"we typically pay about $500 per ticket."

Glad I lost my taste for baseball. I used to pay $3.00 for bleacher seats at Fenway and had a great time. For non-aficianados, upper tier "nose-bleed" seats will be just fine.

aussie - All I can say is Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge. A fabulous walk across it.

You don't have to be Rupert Murdoch to enjoy a baseball game in NYC, and you definitely do not have to pay $500 for a ticket to a baseball game to have a good time. The fun is more being there and being with the crowds. There are huge TV screens so you can see the details of play, so while you may sit up high in the cheap seats, you don't miss out on the game. It seems to me the baseball issue has veered seriously off-course.

Well I have checked out the junior cheesecake place, thanks for the tip about the one near Times Square. It is on the list.

The Greenwich Food Tour is also on the list. We are foodies and it looks like a good tour.

The baseball game is still on the list but we will be in the cheaper seats and yes it will be more about the experience and atmosphere.

Brooklyn Bridge is also on the list.

We also want to see Central Park. Any suggestions for best days or which parts of the park to start at. Or what to see and do in the park?

If you go to the web site of the Central Park Conservancy you will find a ton of information, including a map of the park with walking paths (most can ONLY be walked, bikes are limited to the one ring road and you don't see much from it) as well as all of the various attractions and how to find information about walks with park rangers. They often do these fairly early in the am when the park isn't so crowded.

We loved the view of Central Park from the Roof Garden Cafe at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Loved the Museum too! We took the ferry as suggested above to view the Statue of Liberty. Best overall views of the city were from Top of the Rock. Also loved seeing the New York Library next to Bryant Park...gorgeous architecture. Also, St. Patrick's Cathedral. Actually, I loved absolutely everything about NYC!

OK, clue me in. What is iconic about Yankee Stadium? The original one, the house that Ruth built, OK it's iconic but it is gone.The Yankee Stadium where the OP will be watching a game is only 6 years old.

Some things that I like in NYC.

Central Park, particularly the Bethesda Fountain area. Now THAT is iconic.

Carnegie Hall, also a real icon

Lincoln Center if you like what they have to offer.

Greenwich Village on a weekend. One of the best free shows in the city. If you like iconic places, have an espresso at the Reggio.

Some of the best museums in the world.

Also, there is no need to see both Top of the Rock and the Empire State Building. Of the two, I prefer ToR.

Lastly, and may God help me, DW and DD recently did a mother daughter weekend in NY and decided to be real tourists and take in the show at Radio City Music Hall, and --- they loved it! Said it was as much fun as going to the circus.

Not my idea but. . . The Top of the Rock has something that the Empire State Building doesn't have -- a view of the Empire State Building.

We were amazed and pleased at how the new Yankee Stadium kept it's iconic look and feel.
As far as whether you should still go to the Statue of Liberty without crown access, most visitors don't go to the crown. The pedestal is very worthwhile and the museum in the base is quite interesting too.

I highly recommend taking the tour through the 9/11 tribute center that starts in a building on Liberty St. Our guides were amazing , one lost her husband in the second building and the other worked recovery after the attacks. We were moved by their first hand accounts. I believe all of their guides have deep connections to that day. It was one of the highlights of our trip.

I know you didn't mention museums, but we enjoyed wandering Central Park and then made our way to the Metropolitan. I am the only museum lover in our house and the entire family found something they were excited about there.

I hope your trip is wonderful.

Thank you all for your wonderful help and suggestions.

I have cut and pasted them into a word document.
Such a wealth of first hand information and experiences.
By popular mention it looks like the Top of the Rock is best for views, any particular time of day or night?

We are looking forward to our visit to Central park.

Still thinking over the Yankees baseball game. It won't be in the expensive seats but maybe the experience will be worth it. Wish it was basketball season as we are basketball followers.

We know that NYC has many excellent museums, but also know that a good visit will take most of the day. Maybe on the list for a rainy day. A week will go very fast.

aussie - check out the NewYork pass to see if it is worth it to you. www.newyorkpass.com

You get reduced admissions to many popular sites and can often skip the lines which can be worth the price on its own.

IMO I would skip the baseball game since it will take the the better part of the day if a day game. Perhaps an evening game would work the best if you really want to see American major league baseball. Museums do not have to take all of the day and since the distances between the major ones is not great, you can easily fit in two or even three in one day to see the highlights of each. I think the Museum of Natural History has some of the most unique exhibits to be found, not necessarily in type, but in scope.

Be very careful before buying any pass for nYC - except the Metro pas for subway and buses. It's difficult to get to enough places to pay for the pass, some of the places on the pass have "pay what you wish" policies - so you don't have to pay $20 or $25 for every museum.

Also the skip the lines is often illusory. The one that really matters - SoL is not included and most other places either don't have lines or you can buy tickets in advance to avoid them.

As for museums, don;t try to see everything. Go to the web site in advance and pick out just a few departments to visit. For the Met favorites might be the Impressionists, Costume Institute and the Egyptian section plus the Temple of Dendur. (We have been members for years and I still haven;t gotten to the department of ancient middle eastern pots.)

Of course you can just pick out a few sections to see what interests you at the Met, that's what I do whenever I go--I'd go mad if I had to see an entire museum of that size. Sounds like you may not be museum people, but for smaller ones, I like the Cooper-Hewitt (design) and the Frick. The Guggenheim isn't that big, either, but they focus on different things.

If you don't care what you see, they often do have lots of tickets at the TKTs booth, but you may waste a lot of time standing in line, and of course, then you have to be in that area which may not fit into your schedule. Lines are shorter for non-musicals (dramas or comedy). And, don't be disappointed that you got tickets to Chicago, I personally think it is one of the best musicals ever written, and if you've never seen it, I would have recommended it anyway. YOu can't beat Bob Fosse for choreography and Kander and Ebb for music /book/lyrics. They were (are) tops in their field, bar none.

Yes I will need to investigate the Metro pass. Can you purchase it for a week. Do we purchase it at a metro station?

We will probably choose one main museum, but not sure which one. We do like museums and have visited many over the years in our travels. But with so much to see and do in NYC, and we do love being outdoors, we will have to choose.

Go to museum web sites and check out the departments so you can decide which to visit where. If you get rain you may want to be prepared for more than one - and only visit for a couple of hours each.

And it's the subway - not metro. If you call it the metro people will may think you are talking about the local chain of delis - or Metro North - which is a commuter train service to the suburbs.

You buy metrocards from machines in every subway station, including the one at the Airtrain station at JFK airport if that's where you're flying in. It doesn't help on the Airtrain itself, and the fastest way into the city is by Long Island Railroad, especially on weekends, when you can buy a "city ticket" from Jamaica for a discounted price.

You'll pay $32 each ($31 plus $1 for the card itself) for a one-week unlimited card. Every person in your group must have his or her own card.

Chances are this is a good deal for you if you plan to ride the subway more than twice a day. If not, then you might be better off paying by the ride.

The NY Pass is almost always a bad deal. I can't imagine why you'd want to buy that, especially if you only want to see one museum.

Aren't Metro passes good on buses as well as the subway? And they are called officially METRO passes are they not? Correcting someone asking about Metro passes to say it's not the Metro but the subway seems a little pedantic. And it's hard to imagine if you ask a local about a metro card, they'll send you to a deli. Most New Yorkers are bright enough to figure out what you meant.
Or is there something else called a Subway Pass that I'm totally unaware of?

By the way, to be fair, the poster wasn't asking "can I take the Metro to ____." Then I could understand the "correction" to subway.