NY city todo
 

Please critique and add to our one day plan(4 adults with 2 kids (2 & 3))

Arriving by train to Penn station at 11am. Walk to Empire state building. Go to the observatory. Will skip the skyride.

Take taxicab to rockofheller center and cathedral at about 3pm.

Then take cab to timessquare around 5:30 pm.

7pm take the train back to central NJ.

My question is:
Are there any other attractions for photogrphy in close vicinity that we can add to our list?
Our primary interests are photography.

Thanks
njs

Central Park?

Just wondering why the Empire State Building with 2 kids you are going to be inline a LONG time. I'd suggest going to the Top of the Rock instead. You get IMHO better views of the city, including a great shot OF the ESB, and Central Park, with the colors just starting should be really beautiful.

If you are arriving around 11am, it's doubtful you will be leaving to head uptown anywhere near 3. If you arrive at 11 head up to TOTR and see some of the sites there, walk up to FAO toy store at 59th and 5th maybe see a bit of the park, or even walk up to Central Park Zoo, which the kids will LOVE.

Have a great time.

I don't see a thing in your plans that the kids will like. There are some cool playgrounds in Central park, a few near the south edge.

Why would someone go to a playground when they are in NYC just for an afternoon? Is there something particularly special about these specific ones?

There is the great Alice in Wonderland statue along the 72nd Street Traverse. You will also find the "little boats" pond and Bethesda Fountain. All of them offer something for the kids and great photo ops.

Agree that the ESB could take all your time - and ids that small will NOT want to wait on long lines. Do ToTR instead - and see something besides the corridor you would be waiting in at ESB.

Sorry - and I agree that nothing you are doing wil interest children of that age - and some may confuse or frighten them (as in being surrounded by mobs in knees in Times Square). Assume you are bringing strollers versus carrying them - since there is no way they'll do all this walking.

Why not leave the kids with a sitter who will take them to the park - and just do the trip yourselves?

(Kids will love NYC - but need to be about 5 or so before they can appreciate much except Central Park, and possibly part of the Museum of Natural History and a boat ride.)

The day trip is less for the kids and more for the grand parents who are visiting from abroad. Thanks

"The day trip is less for the kids and more for the grand parents who are visiting from abroad. Thanks"

That is what I was thinking. Central Jersey folks with visitors (I grew up in Central Jersey).

TOTR is a good idea. I have changed my mind to go to totr instead of ESB. ESB lines for both obs and skyride were long when we had been there in the past. We have already done the Circleline cruise around NY.

So the plan changes to:
TOTR and central park
Thanks

Just a wee correction: Rockefeller Center. And yes, Top of the Rock is by far the better option.

Top of The Rock is a much better suggestion...3 levels of gorgeous views, hardly any crowds and you can see the Empire State building in full view - gorgeous! we got there early so it was a little hazy but still stunning views!
the kids
will love Central Park - its a gorgeous place to explore!
Times Square is worth having a look but hold on tight to your kids as its super busy with people everywhere - the colours, lights (all advertsing)and noise is overwhelming! pop into Toys R Us (if you dare!) and the M&M shop for a quick look around...

I like "Rockofheller Center"...it's certainly phonetic.

i really wanted to learn more about the Rockefeller family whilst I was over there as you hear their name everywhere - guess I'll have to look it up now that Im home!
but what business were they into? steel? property?

John D. Rockefeller made his money in oil.....Standard Oil to be exact. At one time, he controlled 90% of the world's oil market.

it figures with all their wealth...intersting!
the Rockefeller buildings/plaza is really gorgeous - love the Art Deco details!
seems like they invested a lot in arts and culture too!

The Rockefellers owned about half the world. They are an old padroon (original wealthy Dutch family, when New York was New Amsterdam) and the family fortune was based eventually on oil.

My grandmother told me stories of when she was a small girl and the current John D. (a family name and then the richest man in the world) would be driven from his estate down through the poorer neighborhoods to his Wall St office. If in a good mood he would open a window and throw dimes to the poor kids on their way to school.

A descendent Nelson, was the governor of New York and VP of the US - when Republicans were Republicans and not rightist religious fanatics.

<<<My grandmother told me stories of when she was a small girl and the current John D. (a family name and then the richest man in the world) would be driven from his estate down through the poorer neighborhoods to his Wall St office. If in a good mood he would open a window and throw dimes to the poor kids on their way to school.>>>

My father told me the exact same story (he grew up in Williamsburg)

Let us not romanticize John D, Rockefeller as he was one of the largest violators on the anti-trustt laws. And although I heard the same stories about the dimes from the windows of his car, my grandparents never actually saw it occur.

NYTraveler

You are confusing the Rockefllers and the Roosevelts. The Rockefellers were German/Huguenot, while the Roosevelts were one of the oldest and wealthiest families in New York of Dutch extraction. I do not, however, ever think they were the owners of patroon.

But that is why there is a "the" in The Bronx. One patroon lessee was Jonas Bronck whose land included what is today the Bronx and Yonkers. And when people went to visit them they were going to see The Broncks and that is how the name evolved.

Of course - one of the more - in a way - amusing stories about Rockefeller and the creation of Rock. Ctr - was the run- in with Diego Rivera - the great Mexican muralist. Rivera was commissioned to do a mural for the new building - and he did. Thing is - Rivera was a fervent Marxist and anti-capitalist. And that was the theme of the mural. This did not exactly go over well with the Rockfellers and they immediately took it down. I think it now is at Dartmouth College.

Correction - the mural at Dartmouth is by Orozco. The mural that Rivera painted for 30 Rock was destroyed and dumped in the garbage. There was a big fuss about this at the time - but the Rockefellers would have no part of a mural with the face of Lenin in it. To retaliate Rivera painted a replica of that mural for the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.

<<<Let us not romanticize John D, Rockefeller as he was one of the largest violators on the anti-trustt laws. And although I heard the same stories about the dimes from the windows of his car, my grandparents never actually saw it occur.>>>

I'm fairly certain the anti-trust laws were implemented BECAUSE of Standard Oil/Rockefeller practices. He wasn't breaking any laws at the time, because the laws didn't exist.

In 1879, an attorney for the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, devised a new type of trust agreement to overcome Ohio state prohibitions against corporations owning stock in other corporations.

The Sherman Anti-trust Act was enacted in 1890 and Rickefeller was found in violation of the Act in 1911. The laws were fortified in 1915.

The Rockefellers did spend a lot of money buying up land for National Parks out west and saving views across the Hudson. If you all are not watching the National Parks programs on PBS, do catch them when they repeat.

Another interesting tidbit re the Rockefellers - you may note this if you visit Kykuit - their estate on the Hudson. In touring the kitchen you will note how low the kitchen sinks are. This is due to child labor they employed to do kitchen work.

Agree that the Rockefellers were (perhaps still legally) abusing their wealth and power - until the government tried to stop them.

And I think if you saw the dimes or not was a function of where you lived (my grandmother grew up on 103rd St in Manhattan and went to school at St Cecilia's (still there) on 106 - so a major street a limo on the way to Wall St was likely to traverse.

As far as I can gather, your plans involve getting from the station to TOTR, then seeing Rock Center and the Cathedral and Times Square. Correct? Are you planning lunch at anywhere in particular? Eating hot dogs off the street typically doesn't go well with little kids.

Seeing Times Square will take all of 5-10 minutes, unless you want to go into someplace like FAO Schwartz. It would make me nervous to have little kids there unless they were in a stroller.

If I were you I'd pick at least one more destination and take a cab there first - maybe Chinatown with lunch there - maybe the Guggenheim? Then to TOTR, etc. I'd just ask the cab driver to drive me past Times Square on the way to the station as a way of seeing Times Square. (And I guess you'll need to split up and take 2 cabs.)

Both kids have multiple food allergies. We have had problems with them in restaurants. So we carry what they can eat and we cannot eat near them. For adults we will find some restaurant after getting there depending on where we are around lunch time(1-2pm), while one of us watches the kids.

Yes we will be taking strollers.

Both my grandfathers grew up on the Lower East Side and my one grandmother grew up in Brownsville. Maybe Rockefeller never stopped at Katz's.

You might try the 2 big toy stores one in Times Square, ToysRUs with the 4 story ferris wheel and FAO which is on 5th Ave and 59th ST.

Macy's of course on the kids level would be a hit as well.

If you go up to the Central Park Zoo, there is a petting zoo for the kids and several good exhibits, including one of penguins and of course polar bears.