another NYC trip report from this past weekend....
 

6 people (2 adults, 3 teens, 1 8 yr old)<BR>arrival by car 9am Sat<BR>departure by car 7pm Sun<BR>Hilights....Phantom of the Opera, visiting WTC site, Staten island ferry, shopping, walking around Chelsea neighborhood, using the subway everywhere we went, NYU, all the hustle and bustle of the season, we just did not want to leave... had a great lunch/dinner at Majestic Deli on 50th, did a lot of walking, had fun with the sidewalk vendors....what else........

contd......<BR>we went to the Empire State building at a few different times, but it was always over an hour wait, so we kept moving.. our hotel was the only real disappointment, but for $150 for basically being in the room 9 hours, the location was excellent, a block from Macys in Herald Square...and the garage where we parked cost $50

Where did you get off the subway to see the WTC site? Where did you view it from?

we took the red line to Rector St and viewed from Trinity St...you wont miss it, just follow the crowd.. it was very weird to have all the vendors hawking watches etc. so close to it all

Alert for tourists:<BR>unlike other cities, the NY subway system, dispite have colors on the map, are NOT called by their 'color'. People will have no idea what the hell you are talking about if you ask for the orange or blue line. Nowadays, you just call them by their letter or #.

well, we had the MTA subway map in color, and yes we asked several different times by referring to color of lines, all New Yorkers were very helpful and seemed to know what we were talking about!! But I thought the whole deal was very easy to manuever... 6 people cannot go wrong with the unlimited $4 daily pass

FYIW:<BR>(and just for the record, Michelle, this is not meant as a personal attack, just helpful info from a NY'er)<BR>Calling the NYC subway lines by their color doesn't work too well, because of the differnt routes that the lines travel within any given color. Additionally, you will have subways of different 'colors' stopping on the same track. <BR>For example, the 'Blue' line includes the a,c,and e. But the e veers off to quuens, while the a &amp; c continue uptown in Manhattan. The Organe line has the b,d,f,&amp; v. The b&amp;D goes to the upper west side of Manhattan, while the f&amp;V go into Queens. There are many more examples where just indicating the color of the line will not give you enough info to navigate the subway system.

Okay, so how to get to the WTC using the subway?

Although I haven't gone down there, I'm assuming that Michelle took the #1 or #9 train to Rector St.

Yes, that is what we did, from the station at 34th st, Herald Square--we also went from Rector St down to the end of the yellow line (cant remember the #) to get on the Staten Island Ferry

thanks for the info