I'm going to New York!
Hello fellow artists!
I'm going to New York city for one week in January 2011. It's my first time in NY and USA and I guess there are some people from NY and others who have travelled to NY here at PC so I wonder what you recommend for me as first timer in NY and USA
Good resturants? I've heard that NY got delicious street food. Fun stuff to do? Cool places? What not to do?
I've only seen NY on tv so far, it would be interesting to hear what locals and other travellers think about NY.
I'm going to New York city for one week in January 2011. It's my first time in NY and USA and I guess there are some people from NY and others who have travelled to NY here at PC so I wonder what you recommend for me as first timer in NY and USA
Good resturants? I've heard that NY got delicious street food. Fun stuff to do? Cool places? What not to do?
I've only seen NY on tv so far, it would be interesting to hear what locals and other travellers think about NY.
Replies
I'm sure you'll enjoy the trip good luck and have fun.
Oh and watch out for the street food, always watch out for indigenous food when you travel, travelers trots... not fun. It might not effect a New Yorkers stomach because they've grown up with whatever floats around NY NY, but it could be loaded full of crap that is just waiting to screw your trip over.
Just whatever you do, avoid staying at the Hotel Pennsylvania! I can not stress this enough! Superb location (right across from Madison Square Garden), but OMG, I felt like I got lead poisoning from walking down the halls. The doors to the rooms LITERALLY look like coffins. I was terrified to sleep anywhere in the room, including the bathtub. The shit, was, nasty. But if you don't care about getting some VD from just walking into the bedrooms, then yeah, it's retarded affordable (given it is NYC and the location). I think they filmed that 1408 movie there (John Cusack opposite Samuel L Jackson). Rightly so, because that place is scary as hell just by itself.
It's just a fun place to go and visit. Follow the lead of the natives... if they walk across the street, high tail it and follow their lead. Don't go walking into the street without a minimum of 15 - 500 people at your side or you'll get your ass run over.
Yeah, Les Halles do great food, and have a nice setting. Its like a brasserie. I went to both of them when I was there.
I went to a sports bar where they had extremely awesome burgers. I can't remember where it is though.
Only stayed for the a few nights, but went up the Empire State Building, went on the Staten Island ferry, went to central park. Generally walked around Manhattan, which I realised is huge. Stayed in the Hilton opposite ground zero.
Great galleries, Moma is my favourite, then the Guggenheim.
My favorite part of my trip was Central Park.
Agreed. I lived there for awhile. It's definitely worth going to once. Also check out the ice skating and the gigantic tree in Rockefeller center... pretty epic.
I wouldn't say the street food is amazing, except for the Roasted Nuts, those are delicious. Around this colder time of the year, they make for fantastic snacks on the street.
I think I've spent the most time in The East Village.It is full of great Galleries and fun little places and shops. The New Museum is worth checking out. There are tons of great bars on Bleecker. And there's a Great Deli Called Katz's. Close to there is also a good Gallery called Particpant Inc., It usually has more "alternative" type of art exhibits that are interesting, plus it's a very beautiful space.
For a nice place to stay The Ace Hotel is great. It has a nice vintagey hip feel to it. But pricey, as it'll run you at least $250 per night for the cheap rooms. Nonetheless I would recommend going there for a free wifi spot while sitting in their very comfy lobby that has a drink menu and full service.
I would probably go to Times Square at night if you have a morbid curiosity and want a sort of Dante's Inferno experience. I've driven a moving van on it at night, and I literally wanted to shoot the place up afterward. But generally speaking, driving in NYC is an awful hate filled experience.
The Chelsea area is okay I guess. If you're into row after row of hardcore White box galleries than you'll like it.
The Museum of Sex is always a fun and quirky place to visit, and near it is a BBQ place called Hill Country Barbecue Market, where you can only order bbq by the pound. So if you want to eat like 5 pounds of various meats and be served drinks in mason jars, then that's a place to visit.
If you feel up to it, brave the Subway, it's not so terrible, will take you just about anywhere, and is much cheaper than a cab. ( I think you can get an all day metro pass for like 8 bucks) It's a bit confusing at first, but As long as you follow the signs and know where you're destination is, it's really not that hard to use. Though I wouldn't shy away from walking either. NYC blocks are not very big, you can cover close to 25 blocks in about 20 minutes at a fast pace, which you'll have to move at anyway.
I applied to an art school in Manhattan for a Spring transfer. They said it was a 3-4 week turn around for the application... but today happens to mark the end of the 4th week. So tomorrow I'm going to call. I wouldn't be too anxious except that I got accepted to another art school in LA and I need to answer them ASAP. So yeah... fingers crossed!
As for advice... I've only been there once. Something that hasn't been mentioned is Rockefeller Plaza. It's a pretty cool place to see around the holidays... although you are going in january so I have no idea if they still have decorations up then. Probably not. But it is still a cool place. Ice skating...
To comment on what Neo_God said. Don't worry about the subway. It is fun. But as a general note. Walk around like you own the place. And by that I mean don't look like a tourist. You will get flyers thrown at you everywhere you go.
Also I have no idea what it is called but there is a spinning restaurant at the top of a building that is totally worth it to check out. I'm pretty sure it is at the top of a hotel. Some quick google searching and you could find it.
Have funnnnnn
This wax museum sounds interesting! I have to check that out
I would really want to eat american pancakes with siryp. Is this something you can buy pre-made at 7-11 or do I have to order this at some resturant?
Also I would like to buy some PC games since I've heard they are much cheaper over there. Or is it just console games??
if a 7-11 in canada is the same as in the US. I wouldnt even go into a 7-11 :poly127:
The trip overall was quite pleasant. I'm just an employee at the company I work so I didn't have to do any work related stuff and could mostly just dwell around in NY. As I expected, the city is fucking busy. It was a bit difficult to absorb everything that happened. Especially the first night. However the city was much cleaner than I expected. For some reason people have told me that NY is much cleaner in movies than reality. "In reality you have to wade in garbage" but it's not true. It's clean!
Also the people is really outgoing and nice. Especially the women. They were really flirty, even the woman at passport control was flirting with me
The food was great! I didn't find any pancakes but I ate waffles and cola for breakfast every day lol! You get ridiculous amounts of food when eating out. I was about to puke after each meal hehe. The Cola and Fanta is different from Sweden's, the Fanta has a really intense, orange color in America (in Sweden it's more yellow) and the Cola has more vanilla taste. I couldn't find any 7-11's but I could find something that was similar called "Douche Reade" or something. For some reason I couldn't find Twinkies anywhere and no one seemed to know what it is either
One thing that seemed weird to me was the police. When they were using the siren on their cars, they didn't just switch it on and let it go, they were kind of "flicking" it so instead of going "whooooOOOOoooOOOoooooOOOOoooo", it went like "whoop-whoop-whoop-wp-wp-whoop-WHOOPwhoop-". What's up with that?
I didn't have opportunity to visit some cool "underground" places though like some shady nightclub or something. I went to a party at a cool designed lounge though and it was nice. The drinks are really strong! It doesn't cost you a fortune to get drunk in NY
Overall I like New York. I like big cities in general. It would be fun to visit USA again sometime but in another city/state and compare with NY.
TL;DR: New York is alright!
I think the reason the police "flick" the siren is because they aren't in pursuit and just want the people in front of them to pull over.
I will be going to New York for 10 days starting April the 13th, will be staying near central park so if anybody is up for a night out or a cup-o-coffee let me know!
anyone else want to meet up? we could make it an event if we can get enough people to come.
Couldn't find any pancakes? Every breakfast place sells them!
@kwakkie
I recommend you to visit Forbidden Planet. It's a big comic book store and it's quite interesting even if you aren't really interested in comics. They have alot of other stuff like figures, concept art books, boardgames, t-shirts and other various merch.
Depending on when they were there, it might have been true. For years, up until the 90s, parts of Manhatten were really filthy. Then Giuliani got elected and cleaned a lot of the dirtier parts up. Also, people put their trash streetside for collection, so if the garbage men are running behind, it might look like there's piles of trash in the streets, but it goes away pretty quickly. Interestingly, before the NYC clean up, Times Square was basically a red light district (ie sex shops, prostitutes, drug dealers, etc) instead of the shining beacon of capitalism it is today. I preferred it the other way, but oh well.
They're getting someone's attention. Unlike more spread out cities, there are usually people living right above/around the area, so they don't run the sirens continuously as it would be an annoyance. New Yorkers are trained to check around them when the cops flick their sirens.
That's funny, because the drinks in NYC are more expensive than almost anywhere else in the US. In smaller cities, a beer is usually $3-5 in a bar, verses $8-10 in NY. A mixed drink around here is $5-7, I've paid $15 for a whiskey and coke at one of those hip lower east side bars, and it wasn't even good. I have no idea how much booze is in Sweden, but most Americans would consider getting drunk in NY a pricey endeavor.
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