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New York on the Super Cheap, May 2017
I thought I would start this report with a link to our pictures, then add more information as I have time.
https://photos.google.com/album/AF1Q...Vo3NR51rvEevv3 Last summer, I won some money by supporting one of my friends on a reality/knowledge competition in which he was competing. Since Mr. Pickle and I are celebrating our 35th anniversary in July, I decided I wanted to spend some of that money on tickets to see Hamilton in New York, plus take a few days to see other sites. We've been in the city for a day here and there, either so I could be on a game show or on our way home from Europe, and I really wanted to spend more time. Mr. Pickle's work situation has been uncertain for several years; finally, when paychecks started arriving later and later, he left his job in March. We discussed shortening the trip or canceling it. I looked him in the eye and stated, "You can have my Hamilton tickets when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers." :-)) Lee Ann |
Your link is not showing up.
So, what's the game plan? |
Lol, I meant what was the game plan? What was your budget and did you manage to keep within it?
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I'm so glad you went anyway!
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Wonderful pictures!! Where is the chihuly glass?
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Since when can you take photos in a museum>
Lovely. You had some great foliage. May is my favorite in NYC. I look forward to more details. Thank you for sharing. |
Marvelousmouse, it's at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx.
Inakauaidavidababy, you can take pictures in most museums as long as you don't use a flash. We couldn't take photos in the Tenement Museum. Lee Ann |
Re: museums. And as long as it isn't a special traveling exhibit (and often contemporary art) I meant to say that your photo collection looks a lot like mine- I always end up with a large number of museum signs:)
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Now I'm definitely making another trip for the Botanical Garden.
How did you like the Tenement Museum? That's one I didn't get to. |
Great photos - where were the costumes?
Looking forward to hearing about how you did it on the cheap. |
Great seats!
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>>Great photos - where were the costumes?<<
The Rei Kawakubo outfits? They are at the Met until the beginning of September. http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions...7/rei-kawakubo Lee Ann |
As I said in the first post, we've been planning this trip for several months. We always travel on a pretty low budget, so we used Southwest points to fly to La Guardia and found $99 flights on JetBlue from JFK to home.
Originally, we were going to stay at the Larchmont Hotel in Greenwich Village, but we saved $30 per night by staying at the Q4 Hotel in Long Island City instead. http://www.q4hotel.com It's a hostel, ideally located across the street from two train stations, so it was really easy to get anywhere we wanted to go. Our private room faced the street (I forgot to ask if they had something on the other side of the building), so we could hear the trains. Fortunately, the double-pane windows kept quite a bit of noise out, and we were tired enough at the end of the day that it didn't bother us. We fixed breakfast in the kitchen almost every morning as well. Sunday, May 7th Our flight arrived mid-afternoon. We bought seven-day Metro passes in the terminal, took a bus to the Astoria Blvd. train station, and the hostel was just a few stops away. I signed up for New York Groupons a few weeks before the trip, and we bought three restaurant coupons. We took the train into Manhattan for a Groupon dinner at Anatolia Mediterranean Restaurant. http://anatolianyc.com The Groupon was for two prix fixe dinners and two glasses of wine. Everything was delicious, and we had leftovers for breakfast the next morning. After a stop at a grocery store for breakfast items, we were more than ready to end the day. Lee Ann |
Oh, so excited to see a trip report involving a hostel. I hadn't ran across the Q4 before. The price looks really reasonable!
Would you mind answering a few questions? How long did it take you to get into Manhattan by train? Did the commute bother you? What was your general impression of the hostel and its neighborhood? Would you have felt comfortable there as a solo female traveller? I really, really want to go to NYC this Christmas but it is going to have to be super budget to pull it off. And your post is giving me hope:) Thanks! |
Love your photos - so envious of you seeing the Chihuly exhibition
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It took around 10 minutes to get into Manhattan, depending on what line you ride. The E, M, and R lines stop at Queens Plaza, and the N, W, and 7 trains stop at Queensboro Plaza. The commute never felt long, though some of the morning trains were pretty crowded.
I thought the neighborhood was fine, and I wouldn't hesitate to stay there as a solo female. I would want my own room, though, not a dorm. There are restaurants and stores nearby, and there are a couple other hotels right around the corner from the hostel as well. A couple of my friends recommended another LIC hostel called The Local; since they were booked for my dates, they suggested Q4. The facilities were clean, but I think they need to police the kitchen and lounge more thoroughly to make sure other guests clean up after themselves. There were a few times where we had to wash someone else's glasses and plates so we could eat breakfast. This is the only hostel we've stayed in where this has been a problem, though. Lee Ann |
That's reassuring. The cleanliness issue shows up in a few reviews, but I can live with that if it's just kitchen stuff rather than dorm and bathroom cleanliness. Thanks very much, Lee Ann!
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Monday, May 8th Cloisters, Crossings, and Crawling
I'd read so many good things on Fodor's about The Cloisters that we added it to our itinerary, and I'm glad we did. http://www.metmuseum.org/visit/met-cloisters We enjoyed a really lovely walk through Fort Tryon Park to get there; some spring bulbs were still in bloom, and the azaleas and lilacs were gorgeous. The museum has a nice collection of art (including the Unicorn Tapestries) and architectural elements from medieval Europe, as well as its own garden and some good views of the Hudson. The Met offers same-day admission to all three of its museums when you pay at the door, so hang on to your admission sticker when you leave one site. As you all said, it's a challenge finding inexpensive places to eat on the Upper East Side. Fortunately, Shake Shack has a location on 86th St. between Lexington and 3rd. https://www.shakeshack.com/ I wanted to compare their burgers to In-N-Out and Five Guys, both of which have cult-like status in New Mexico. :-) Mr. Pickle thinks Shake Shack's burger is better than the other two; I thought it was very good, but for me, In-N-Out's animal style has a slight edge. You all talked us out of visiting the Guggenheim in 2015. :-) However, Men in Black is one of our favorite movies, so we walked over to see the exterior, then headed south to the Met. The sheer amount of high-quality art at the Met is staggering. I think you could go there every week for a year and not see it all! Last time we were there, I spent most of our limited time in the Impressionist wing, with a quick visit to the Vermeer paintings. For this visit, I focused on the American wing - beautiful furniture, a lovely Tiffany glass exhibit, and then the paintings. I never knew <i>Washington Crossing the Delaware</i> was so huge! Albert Bierstadt has always been one of my favorite artists, so I was pleased to see some of his work in the same gallery. After wandering through other galleries and a quick visit to the Impressionists, I eventually found Mr. Pickle in the lobby. We happened to be in New York during National Tourism Week, and I read that several tour guides were offering free tours while we were in town. We signed up for the Monday evening Prohibition Pub Crawl. We took a train to the East Village and walked to William Barnacle Tavern on St. Mark's Place. Xi'an Famous Foods has a shop right across the street, so we enjoyed their cold-skin noodles and a lamb burger before the tour. I think William Barnacle Tavern, one of the two historic bars on the tour, was my favorite stop. The history of the place is fascinating - booze-smuggling tunnels to the East River, a gangster owner who planted a bomb in the wall in case the Feds showed up, etc. There's a gangster museum upstairs, but we didn't go back to see it. Our next stop was the Blind Barber. https://blindbarber.com/pages/east-village This isn't a Prohibition-era bar, but it's modeled along the lines of drinking establishments of the day where you would pay to see a blind pig or some other novelty, then you were given a coupon for a free drink. This place is a barbershop; get a haircut and they give you a coupon. Go through the back door and you're in a cozy, comfortable bar. We were going to stop at Prohibition Bakery (boozy cupcakes!) but they were closed, so we moved on to Garfunkel's. http://www.garfunkelsnyc.com/ We hadn't known that Aaron had to make reservations to get into the bar (it's upstairs from a burger place), and once we were inside, we kind of felt obligated to purchase one of their expensive cocktails since they'd reserved the room for us. Mr. Pickle just got club soda and took a couple of sips of my Safe Bet; it was delicious, but I wasn't planning to spend $15 on a drink. Our last stop was The Back Room, the other Prohibiton-era speakeasy on the tour. They had a great jazz combo playing, but it was crowded and we couldn't find anywhere to sit, so we left after just a few minutes. They didn't really want Aaron to stand around talking to us, either. We got the impression that Aaron hadn't done this tour very often. He spent a lot of time reading information off his phone, and the bartender at William Barnacle knew as much or more about his bar than Aaron did. But hey, it was free (we did give him a nice tip), and we got to see a few things we wouldn't have otherwise. Lee Ann |
Thanks for doing a trip report, Lee Ann. I'm enjoying it very much!
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