New York City: Your favorite things to do or places to go

[NajdorfDefense]

1) Frick Museum, Brooklyn Art Museum/Botanical Gardens. Frick has 3 Vermeers in it, plus some other greats, and is just a stunning 'house,' see what rich guys lived like in the old days.

2) Met/NYC Opera. La Boheme/Magic Flute/Tosca, etc. Even if you just go once, at least go...once. You might like it.

3) Yankees game/Bronx zoo. Great spring/summer events also good 'date' things to do.

4) Qualifying rounds at US Open. Go early, you get to see the stars of tomorrow [and some of yesterdays/current recovering from injury] and see Federer/Roddick/Maria/Venus practice while sitting in the front row.

5) Shakespeare in the Park - another must-do, the talent there is usually quite high both on-stage and off.

6) Dim sum in Chinatown. Speaks for itself.

7) Go play Bethpage Black. If you are really, really good at golf that is.

8) Drinks on roof of Met Museum at the sculpture garden, best views in the City, always a good crowd up there, relatively little known.

The weekly, free outdoor movies summer in Bryant Park is also a ton of fun, get there early, bring food & drinks + blanket, invite some female friends, can't go wrong. The piers on the West side highway have cool sand volleyball courts, mini-golf, batting cages, trapeze school, lotsa outdoor concerts + dance stuff.

[NT!]

i haven't picked up much interesting stuff living in NYC for 8 months now, but i did recommend le pan quotidien to darko, so i'll take credit there.

one restaurant i would feel pretty good about recommending is poke , on the upper east side. very good, very fresh sushi, reasonably priced, and i've gotten great service all three times i've gone. i was checking out the reviews on the linked site and apparently a lot of people have not been happy with the service - felt rushed or didn't like the BYOB policy. i didn't have any problem with this and i went there on some pretty busy nights, but YMMV.

i really liked the red dragon roll and pretty much any hot appetizer you order - last time i was there they had this raw tuna pizza on a sort of scallion pancake with melted cheese that was f'in sweet.

[EMc]

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7) Go play Bethpage Black. If you are really, really good at golf that is.



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This is a hike out of the city and usually to get on over the summer you need to get there really early/even stay overnight.

[Evan]

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There's an infinite amount of stuff to do in NYC.

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Ain't that the truth. As such, here are some great NYC resources:

<a href="www.menupages.com" target="_blank">Menupages</a> is a website that lists menus of just about EVERY Manhattan restaurant. Its a priceless resource. As a caveat, the reviews they have should not be taken all too seriously b/c of the very small sample size.

<a href="www.gothamist.com" target="_blank">Gothamist</a> is a very handy NY blog that is updated every hour or two and covers local news, upcoming concerts, restaurant reviews, and other kinds of fun stuff. A similar site that is more geared to music news/concerts is <a href="www.brooklynvegan.com" target="_blank">Brooklyn Vegan</a>.





Citysearch is like Menupages, but covers bars and clubs exclusively. Every neighborhood has something to offer. But every kind of scene can be found.

OK, time to go to the concert. specific questions as to things to do are welcome.

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On the theme of useful websites for those unfamiliar with parts of New York, hopstop (subway/walking directions/estimated cab time and fare) is just about the best resource out there for traveling within the city (boroughs too). I use it myself at least once/week just to double check how long it will take to get somewhere. The estimated travel times are extremely accurate in my experience.

Also, Citysearch is alright but I think Yelp has better content and is much easier to navigate.


I'm sure Daver would have posted this had he been here before me, but Barcade is a very cool bar that isn't a "typical NYC place." It's got 20 or so old school arcade games and about an equal amount of beers on tap. It's in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

I might as well steal Egg from Daver too. It's a cool little diner just a couple blocks from barcade, so if you wake up hungover in some hipster chick's loft it's a great way to start the day.

Just about anything in Central Park is a good time when the weather's nice. Unfortunately I don't go nearly as often as I wish I did.

Everyone should hang out in the southwest corner of Washington Sq. Park and play chess with crazy old guys then chat up some girls at the dog run. If the pick up lines Bruiser taught you from his Vegas camp end up working there's some pretty cool places to eat/drink in the area. I like Town Tavern for cheap drink specials and great burgers (chef used to work at Corner Bistro, also close by).

[slickpoppa]

I think the Cloisters is one of my favorite places to go on a nice spring day. The Cloisters is essentially several European monasteries that were taken apart, shipped to New York, then reconstructed by the Metropolitan Musuem and turned into a Medieval art gallery. The most famous work housed there is the Unicorn Tapestries:





Even if you are not that into art or museums, the Cloister is still definitely worth a visit on a nice day because of its atmosphere. Its definitely a money place to go on a more sophisticated date or a good place to take people who are visiting New York. Rather than describing it myself I found a very good review from New York Magazine:

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This uptown branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is worth the 45-minute subway ride from midtown (plus a pleasant 10-minute walk through Fort Tryon Park.) Perched on the tip of Manhattan, the castle-like Museum is comprised of five Medieval cloisters imported from France and filled with art and artifacts. Perhaps the most celebrated attractions are The Unicorn Tapestries, a group of seven wall hangings that vividly portray the mythological hunt and capture of a unicorn. (The flowers in the tapestries, woven of wool and silk, are depicted in such detail that researchers have identified many of them.) Other gallery objects include religious sculptures, water vessels shaped like animals, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass and ivories. Many visitors come for the building itself: One room recreates a 12th-century chapel and the monastery gardens are breathtaking. With its antiquated structure and amazing vistas, the Museum is also featured in numerous films including Coogan's Bluff and Keeping the Faith.

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[Evan]

One other cool but likely completely irrelevant idea. A couple weeks ago my buddy read about a place in Coney Island (read: FAR) called Sahara and decided we were going. So three of us head out there around 7:30 on a Friday night. It's a really cool Turkish (I think) place. It's got all kinds of really tasty roasted meats (chicken, beef, lamb, etc.). It works really well as a family style place; two entres would probably do three people very nicely.

We had a bunch of some Turkish beer (called Efez I think) at diner and didn't really know what to do when we left. We saw a liquor store just down the block and each picked up a bottle of champagne to drink while we walked around. This neighborhood was completely empty, I wouldn't advise walking around Manhattan gulping champagne out of the bottle.

Eventually we saw a sign for the Beach and decided to go check that out. It ended up being kind of a hike but it was a lot of fun being basically lost in what feels like a completely different city from your own, all the while getting wasted. We walked around the boardwalk for a a bit and talked to some random crazy guy that was also on the beach.

On the way to the beach we had passed a club called Rasputin. There were no reviews for it on Yelp and they both describe it as a caterer/restaurant. I'm pretty sure the address is right but it definitely isn't a restaurant. There were hot chicks and a red carpet outside...IN THE MIDDLE OF BUMBLEFUCK, BROOKLYN!We had to check it out. What it turned out to be was a dance club full of the most beautiful Russian women I've ever seen. I usually am not that into Eastern European chicks but these girls were drop dead gorgeous and the girl/guy ratio was probably 2 or 3. That being said, we were the only people there that weren't obviously Russian. We walked around getting shot down by lots of chicks and then snuck into the second floor VIP area to hang out for a little while. It was an awesome time.



Anyway, the point, I guess, is that one of the most fun things to do in NYC is basically get lost and not really know where the hell you're going to end up. There's tons of cool/crazy stuff/people here and you're going to run into some of them no matter what you do.

[Anacardo]

All I can say about my very limited experiences with New York City is that it really does live up to the hype. I haven't been anywhere that I haven't enjoyed. Even the dank-ass subway terminals are awesome.

[TyFuji]

My favorite thing to do in New York is to just WALK! This is an incredibly foot-friendly city and I can hardly think of a better way to spend a spring afternoon than strolling around downtown with my girlfriend. My favorite stops along the way:

-SoHo shopping (Apple store = Mecca, obv)
-Angelika theatre and Sunshine cinema
-Battery park (there are many nice sunny lawns to lay out on and enjoy)
-Menchanko-Tei ramen restaurant: an unbelievably big and delicious meal for $10... (in the 50s, near the Apple store that actually LOOKS like Mecca)
-The new West Side parks downtown are awesome.

My main suggestion is to just GO... walk around and enjoy the city. You will find tons of places on your own, wether you have lived here forever or are just visiting. Summer in New York is one of my favorite times/places in the universe...

[shag]

Go to tartine on w 4th and w 11th and get the croque monsieur for brunch. Unbelievable piece of food. Seriously... made differently than any other croque i've seen and is what i would want for my last meal...

Bond st for sushi.

bagels and pizza all over.

I miss ny so much god damnit...

[TyFuji]

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Go to tartine on w 4th and w 11th and get the croque monsieur for brunch. Unbelievable piece of food. Seriously... made differently than any other croque i've seen and is what i would want for my last meal...

Bond st for sushi.

bagels and pizza all over.

I miss ny so much god damnit...

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I love new york... but I would switch places with you until April for sure.