missypie

How crowded is Manahattan the weekend before Thanksgiving and the first few days of Thanksgiving week? Is the entire week insanely crowded like Thanksgiving day and afterward, or is it calmer earlier in the week?

TwoFatFeet

I always found it less crowded on Thanksgiving Day. Then of course the day after is a nightmare b/c of shopping. But really NYC is always crowded.

dmlove

It's less crowded on Thanksgiving Day because that's one of 3 days in the year that the stores are closed (Christmas and Easter Sunday being the other two).

sightseer

I've been there a few times for the week of Thanksgiving and have been pleasantly surprised at the minimal crowds the weekend prior to the holiday. Both times, we noticed that the touristy areas, including Broadway play are not at all crowded until Wednesday evening.

NeoPatrick

Gee, with a couple posts about how it is NOT crowded on Thanksgiving Day, I hope no one is suggesting that the parts of Manhattan between Central Park West and Herald Square are NOT crowded on Thanksgiving Day. There's a little event called the Macy's parade that draws about a million people to it, and stops traffic in all directions for hours. I've found all of midtown an absolute mess until well after noon.

But to avoid crowds, it would be a nice day in the Village or Soho, or upper East side.

LindainOhio

My daughter and I celebrated her 21st birthday in NYC the weekend before Thanksgiving--a few years ago. It was crowded but not miserable. There were many high school band members wearing Macy Parade jackets that had arrived over the weekend. It seemed that they followed us everywhere.

nytraveler

The weekend before is not quite as crowded as the weekend after - but that's about all that can be said about it.

Many people in the parade come early - and you'll still get business travelers through Tues. Plus from Tues on the airports are mobbed with kids going home for Thanksgiving holiday.

gail

Alsop issue of how you are getting there. Airports in NYC area (and everywhere else) are notoriously insane from the weekend before until the Sunday after. Traffic around area is also memorably awful from Tuesday evening rush hour thru Tgiving AM.

Aduchamp1

After the Thanksgiving Day weekend and the following two weeks are aome of the quietest tourist days. The quietest are probably January (after about the 5th) and February.

missypie

Thanks. DD14, is already saying that she wants to go to New York to shop for her 16th birthday. She has an early November birthday, and gets all of Thanksgiving week off from school, so a trip at that time could work for us. However, I've had friends who have gone for Thanksgiving (including quite a few band parents) who have said that the mobs, for example, on 5th Ave, the day after Thanksgiving are unbelievable.

nytraveler

What they saw is typical of NYC from the weekend before Thanksgiving until the day or so before Christmas. You have to realize that as well as workers, vacationers and people who live in Manhattan the NYC school system is closed - which means 1.1 million kids on the loose - a lot of them being taken into Manhattan for amusements by their parents.

NYC is the center of a metro area with more than 20 million people - so when it's busy everything is mobbed, and that means

Sidewalks mobbed from store to curb

Department stores in which you need to use your elbows to get through the crowds (and Macy's has facilitators at the escalators to make sure people get off fast enough)

Crowded subways and buses

Shows that sell out far in advance

That's the price for visiting the greatest city in the world at the most popular time.

dmlove

That's the price for visiting the greatest city in the world at the most popular time.

I couldn't agree more, and I'll add to the list that it also means long waits for the elevator if you're staying in a sold-out high-rise hotel. For me, the end justifies the means!

GoTravel

Stay out of Times Square and you just might hang on to your sanity.