Insiders New York City

I've not been yet but I understand the Tenement Museum is quite interesting. And this weekend I am visiting the Museum of the City of NY for the first time - looks interesting.

The Museum of the city of NY is indeed worthwhile. In April, cross Fifth Avenue an take a look at the Conservatory Garden.

Another favorite is the Mt. Vernon Hotel museum, on east 61st, a relic of early New York two centuries ago when E 61 was a weekend resort destination.

If you haven't yet checked it out, visit the Brooklyn Museum. It's world-renowned for its African Art collection, and is in a beautiful location (Park Slope). www.brooklynmuseum.org

If the weather is nice, you can spend the afternoon strolling Prospect Park and the brownstones in Park Slope. And/or, you can hop over to Brooklyn Heights and take in the fabulous views, eat pizza at Grimaldi's and ice cream at the Ice Cream Factory. And even visit Jacques Torres

Sounds like a perfect afternoon to me! Enjoy.

One more Brooklyn suggestion, in the same vicinity as the museum- in April, the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens will be beautiful. In April, the cherry trees will probably be in bloom. www.bbg.org

Agree the Tenement Museum is worthwhile.
Haqve you been to the Cloisters?
Another interesting museum is the Transit Museum. It's in a decommisioned subway station in Brooklyn and gives a nice history of transit in NYC with examples of subway cars going back to the early days. Details at http://mta.info/mta/museum/general.htm

You might be interested in attending an auction at one of the big houses such as Christie's or Sotheby's. The Bronx Zoo can be combined with a visit to the Arthur Avenue area, which is one of our remaining Italian neighborhoods with small food shops, restaurants, a covered market, etc. It would help if you post your areas of interest.

agree if you could specify your interests, could help more. Brooklyn, for instance, is hot hot hot, and you could easily spend a day there looking at museums, fabulous architecture, shopping and food. Let us know more and we can finetune!

I also suggest you visit the Cloisters if you haven't in the past. You could combine it with a visit to Grant's Tomb and the Cathedral of St John the Divine.

How about a walking tour, or a gallery tour in Chelsea? Check out Time Out New York for many, many options. Watson Adventures' scavenger hunts are also a lot of fun (you "scavenge" for knowledge, not stuff).

Enjoy!

Here are some more ideas: Forbes Gallery, Museum of the american indian, Museum of the moving image in Queens, greek food in astoria, indian food in jackson hts.

If you go to the Bronx zoo, also visit the Bronx Botanic Gardnes.

Do you know of any good vintage shops in Brooklyn?

Many folks have recommended walking over the Brooklyn Bridge. Any recommendations of things to do near there?

Thanks for your time.

The high school girls seem to like Beacon's Closet.

this post:
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threadselect.jsp?fid=1&tid=34537905

on this forum, has some good listings of vintage and consignment info.

If you walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, you'll be right in Brooklyn Heights- see my post above for some neat things in the area. Enjoy!

Thanks for all your info..believe it or not, Ihave done all of the things mentioned except for the Transit Museum and the Mt. vernon. So I will try these. My son lives in Brooklyn, and you are right. the Botanical Gardens are superb-in fact, he is getting married there in July. Thanks again!

Congratulations, MyBailey! That is a stunning place for a wedding.

Enjoy your trip!

Well, my favorite tour is the Walking and Tasting tour of Greenwich Village. Next time, I 'm going to try the bike tour of Central Park. My favorite museum is the Frick. Next time I'm going to check out the Museum of TV (don't know the exact name). I did enjoy the Lower East Side Tenement museum - but you have done that. I want to do a backstage tour of Radio City Music Hall. My favorite plays have been Broadway and Off-Broadway shows where I've gotten front row center tickets on the day of the show (at the theatre's box office). There used to be a movie location tour that I thought about going on. The tour van shows excerpts of the movies as you drive from location to location.

Thanks for posting a good question. Saving the insider stuff for our use in the future.

Our son lives in NYC so we visit often. We are always happy to fit any free time in with one of the shows and we also just enjoy walking about.

Sandy

A good vintage shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is Ugly Luggage. They have household things/furniture/collectibles, not so many clothes items. Beacon's Closet is very popular, too, for clothing.

The Rubin Museum looks interesting. I haven't been yet. The Neue Museum is another you may not have tried. The Frick? Here's a list you can review.

http://www.ny.com/museums/all.museums.html

You might check the calendar on nycvisit.com for the dates of your visit to see about anything special going on. Have you been up to Marjorie Eliot's salon on a Sunday for jazz? Have you been to the new Top of the Rock observatory? What about Dizzy's Coca Cola in the new Time Warner building. Have you had drinks in the Mandarin Oriental lobby bar?

You might be interested in the Not for Tourists guide
http://www.notfortourists.com/newyork.aspx

The Municipal Arts Society give some great tours and lectures.

Oh, and there's a backstage tour of the Metropolitan Opera House that's supposed to be great, too. And, you can sign up for some really fun eating tours/restaurants-with-an-expert evenings with the Institute for Culinary Education, not to mention one-time cooking courses -- New Yorkers love these. I swear almost everyone I know has tried one out at one time or the other.

Other Brooklyn ideas: Stroll down Atlantic Avenue between Bklyn Heights and Cobble Hill/Boerum Hill and visit the antique shops

oops, cut myself off. I was going to say the antique shops AND the burgeoning boutique scene. Smith Street south of Atlantic has tons of bistros, restaurants and boutiques. Grocery, the sleeper hit of Zagat's (last year/this year?) is located on Smith here. Court Street, which runs parallel to Smith also has lovely small-shop shopping and a fair share of vintage shops, especially further down south from Atlantic.

5th Avenue in Park Slope, Bklyn is another hot strip for both restaurants, shops and vintage shops (that's where Beacon's Closet is located).

Check out Brooklyn Academy of Music in up and coming Fort Greene for avant garde performances. The lovely opera house also houses BAM Rose Cinemas, known for interesting cinema choices. Fort Greene and Clinton Hill has a few choice restaurants, too, and some lovely architecture.

Actually all of the above are located in Brownstone Brooklyn, a beautiful "belt" of quintessentially lovely New York City neighborhoods.

I'd suggest getting a New York Magazine, so you know what's new, just oppening, just opened, opening soon and sales, lots of designer sales listed.

Also the Village Voice is another great source for anything New York.

Have a great time while you are here.

Just a side note.... if you're thinking of going to Beacon's Closet-- you might want to look into going to the one in Williamsburg (Brooklyn).. it is a bit out of the way -- it's much bigger than the 5th Ave. location (though 5th avenue is lovely for boutiquey shopping)

I took the Lincoln Center tour and it was awesome. My favorite part of the trip.

Ditto on the Lincoln Center tour - fascinating. We recently saw "Singing Astaire" at Birdland - a nice evening of great music.

Here is the link for the Rubin Museum mentioned above http://www.rmanyc.org it's on West 17th in part of the old Barney's department store. Looks very interesting and worth checking out!

Look at Craigslist in the Tv-Movies-Radio section, do a search for Extras, see if you can get on the set of a movie or TV show as an extra.