Travel Tuesday: New York City

This city. You would need a book on it. I don’t know how I’m going to put everything I love about it into words! I’ll try and put in my favourite things and some Hostel reviews. This is a great excuse to re-read my journal, in fact I thought I would include an excerpt for my first impressions:

Sun, Aug 11, 2013:

Spent a while getting on my feet- planned on heading to Greenwich village & east village today. Passed by 23rd St for the Chelsea Hotel, beautiful and famous, though somewhat scaffolded at this point. From there I headed east as far as 5th avenue to where the bizarre and stunning Flatiron building stands. Sat and marvelled. Smelled the street meat. Sounds weird but the city so far is just like in the movies. Everywhere, loud dramatic vital conversation, every New Yorker shouting life or death into their phone, and a constant flow of racing yellow taxicabs going, going, going, and honking and shouting at the slightest thing. Crossings are frankly scary but my method of following crowds or locals is thus far working well. Big water towers break up the skyline and iron ladders zig zag towards them on the sides of buildings. Am surprised how often I stumble across a beautiful green park squashed in amongst towers and shops and rushing traffic. I already adore this place.

I could go on for a whole book about it (I kind of did) so instead here’s a list of my favourite things. The thing is, my very favourite thing was just being there, exploring it block by block, getting used to everything. I spent over two weeks there in between excursions to other places, and each time I went back it felt like I was going home, each time I felt more and more confident navigating both the streets and the subway, and I nearly exploded with pride when people started asking me for directions and help. It gets under your skin, and I was very apprehensive about dropping myself into such a huge city, as I have always been living in the country or on farms! But it was awesome, I loved it. Everything is there, and everyone is living, passionate and real, they all have opinions, they are into everything, accept everyone. And the foooood!!!

It blew me away walking down Christopher St behind two massive skinhead, tattooed guys openly and happily hand in hand. I was so glad I saw that they felt comfortable being themselves there. Such a stark contrast to around here. It kind of summed up what an awesome place it is.

So I can’t ramble forever, thought I should be more specific. Here goes! I didn’t see every street or club/restaurant as I was partly travelling alone but mainly on a serious budget, but I tried lots of new and amazing stuff. This isn’t an exhaustive ‘guide’ by any means. The Trip Advisor app really helped me out when I was there, and you’ll have free wi-fi basically city wide, though the app works offline too. The only other thing you’re really going to need, is comfy walking shoes. NYC is meant for walking, and there are so many things to take in on every block, you really don’t want to miss it. When I first got there, I was happily walking about 5 miles a day, just open eyed, craning my neck onwards to find out what would blow my mind on the next street.

• Empire state building, NY Public library, Grand central & the Chrysler building: The architecture of the city is so crazy. Don’t miss these buildings. And definitely get up the Empire State building. Go up at night, when the queues are shorter and the city glitters. I heard great things about the Top of the Rock, too.

  

I took this 🙂

• The High line: an amazing redevelopment of a raised railway line on the west side of town starting down on Gansevoort street and going up to somewhere around 23rd st and 10th avenue, it is still under development further up to 30th st but isn’t open to the public yet. Still it stretches north for quite a few blocks and is a pristine haven from the traffic below. Often there’s music, you can walk/ lie/do yoga on the grass and you get elevated views of both the skyline along the Hudson and the city. I liked it best at sunset, after walking along the riverside, and then watching all the stunning buildings light up. It gets very romantic there. There’s also a great viewing area, a glass screen and benches so you can watch everyone else racing about and relax.
• Sunset over the Hudson.
• Greenwich/west side/St Luke’s place: This area of town is tree lined, cobbled, and so great. The people watching is fantastic, definitely hang around here and forget what a huge crazy city you’re in for a while.
• Little Italy/China town & the Bridges- Walk south down Mulberry St. It starts at Bleeker, near the road that comes down south from 4th avenue. Although you can walk down any of these streets to experience Little Italy and Chinatown, this was my favourite. It ends near the Manhattan bridge, which is in my opinion better, because you get incredible views of the city and Brooklyn bridge, and the pedestrians are separated from the cyclists, unlike on the Brooklyn bridge, so you can amble about (also, pretty much on your own, opposite to Brooklyn Bridge) without getting abuse. But of course for tourists sake you have to walk over that one too. All I’m saying is, if you only do one, it’s the underdog you should go for.
• Flatiron/Madison square garden + around: The Flatiron is by far my favourite building in NYC. there’s just nothing else like it, its a huge old building at the crossover of Broadway & 5th avenues and it is a mad triangular shape. The park at its feet it heaven for both people- and squirrel watching, and it has the famous Shake Shack. 
• Central Park & The Met: Goes without saying really. We walked the whole thing in one day which was extreme, I think its more usual to cycle it. We also rented a row boat and rowed around The Lake which was reasonably priced and really worth it, so fun! The Met is on donation, but they try and make you pay loads. You’re poor, if you’re really strapped, dredge up the quarters from the bottom of your bag!
• Williamsburg & Brooklyn: On Sundays they have flea markets galore. And great views of the city. Brooklyn is obviously worth a mention too, but I never really got into it. I stayed in a dodgy hostel so didn’t enjoy Brooklyn as I should have. But you have to go to DUMBO and that area, also Prospect park if you have time, and keep your eyes peeled for amazing street art! 
• Hostels- Chelsea international hostel– Great. Expensive, but clean, en suite 4 bed rooms and loads of other bathrooms around spare, great breakfast (bagels, squash, fruit, cereal, and unlimited coffee? yes please!) good wi-fi, lovely staff, well located..great place to find your feet in the big city. American dream hostel- good/great depending on who is at the reception desk- there’s a quite unhelpful guy there sometimes. but, stunningly clean, lovely design and interior, there isn’t enough bathrooms though, and the kitchen is too small resulting in some very cosy dining, however amazing breakfast. Jazz on the park- staff are very informal, and when we asked for our bags back we had to wait for the guy to be done texting to get them, the male staff are also verging on pervy, didn’t feel comfortable around them at all. The dorm rooms don’t lock, the bathrooms were in need of updating, the beds were uncomfortable, the breakfast was not great. avoid if possible and especially if lone female. B Hostel- awful/dodgy part of Brooklyn and very strange layout- the common room areas were next door but you had to go out into the street to get in. Secure and clean, but not homely or with any character. Weird 2 bed dorms. The walls didn’t go up to the ceiling so you could hear everything in the rows of rooms which meant no sleep.