New York & Philadelphia Getaway - Trip Report
 

I'd like to thank not only those who answered my queries but those who responded to others' questions as well.

We decided on a little New York/Philadelphia getaway. Since we've been to NY several times in the past 6 years and never to Philadelphia, I decided on most of 3 days in NY and 4 in Philadelphia. That was probably one day more than we needed in Philadelphia but I figured I'd rather one too many than one too few.

Weather
The forecast was for clouds the first day (Friday Sept 14), rain on Saturday morning clearing late in the day and then nice for the remainder of the trip. We got to NY in clouds and sure enough it drizzled a bit on Saturday morning. Around 11AM I noticed that the clouds were breaking up. Other than being a bit cool in the evenings, the weather was spectacular for the duration of the trip.

Transportation
With all the flack every form of transportation seems to be getting, I thought I had to comment.

We flew JetBlue from Ft Lauderdale to LaGuardia, took the Amtrak train from New York to Philadelphia and flew back from Philadelphia via Atlanta on AirTran.

Everything was clean, comfortable and on time (if not slightly early). My only complaint was about the taxi from the train station in Philadelphia. In addition to having a cramped, filthy taxi he tried to overcharge us.

New York
We are not avid museum goers even though we've been to many of the world famous museums. We had been to the Met, Frick and a few others previously so we passed this time. Also, meals are not the most important part of our day. Essentially, we wander around the sights and visit whatever we feel like. We've always made it a point to spend some time walking in Central Park just about every day we've been to NY.

I do all of the research and my wife checks out the "What's Doing" type of magazines on arrival. This turned out to be valuable. See later.

We stayed at the Hilton on 6th & 53rd. We like it because of its proximity to The Park, Times Square and 5th Ave. An easy walk everywhere.

New York - Another great couple of days.

Walked in Central Park everyday.

Walked the Upper East Side.

Wandered thru a Saturday morning street market on 6th Ave.

As soon as the clouds cleared on Saturday I took the subway to Brooklyn and walked around Brooklyn Heights, the Promenade and across the Brooklyn Bridge. My wife took in the 5th Ave stores.

We took the subway to the Seaport and took the Staten Island Ferry. What a great view of the Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan!!!

In her readings my wife noticed something called Broadway on Broadway. Apparently, to kick off the new Broadway season, just about all of the shows take part in a preview event. A stage is set up in Times Square and the actually cast of each show puts on the signature number from their show. They were not dressed in costumes but rather jeans and the like.

The description said that this event attracts about 50,000 people. We had our doubts about attending but decided to give it a try. Well, Times Sq was packed but we had no trouble getting a spot with a good view. Several of the screens in the Square also displayed the show. This was fabulous. I can honestly say we saw the best of more than a dozen shows. "Dancing Queen" from Mama Mia, etc.

From there we walked up 5th Ave, across the Park, thru a street market on the Upper West Side and back thru the Park before leaving NY.

We ate at and enjoyed a corn beef sandwich at the Stage Deli, dessert at Ellen's Stardust Diner and dinner at Rosie O'Grady's on 7th Ave.

Philadelphia - I didn't know what to expect. The city has a smallish feel, is clean, pleasant and quite easy to get around.

We stayed at the Best Western Independence Park. The hotel is beautiful, historic, clean and comfortable. The included continental breakfast was also very good. While it corners on the Mall, I kept getting the feeling the square bordered by Front, Market, 3rd and Chestnut is either waiting for a revival or is in a state of decline. Maybe it was because of the number of empty storefronts.

We would have liked to visit The Barnes Foundation. However, we were in Philadelphia Monday to Thursday and the Barnes Foundation is only open Friday thru Sunday.

We arrived on a Sunday night and the area was pretty much empty. Each day there seemed to be more people on the streets and in the restaurants.

The National Park Service has done a fantastic job with the area. Just a pleasure to walk around the Mall. Each morning before breakfast I walked thru various parts of the Mall as well as the residential streets of Society Hill. This is a very nice area and is definitely worth the wander.

During each of the first two days we started with historic sights and ended in different areas. We saw and learned a lot about US history. I won't bother to describe these sights as they can be found on any number of web sites. They are definitely very interesting, enjoyable and worth visiting.

We walked from the Mall down Market, past City Hall (the observation deck is closed for renovation) and up Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Free Library.

We walked down Chestnut all the way to Rittenhouse Square.

I had some time while my wife was in Macy's so I took the Mural Arts walk. I saw some amazing wall art.

We took the bus to the Rodin Museum and continued from there. We visited this very interesting museum and then continued up the Parkway where we made our concession to culture and visited the Museum of Art.

From there we walked down to the Waterworks and had a small lunch in the restaurant with a great view of the river and Boathouse Row. After lunch we walked up Kelly Drive and made our way to the Lemon Hill mansion where we took the tour. Beautiful!!!

It was too far to walk to any more mansions so we made our way back to Old Town.

On our last day we filled in the gaps. We walked to Reading Terminal Market and then back to Society Hill where we visited the Powell house and took the ranger-led Todd and Bishop White house tour.

We had Cheesesteaks at Jim's on South Street. The process of ordering and eating was surprisingly civil. And they were very good as well. We had Italian food at Pizzicato on the corner of Market and 3rd. Also very good.

Over all, an excellent and enjoyable little getaway.

You can view way too many photos at:

www.travelwalks.com

Select the New York & Philadelphia trip on the lower right side of the page.

Thanks for the post. I've never been to Philadelphia, so it's on my list, and combining it with a NYC trip is a great idea!

Thanks for the review. I was born and raised in Philadelphia and haven't seen some of the places you visited!!! We tend to ignore our hometowns.

I love your pictures, Myer. Can you tell me what camera you used for the ones in Philadelphia and New York?

I'm glad to see you had a good time walking in Philadelphia; it's one of my favorite things to do, and you certainly had perfect weather and blue skies for it. Some of my colleagues and I just took eighty-some students to the Wissahickon yesterday(Rittenhouse Town, Hermit's Cave, Lover's Leap, the Wetlands...and then on to the Park Houses and finishing at the Waterworks) and we had a great day, but it was humid and sticky again, so you picked a great time for your strolling.

Your photography is great! Isn't it amazing how much public art, specifically sculpture, there is in Philly?

Amy, Bab, thanks. Glad you enjoyed the photos.

I use a canon 350XT SLR digital. It's 8 megapixel. I use one walkaround lens. A Sigma 17-70. It's a moderate wide and moderate zoom lens. Very good for travel.

I've been using it for the past 2 years. before that I used a Canon SLR film camera. Very similar except one is film and the newer one is digital.

I find that with the digital camera I take so many more photos. Then it becomes a real hassle to review, eliminate and then give up and just keep too many.

We had excellent weather in both cities.

I didn't know what to expect in Philadelphia so I can't say I was surprised or not.

I found it to be much smaller and less hectic than NY. A very nice walkable city.

I think the NPS has done a great job with the Park area.

I really enjoyed wandering thru Society Hill residential areas early in the morning before breakfast.

A really good week!! Thanks for the help.

Thanks for the wonderful trip report and great pictures. You've made me realize I never really "did" Philadelphia and it's probably about time. ;) Is Phil. easy to get around on public transportation? Would you have been better with a rental car?

If you're staying in the city, don't even think about a rental car. Street parking is almost as difficult as NYC and garages are almost as expensive.

If you'll be traveling to the surrounding areas outside the city, you will need a car.

Well, I'm not Myer, but in answer to the car/public trans question...I live here and don't have (or need) a car, so that might help! Most of Philadelphia is very walkable, you can get just about anywhere using public transportation, and Center City particularly is not very parking friendly. (Hey, it was laid out in 1682...)

PS: Myer, thanks for the camera info! I'm currently using a Nikon film SLR, but most of what I do with the pictures (web albums, DVD's) is digitized anyway, so I'm looking pretty hard at my digital options. I don't want to carry a lot around with me, so I'm happy to hear your suggestions for your Canon as a good travel camera.

mclaurie,

SEPTA sent me a transit map (the online map was too large to print properly). I was able to figure everything out by using the map. We took the bus 3 or 4 times and never had a problem.

our hotel (3rd & Market) was right at the corner of the Park. Independence Hall was only 3 short blocks away.

Amy.
I don't carry extra lenses or a tripod. Just my camera and a walkaround, all-purpose lens. It's equivalent to a 28-105 lens (it's really a 17-70 but due to the size of the sensor it acts like a 28-107). That excellent for travel.

Hopefully you don't use your SLR in full auto mode. You'll love to go digital because you have one addtitional weapon. ISO.

With your film camera you make the film decision at the beginning of the roll and that's it. With a good digital camera you can change the ISO on the fly. So if you take a bunch of photos outside during the day, you may set it to ISO200. But then if you go inside a building, you can switch to ISO400 or 800 and still get a sharp photo with a relatively quick shutter speed. Then switch back when going back outside.

I hope all this isn't mud.

If your camera isn't too old, I'll bet you can buy a new Nikon digital body and use your existing lens on it.

mclaurie,

There was one time when a car or bike might have been helpful. The day we went to Fairmount Park.

After going to Lemon Hill mansion, it was really too far to walk to anymore mansions. So, if you want to visit a few, that's a bit of a problem. Aside from that, not having a car was never an issue.

That's really cool about the ISO; I hadn't really considered the relevance of ISO in digital photography. That is most definitely an advantage, as anyone who has fumbled around in the camera bag for the ISO of choice at the moment (waves hand) would agree.

My camera is about eight years old or so, the N65. It's been good to me, but I've switched from slide film(!) to, as I said, digitizing anyway, so I'm in the market for a digital, I think. I'm just afraid of the editing jobs it will entail! (By the way, some of my pictures are here:

http://community.webshots.com/user/missalg
(somehow hit the post button!) for those of you who might want to check out how well or poorly film pictures transfer to computer; there's an album of Philadelphia with Kelly Drive and the Waterworks in the spring included.

Amy,

Post-processing is an interesting topic.

When you take a negative in for printing, the lab does a lot of post-processing. You just have no control over it.

I post-process just about every digital image. Including the ones on my web site.

I don't play around. I just want them to look like what I saw.

Your eyes are fantastic. The pupils expand and contract as you scan a scene. The digital camera can't do that. It just captures an average of what the meter sees.

The darks are too dark because your pupil would have adjusted. The lights are too light because your pupils would have adjusted.

I just try to bring everything back to the way I saw it.

The process I use takes me less than a minute per image. Probably even half that in most cases.

Processing is definitely a big factor. I used to have my photo CD's done at, of all places, an Eckerd's Drugstore. The guy there was evidently very into photography and when I got the CD's the pictures where just as I would have done them.

Unfortunately, he moved on (I'm assuming he was a student who graduated and got a more advanced job; good luck, Joe, wherever you are) and his replacements weren't nearly as keen. For my most recent pix (this year's trip of Peru and Panama) I've been mucking about with Picasa, but, to be honest, my computer (Dell Inspiron laptop) isn't really good enough to see the colors properly. Perhaps if I stop traveling for awhile I can get both the camera and the new computer...but then,
of course, I wouldn't be taking many pictures.

Amy,

I'm curious as to how you digitize your images.

Before going digital i asked Walmart to create a CD of a roll. The resolution was pretty low.

On my web site, all of the trips prior to Pargue and Budapest are cheap scans of cheap 4x5 prints and it definitely shows.

Could you explain how you use your camera: auto, shutter priority, aperture priority, etc and any strandard settings you use. Just interested in what somebody who'se been using the camera for a while does.

I look at travel as not just the trip. The planning, the trip and then looking back at what we did over the years.

My wife always makes an album of trips and they sit in the family room. At first she shares it with other travellers and then over time we just use them to remember.

I think the effort is worth it.

I'll send you an email.