the memorial museum, definitely something for next visit, but we did get to see the new buildings that are springing up – One World Trade Centre, now the tallest building in the US. 
The video below is amazing, showing the building of the Tower from 2004 to its completion in 2013.

 
Linda explained how it felt from a native New Yorkers point of view and I think we all felt very emotional standing near such a huge part of modern history and human loss.

Then onwards to the Charging Bull, Bowling Green and Battery Park, the last of which was completely devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and is currently being rebuilt and replanted, and onto the ferry for Liberty Island and the statue of Liberty.
I will always remember that first glimpse of seeing such a familiar, iconic statue as it appears as you go towards it on the ferry, with her back to you facing out to sea, To visit close up and go inside and see the view of Manhattan from the pedestal of the statue is remarkable. Luckily our tour tickets included access to the statue – you have to book in advance. Security is also very tight so we were searched and had to go through 2 lots of metal scanners getting onto the ferry and then going into the statue.

We partook of some quick snacks in the café and a pootle round the gift shop, then back on the ferry for a trip to Ellis Island, where all the hopeful immigrants to the USA arrived and were processed for so many years. 
Fascinating buildings and history but not enough time really there as last ferry was about 5pm and it was already getting on for 4pm- so again a place to go back to with more time. Plus it has to be said we were really flagging by this time!

 
Dinner that night was at the Oyster Bar , Grand Central Terminal- totally amazing seafood, and very splendid g & ts!! It was really busy but we had booked so were quickly seated and service was impeccable. Food was quite extraordinary – I had monkfish, the others had prawn dishes and a salmon dish – huge juicy vegetables – the asparagus was so tender and wider than my thumb! Desserts …. New York cheesecake, chocolate mousse... sigh … we really wanted to go back but in the four more evenings we had there's many other places to try.

 
Saturday 14^th March
We woke up to the rainy day that had been forecast and headed off to have breakfast in one of the many branches of Cosi https://getcosi.com/ . They also have free Wi-Fi which was great as Wi-Fi in the hotel was so pricey and  great fresh food prepared to order – different bagels, flatbreads soups etc. Sadly the coffee was undrinkable – literally just a milky brown drink which was the same whichever you ordered, cappuccino, mocha, latte….

 
We headed off to 5^th Avenue, which was one block from our hotel. We started to realise that despite the unfriendliness of the staff (concierges excluded) the hotel really was in the most perfect place to explore Manhattan and even further afield with its proximity to Grand Central Terminal. 

We considered buying a gorgeous umbrella at http://www.rainorshine.biz/ which was right next to the hotel but baulked at the prices with my record of losing umbrellas on buses, trains, people's houses and so on ! 
We thoroughly enjoyed our traipse up 5^th Avenue, wandered around Saks, Tiffany's, looking at things we would never buy. After a little look round the Rockefeller Centre where we exchanged our Viator Top of the Rock voucher for a timed ticket for dusk on the Monday. We then ventured  to St Patricks Cathedral which was beautiful outside , but sadly lots of reconstruction and scaffolding inside.

After some helpful locals directed us we then found Bloomingdales http://www1.bloomingdales.com/ where we spent a very happy couple of hours in the dry,  exploring the various permutations of the Little Brown Bag, had a drink in the café and all got made up on the Dior Counter (and spent lots of money on mascara and lip gloss !)

 
By 4pm we were all beautiful and hungry so thought we would see if we could go early to our Bergdorf Goodman Afternoon Tea in the BG restaurant.  http://www.bergdorfgoodman.com/ We planned to have a look round the store and then have our tea. In fact they seated us early and you can read the separate blog entry about that here: 
http://yummyandscrummy.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/afternoon-tea-at-bergdorf-goodman-5th.html

The store itself is beautiful though – like a Fortnum and Mason type feel without the foodhall, very twenties, very Hollywood. We did love the shoes –(Prada, Jimmy Choo) and the vintage style tableware.



 
Quick trip to FAO Schwartz http://www.fao.com/home where Heather and I realised a long term dream of playing on the big piano like Tom Hanks in Big and a trip the Apple Store finished our 5^th Avenue adventure, so we found a bus to take us back down to our hotel.

 
We had a Travelzoo voucher http://www.travelzoo.com/ to go to the Skyroom http://skyroomnyc.com/ for cocktails so decided that Saturday night was the night to do it – so got all glammed up, went in our first New York Yellow Taxi and set off -took him about 10 minutes to drive there – took us about 10 minutes to walk back, traffic is so bad all the time in Manhattan I'm not sure why anyone bothers with cabs!
On arrival we had to leave our coats downstairs in the cloakroom, (at a cost of course) and the lift at the Fairfield Suites hotel took us up 33 floors. There weren't many people in when we got there but that meant we got seats by the window overlooking Times Square, and despite us having vouchers they were charming and helpful, gave us the menus for our appetizers, and quickly brought us delicious very strong cocktails and lovely little appetizers.

In the summer months the roof is retractable- it must be incredible! It got busier and we stayed, loving the atmosphere and the music into the wee small hours buying many extra cocktails and feeling very glamorous. When we left there was a queue downstairs to go in,  and since I've come home I've had many an email about events and fashion shows and so on going on there so it's quite the place to be!

 
Sunday 15^th March
Slightly later start due to cocktails and late night , we had been considering breakfast in the hotel but at $29 it didn't seem much different from the many breakfast buffets in international hotels I eat all the time when away for work. 

So we headed to the Grand Central Terminal for a diner brunch. I had spotted Juniors http://juniorscheesecake.com/our_restaurants/grand_central/ on earlier visits (and heard about their legendary cheesecake) but we hadn't realised until then about their pancakes and other breakfast choices. I had two eggs with home fries and bacon , the girls had pancakes with maple syrup . Perfect food after a night of cocktails !!

 
Our lovely guide Linda had given us a great tip for getting theatre tickets: download http://www.todaytix.com/ on your smartphone and you can see what's available. We all had hoped to see Chicago on Broadway but when we had asked our Concierge at the hotel the cheapest he could come up with was $160 dollars. But with the app we got last minute tickets for that Sunday matinee at $88 dollars each – excellent seats in the Orchestra (we call it the stalls in the UK ) We were slightly concerned but as promised , there was a lady in a red Today Tix jacket outside the theatre with our tickets.
It was brilliant! I've seen it in London twice and of course the film, but we all loved every minute of it.

 
So whilst feeling showbizzy - what next? Why Ellen's Stardust Diner of course ! http://www.ellensstardustdiner.com/ We did have to join a queue to get in but it was huge inside and it did move fairly quickly. When you first walk in you are dazzled with bright colours and singing and whooping and the whole fifties diner vibe – as they say:  "home to the future stars of stage and screen at Ellens Stardust Diner, THE home of the singing waiters and some of the best Diner food in the country" and yes – huge menu of diner style food , and waiters and waitresses (Stardusters) who serve you and take in turns to get up and sing ! They were all amazing singers , and made the whole experience very entertaining.

The food was actually really good – my burger was juicy and meaty and the salted caramel cheesecake was fairly close to the perfect dessert. We thoroughly enjoyed singing along but did find the "help our actors go to classes" tip bucket a bit much as were going to be tipping at the end of the meal as well. It was rather thrilling thinking one of the singers may well end up being the next big Broadway star. 
However , the second time we heard Disney's "Let it Goooooooo" sung by Tiffany and saw the acting classes tip bucket do the rounds we did feel it was time to go and let someone else in the queue outside come in ! Great experience though and glad we went. 

We stopped off on the way home at http://www.grandslamnewyork.com/ in Times Square which turned out to be the best place we had seen for souvenirs – bought basketball and baseball shirts for my boys at much better prices than we had seen elsewhere and Heather bought her NYPD t shirt she had craved,  as well as snow globes and all sorts for the children.

 
The evening was still ahead and we were in the mood for something classy to offset the cheesiness of Ellen's and thought we needed a quiet evening drink. We had been researching classy bars to go to and found to our delight that one that came up time and time again was The Campbell Apartment -formerly the private office and salon of 1920's tycoon, John W. Campbell, The Campbell Apartment has been fully-restored to its original splendour -- and reborn as a chic cocktail lounge cited in the national media as one of "the best bars in America". 

So off we went http://www.grandcentralterminal.com/store/2137026178/ , using "our" passageway to get to it. It was very classy, very dark, cocktails expensive but delicious, staff were slightly snooty and not easy to get served but we loved it nonetheless, was very calming and tasteful. Perfect end to a Sunday evening.

 
Monday 16^th March
We still hadn't made it to either Macy's, Central Park or the Highline so thought we had best try to do at least a couple of those before our dusk trip to the Top of the Rock. So we started with a bagel in (guess where?) Grand Central Terminal and a trip to Macy's http://l.macys.com/new-york-ny

For me Macys was not very thrilling . I think when you live and work near London these stores don't seem very special – just very like all the ones in Oxford Street but we did wander for a bit and use the Starbucks on the 3^rd floor for a coffee and the fairly horrible toilets on the 8^th floor.
Quick trip to Pandora http://www.pandora.net/en-us to see if we could pick up a NYC souvenir bead - we got beautiful silver and gold apples with NYC engraved on them.
Finally got ourselves on the subway up to Central Park. As soon as you emerge from the subway blinking into the sunlight you are bombarded by people asking you to go on their pedicabs - we had a hard job to bat them off as I had a terrible touristy urge to go in a horse drawn carriage. 

Central park is lovely – it was still cold when we there so all the ponds and lakes were still frozen and no leaves on the trees, but it SO familiar if you are a chick flick /comedy film fan – Friends with benefits, Maid in Manhattan, Get him to the Greek, Eat Pray Love, 27 dresses. Sex in the City, Night at the Museum, Devil Wears Prada , Elf ……. (that last one being my guilty seasonal pleasure)

 
And yes I did get my 20 minute horse ride,  with a very informative driver who told us all about the famous people living in the apartments overlooking the park and about the park itself . We then had a wander and a hot dog overlooking the Wollman skating rink, went and sat next to the Friends Bethseda fountain (that isn't the Friends foundation at all !) wandered around the frozen ponds and lakes – it was lovely! We emerged out onto upper East side where the museum mile is and considered a cultural trip into one of them but were fast running out of time to get to our top of the Rock tour, so alas, that will also need to wait for our next visit.

 
At 6pm we went to the Rockefeller Center http://www.topoftherocknyc.com/ We had already made the decision to do that rather than the Empire State building and bought tickets in advance from Viator (just needed to exchange them for a timed ticket) as the views are just as spectacular and someone had very sensibly suggested going at dusk.
Oh wow it was amazing –very fast lift up to the 70^th floor observation decks … when we got up it just beginning to get dark and as you can see from the pictures you can get an almost 360 degree view of Manhattan – frozen Central Park one way and Empire State the other way , and as the lights go on it's mesmerising. It was busy but very well organised and the timed tickets mean it's not overcrowded. This was possibly the highlight of our trip and we were glad we went towards the end as it was great seeing places we had been to down below.

 
By the time we left there and after the packed few days we had been doing, we were all shattered. We had planned to go to little Italy but it was dark and we didn't really know where we were going, but down a little side street off 5^th Avenue on our way home we spotted some bright lights … and found the Ipanema Restaurant. http://original.ipanemanyc.com/ It's a Brazilian/Portuguese fusion of food and so I was able to use my little used Portuguese skills to translate . We loved it – fabulous atmosphere, charming staff – warmed us about over-ordering as portions like most Portuguese places, let alone in New York are huge . We all went for the house specialities and a very nice bottle or two of Dão. It was perfect -not very expensive and a hop skip and jump back to the hotel,  so a winner all round.

 
Tuesday 17^th March
On our last day, we had a night flight that evening so needed to pack and leave our rooms . Breakfast was once again at Juniors diner and it was a sea of green everywhere for St Patricks day: clothes, people's faces , cakes in bakeries … Having not spent much time at all in the hotel (or been informed ) we were quite surprised to find after our Grand Central breakfast that the road to our hotel was closed as many of the St Patricks day parade bands were either coming past to get onto 5^th Avenue or actually performing in our lobby so we had a great place to view some of the bands close up. 
We then wandered down to 5^th Avenue to watch them marching past – it was great, lovely atmosphere, lots of police presence , but very friendly and helpful. We had been warned it was horrible with lots of drunk people everywhere but we didn't see any signs of bad behaviour !

 
For our last hurrah we did go for a little wander to Little Italy and Chinatown – (more Chinatown than little Italy now)  but finished with a splendid lunch in Amici II Italian Restaurant, 165 Mulberry St New York NY 10013 US http://www.amici2.com/ - very authentic little place with flirty waiters and a very confusing menus of first plate, second plate etc (which I always find confusing in Italian restaurants) a very nice salad with balsamic vinegar and a very nice seafood pasta dish. That was it – a quick pop into an Italian delicatessen to buy some balsamic glaze and unusual pasta, a walk through Chinatown down to Canal Street and back on the Subway to our hotel and home.

 
The only thing that soured our trip for about 20 minutes was that our pre paid transfer that didn't turn up , despite us having it confirmed . The hotel concierge was great calling to find out what was going on – and they said they didn't have the booking although we could very clearly see it on the website; booking reference and pick up! He organised us a hotel car to take us to the airport ($60 but worth it to catch our flight !) I'm still trying to get that money back but the journey in the hotel car was great – really friendly driver pointing out sights and full of information. We flew home on a Virgin Code share flight with Delta which was delayed due to weather but to be honest I was so tired I just slept nearly the whole way back to Heathrow.

 
It was truly a marvellous trip. I expected to enjoy myself in the company of the ladies I was with but didn't expect to love New York as much as I did – it was busy and dirty and noisy but so familiar, the people were so friendly (except in our hotel and in the shops!) and the sights are incredible. We did very girly things so am hoping to take hubby there in a few years and do more – Empire State Building, helicopter ride, the 911 memorial museum ,a Sunday Brunch overlooking Central Park, and open rooftop bar , the art galleries , the Chelsea Highline to name a few. But we don't think we could have stayed much more and done any more days we really were exhausted !

March 2015

So what else did we miss?? Please add your comments  below about more things to put on the list for next time ?