buffygirl

Thanks to all of the Fodorites for your generous sharing of info. DH and I and my parents just spent 5 wonderful days in NYC. I'm posting this in hopes that it will help others in doing trip research.

Saturday - Arrived in NYC (LGA) at about 1pm, skies were blue, temp was about 70, just fabulous coming from humid 90 degree weather in Houston. We checked into our hotel, The Melrose (63rd and Lexington) and were extremely pleased with both the accommodations and the location. We immediately bought subway passes and rode the 6 down to Grand Central Station. What a wonderful piece of architecture! We walked around that area and saw the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Builiding. We then took the 6 back up to the UES (Upper East Side) and went to the Met. Again, what an incredible building! We spent from 5pm-9pm viewing the European Paintings and American Wings mostly. I was amazed at the volume of work held in this museum. There must have been 25 Rembrandts. Amazing. We had a glass of wine at the Roof Top Garden of the Met overlooking Central Park. We ended the day with a late dinner at a neighborhood place called 212. Great food prepared in a healthy manner. I recommend this place.

Sunday - Got up and started with a croissant and latte from the Bread Factory Cafe, just around the corner from the hotel. We then strolled through Central Park, did the obligatory carriage ride (mom insisted ) then went to the Upper West Side to take in the Green/Flea Market around 77th and Columbus. We spent several hours looking at jewelry, silk wraps (bought one!), cheap sunglasses (DH bought several!) then we headed south on the subway to Canal Street. What a sight! Jillions of vendors selling all kinds of fake hand bags, belts, wallets, DVD's, you name it. I found 2 lovely purses WITHOUT the fake stickers on them. After about an hour, we'd had all we could take and walked north into Soho. We had a lovely brunch at Zoe, again a nice place that I would recommend. We walked around Soho and mostly window shopped then made our way to Washington Square/NYU stopping at many wonderful parks to rest our aching feet. We went on to the Chelsea area where I hoped to find the flower district, but it wasn't what I expected. A little disappointment there. We stumbled upon Madison Park near the Flatiron Building and had a great time people watching. We subwayed back to the hotel, cleaned up then went to Remi for dinner. We loved the atmosphere and the service was excellent. None of us really cared for what we ordered though so that was a bit of a disappointment. We all ordered pasta dishes and I think the next time I would order fish. The place was really lovely.

Monday - Woke up and it was cloudy. I guess you can't have perfect weather every day. We rode the subway down to Lower Manhattan and rode the Liberty Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. We were on a fairly tight schedule so we stayed on the boat and didn't get off. Next time I'd like to spend time at Ellis Island which looked fascinating. We cabbed over to Orchard Street for our 11:30 tour of the the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. I highly recommend a visit to this museum for anyone going to NYC. The history was fascinating, the tour was an interpretive one. The Museum folks have restored some of the apartments, but left others in the condition they were in when the tenants were evicted in 1935, just fascinating. From there we went to the Financial District, walked down Wall Street, saw Trinity Church (gorgeous!) and saw the World Trade Center Site which is now under construciton. We visited St. Paul's Church across from the WTC. They have a very moving display of photos, momentos and such of the WTC tragedy. I highly recommmend this as well. We shopped at Century 21, but there were too many dang people in that place. We bought nothing except umbrellas After walking many miles, we took the subway back uptown and had a lovely dinner at Mon Petit Cafe, just a block from our hotel. Excellent food, charming service. Very warm and inviting. Great meal.

Tuesday - Got up early again and went walking in Central Park. I think one could spend weeks in the park and never see the same thing twice. We enjoyed looking at all of the dog walkers and feeding the sparrows and seeing all of the chubby squirrels. We then visited the Frick Collection, wow, what a home and what an art collection. Again, this is one of the things I would highly recommend. The art was incredible and the mansion itself was fabulous. We then took the subway to mid town (where we met someone from another board I frequent) for a wonderful lunch at an Indian restaurant, Diwat, I believe. After lunch, DH and I shopped our way back uptown stopping in H&M (lots of great inexpensive trendy fashions), Tiffany, Banana Republic, Bloomies, you get the drift. We met my parents back at the hotel, cleaned up and took the F down to the Theater District to see "42nd Street". We were pleasantly surprised and slightly overwhelmed to find out that we had SECOND ROW SEATS (purchased through playbill)!!! The show was fabulous. Shirley Jones and son Patrick Cassidy starred in it. However, the understudy for the character Peggy, Erin Stoddard, absolutely stole the show! She was amazing. We all loved the show! We then walked up 9th Avenue to Cara Mia for dinner. We all agreed that this was the best meal we had in NYC. It tasted all the better after DH nearly got (accidentally) pulled into a sidewalk scuffle between 2 men. A little scary. I needed a glass of wine or 2 after that!

Wednesday - After a good nights sleep, we headed down to Filene's Basement down near 18th Street. He just HAD to go before we left NYC. So we rushed down, did a little more shopping, then departed for the airport.

All in all a great trip. Thank you all again!

GoTravel

buffy, your report sounds like one of my many trips to NYC! Great report!

Hann

Excellent trip report. I have been to the Tenement Museum a couple of times and really enjoyed it as well. Which tour did you take? We did the Piecing it Together Tour.

mclaurie

Sounds like a great time buffygirl. If you had gone to the flower district during the week rather than on a Sunday, I think you would have found it more "buzzy". The district is primarily a wholesale area & doesn't do much wholesale business on weekends.

The Melrose is not mentioned very often on the board. Might be interesting to tell others how/why you selected it & what you liked about it. It's certainly a great location. I understand you can use the health club in the building. Did anyone in your party?

Tell us more about Cara Mia. Was it very crowded? Had you made a reservation?

buffygirl

We took the Getting By tour at the Tenement Museum. It highlighted a German Jewish emigrant family who lived there from about the late 1860's through some time in the 1880's. The husband of the family disappeared at some point in the 1870's. The other family highlighted by the tour was an Italian family who lived there in the 1915-1935 time frame and were finally evicted in 1935 when the building owner could not afford the updates the new city code required.

About the Melrose...we chose it first because we prefer smaller hotels. I like the more personal service. We loved the fact that we were in a more "neighborhood" setting. We could walk out in the morning and go to little cafes for breakfast and not have to wait in a line a mile long for a cup of coffee (unlike in the more busy mid town area). The price was certainly right, we got our package on Expedia, 4 nights at the Melrose with round trip airfare from Houston for $580 each. Since we'd purchased a package on Expedia, the charge to use the gym was $18 per day. Even if it had been free, we did not have the energy to work out after walking miles and miles each day.

The rooms were small, but not so tiny that we were tripping over things. Our bathroom was roomy enough that both of us could get ready at the same time and not feel too cramped. The carpet was a bit worn in the rooms, and the walcovering gouged in a few spots from people's luggage, but still ok. They have recently renovated the lobby and all of the public corridors which are beautiful. We usually stay in 4*+ accommodations and were still very happy with this 3* hotel. We missed some of the amenities (coffee maker, robes, fancy toiletries), but again were happy with the price.

Cara Mia - we did make a 10:15 reservation, but our show ended about 9:30 and we had no problem getting in early. I would say that about 1/2 the tables were full. The servers were very polite and nice and the restaurant just had a nice feel to it. I had a walnut crusted chicken breast special that was incredibly moist and tasty.