NYC with 2 Young Kids -- Long Trip Report
Apr 25th, 2005, 10:46 AM
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NYC with 2 Young Kids -- Long Trip Report
Our first trip to New York City with kids was fantastic! Arrived Sunday, checked into Le Parker Meridien on 57th and 7th. The room was large enough for us and our kids (son, 6 1/2 and daughter 2 1/2), with lots of closet space and a DVD player. We heard some city noise even up on the 31st floor, but generally it was fine. After checking in, we rushed to our 7 p.m. reservation at Serendipity. I knew they wouldn’t allow strollers, so I had to haul it across the street to a garage ($2). They also had no highchair, and my daughter squiggled and wriggled in her ice-cream parlor type chair. This place probably is better for desert. The service was slow, and the food seemed blah. We walked back to our room and had a fun night settling the kids onto East Coast time (We live in SoCal).
Day Two, Monday: We left our room and went to a corner Pick a Bagel, then cabbed to the Natural History museum. I had researched it online, but I still felt like an idiot trying to bumble my way around and not miss anything. The dinosaurs are very cool, we loved the whale and the gems and meteorites. The big dioramas and some other exhibits seemed very old-fashioned. Of course, being stupid and about 90 percent organized, I left behind my list of child-friendly nearby restaurants, and the only place I could recall was closed Mondays. We ended up at the West Side Rosa Mexicano, which was very accommodating and pleasant. The kids enjoyed the tortillas and sweet potato fries and chicken, and they were gracious about parking the stroller and had high chairs. After lunch, we walked to Times Square to show my son the Toys R Us. This store is huge with an indoor Ferris wheel, a big hit and we returned again and again during our visit. After shopping and walking along Fifth Avenue (very disappointed in FAO Schwarz by the way) toward our hotel, we were all very tired. Back in our room, the kids rested and had room service. We used sitter found on babysittersguild.com (thanks to previous trip reporter!). Sitter was expensive, $25 per hour for two kids plus a small travel fee; but she was a preschool teacher and was great. She fed them, bathed them, blow-dried hair, got them to bed each night. My husband and I had dinner at Babbo. It was excellent and very worth calling a month in advance for a reservation!
Day Three: Empire State Building took three hours, with very long lines. I did not buy a City Pass, which I should have, or at least pre-purchased tickets. However, the security lines alone were still extensive partly because this was the first clear day in a while. Kids loved it up there; then we cabbed down to SoHo for a lunch in Zoe. Good food, kid-friendly, high chair. We had fun shopping (Scholastic book store, Moss, Jack Spade), then walked the kids to the firefighters museum on Spring. The 9-11 displays went a bit over my son’s head, but he liked the old engines and we got him a NYFD shirt and hat. We took a subway up to Dylan’s Candy Bar on Third and 60th, where both kids freaked. (“There’s even candy in the stairs!") We rushed to the room to change; the sitter came to watch our youngest and we took our son to Beauty and the Beast. Great, although a fan or something broke and made hideous noise for about 15 minutes in a crucial part of the last act (you couldn’t hear the actors). Also, the actors came on after their bows and asked for money for a charity; sounded like a great cause but it kind of ruined the magic by having Lumiere suddenly become a man in a silly costume asking for some cash. We had tried to eat at Patsy’s (heard Randy Johnson now goes here before games) but it was closed, so instead we had a late dinner at Trattoria delle'Arte, an old favorite. Great pizza, but the service was chaotic (they weren't that busy).
Day Four: By now, I’m wise how to feed my kids breakfast and I run to Pick A Bagel and bring food back to the room. ($14 for bagels, egg, sausage, juice and coffee as opposed to $14 for melon alone from room service). We head to the Central Park zoo, which isn’t the best zoo but was still fun for the kids. Then we shopped along Madison Avenue for a while, which was a big indulgence for me and bored the wee ones. We decided to have lunch at Virgil’s BBQ on 44th. Another kid-friendly and great choice, with good grub, a Yankees game on the TV, and everyone relaxed. We went back to Toys R Us, then revisited the shops on Fifth (American Girl etc). My daughter was too young, so I saved a bundle. I wish I had planned a museum trip for this time slot, because at the end I ran out of time. Instead, we wandered and shopped and went through the Park again. Babysitter night; we went to Spice in the Meat Packing district to meet some friends. I’ve had better Thai food, but it was a crowded, fun place to relax, eat and catch up.
Day Five: My son’s school friend is also in NYC and we meet them for the 8:30 ferry to Liberty Island. This is just an awesome experience. I’ve never been, although my husband once was up in the crown. Now, you can get to the top of the base and peer up inside the monument but you can’t go up inside it. There is a lot of security before you get on the ferry and then before you get started on the tour (including the bomb detecting puffer machines). Everyone enjoyed this outing, although having a 2-year-old made it tough. Here, she would shout to hear her echo and there were areas I couldn’t take a stroller. I had hoped to have our boys do the junior ranger program but they were very hyper seeing each other, and so we headed back to Manhattan. We could have gone to Ellis Island as part of our ticket, but chose to save it for next time. Instead, we walked to Ground Zero to pay our respects (this interestingly did not seem to go over my son’s head), then to Chinatown where we ate at the Peking Duck House that somehow I remembered from years ago. It was fine, not that baby-friendly, but a fun way to end our time with friends. We wandered a bit more, including my father-in-law’s childhood neighborhood and a stop at Gertel’s bakery for black-and-white cookies, before heading up by subway to our hotel. This night, we took the family to Gallagher’s Steak House. No high chair, but child friendly. They poured a coke in my son’s new NBA Store cup, brought house potato chips for free, and they split a nice roasted chicken for them while we enjoyed cocktails and steaks.
Day Six: We skip breakfast and take a subway to Brooklyn to the Basquiat exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. I’m a big fan of his work, as is my son. However, they had a no-stroller policy in the exhibit (crowd control), and my daughter was just awful. Since it was pretty empty, I begged for an exception, but they would not relent. I still see this as a highlight of our trip. It was an incredible collection of a tremendously talented artist who was once a junior member of the very museum! After this, we took a subway up to Jacques Imo for Cajun food near the Natural History Museum. Not the best restaurant, but very close to the museum and kid-friendly. We walked through the park to the Met, where we tried valiantly to see everything. We managed to see the mummies, instruments, the Washington/Delaware painting, moderns and the Europeans before our collapse. I personally could spend a day at the gift shop at all the books. We cabbed to our hotel, exhausted. Room service for the kids because Mom and Dad are meeting friends at Blue Hill restaurant downtown. This place gets most of their food from their farm, and while the atmosphere and wine list and service are great, the food was slightly strange. I loved my spring veggie salad, but the poached chicken looked raw and was just kind of plain. We wanted a nightcap and went to Flute, a tiny little champagne bar in a basement on 54th Street with a deejay and dark atmosphere. It was fun.
Day Seven. It’s a sunny Saturday, and everything is now extremely crowded. We breakfast at the Brooklyn Diner (no high chair) and head to Moma, but the lines are around the building and our kids aren’t up to it. I try to push for the Whitney, but am outvoted as we go to SoHo again to wander around. We return to John’s Pizza on 44th for lunch (big hit, but I was glad we went at 1:40 when we missed the matinee crowds). It was fun to walk past the lines waiting to go into the hit shows: Spamalot, The Producers, Billy Crystal. A last stop at Toys R Us, then up to meet a friend for coffee at the Dean and Deluca inside the Borders at the new Times Warner Center. It was great to check out the TWC. Now it’s time to pack, but we head out one last time to watch the skaters still doing their thing at Wollman Rink (to the song Imagine, which was touching). We feed them burgers in a little grill in the hotel lobby (crowded but fine plain burgers-fries-shakes). Then we had the sitter one last time, and headed to Picholine on W. 64th for a dinner for two. This was a very quaint place with great food and service. I had a fantastic duck and truffle risotto and we had an interesting and smelly cheese course; the waiter knew one of our beloved Angels baseball players from childhood; we had to wait for our table but the comped our drink at the bar. Just a nice night.
Day Eight: The wake-up call is 4:45 a.m. and we’re back in our California house before lunch. Exhausted.
Some regrets: I should have gotten the City Pass. I didn’t think it was worth it, but it would have let me go in and out of museums as I had an opportunity. I would have pushed to do Moma or the Whitney during the week, before things got so mobbed, and saved some of the wondering stuff for the weekend. There were many things I discovered to do while there and we ran out of time: A stage production of Junie B. Jones; an exhibit on first ladies at the Historical Society; the puppet show in the park. I am glad I figured out the subway with kids (carry her down in stroller, have them open gate to platform, keep her in stroller on ride). I probably should have figured ways to feed my kids healthier and cheaper dinners.
Mostly, considering the drawbacks of travel with young kids, we had fun and everyone did the things we wanted. Even if it meant Toys R Us nearly every day of the trip.
Day Two, Monday: We left our room and went to a corner Pick a Bagel, then cabbed to the Natural History museum. I had researched it online, but I still felt like an idiot trying to bumble my way around and not miss anything. The dinosaurs are very cool, we loved the whale and the gems and meteorites. The big dioramas and some other exhibits seemed very old-fashioned. Of course, being stupid and about 90 percent organized, I left behind my list of child-friendly nearby restaurants, and the only place I could recall was closed Mondays. We ended up at the West Side Rosa Mexicano, which was very accommodating and pleasant. The kids enjoyed the tortillas and sweet potato fries and chicken, and they were gracious about parking the stroller and had high chairs. After lunch, we walked to Times Square to show my son the Toys R Us. This store is huge with an indoor Ferris wheel, a big hit and we returned again and again during our visit. After shopping and walking along Fifth Avenue (very disappointed in FAO Schwarz by the way) toward our hotel, we were all very tired. Back in our room, the kids rested and had room service. We used sitter found on babysittersguild.com (thanks to previous trip reporter!). Sitter was expensive, $25 per hour for two kids plus a small travel fee; but she was a preschool teacher and was great. She fed them, bathed them, blow-dried hair, got them to bed each night. My husband and I had dinner at Babbo. It was excellent and very worth calling a month in advance for a reservation!
Day Three: Empire State Building took three hours, with very long lines. I did not buy a City Pass, which I should have, or at least pre-purchased tickets. However, the security lines alone were still extensive partly because this was the first clear day in a while. Kids loved it up there; then we cabbed down to SoHo for a lunch in Zoe. Good food, kid-friendly, high chair. We had fun shopping (Scholastic book store, Moss, Jack Spade), then walked the kids to the firefighters museum on Spring. The 9-11 displays went a bit over my son’s head, but he liked the old engines and we got him a NYFD shirt and hat. We took a subway up to Dylan’s Candy Bar on Third and 60th, where both kids freaked. (“There’s even candy in the stairs!") We rushed to the room to change; the sitter came to watch our youngest and we took our son to Beauty and the Beast. Great, although a fan or something broke and made hideous noise for about 15 minutes in a crucial part of the last act (you couldn’t hear the actors). Also, the actors came on after their bows and asked for money for a charity; sounded like a great cause but it kind of ruined the magic by having Lumiere suddenly become a man in a silly costume asking for some cash. We had tried to eat at Patsy’s (heard Randy Johnson now goes here before games) but it was closed, so instead we had a late dinner at Trattoria delle'Arte, an old favorite. Great pizza, but the service was chaotic (they weren't that busy).
Day Four: By now, I’m wise how to feed my kids breakfast and I run to Pick A Bagel and bring food back to the room. ($14 for bagels, egg, sausage, juice and coffee as opposed to $14 for melon alone from room service). We head to the Central Park zoo, which isn’t the best zoo but was still fun for the kids. Then we shopped along Madison Avenue for a while, which was a big indulgence for me and bored the wee ones. We decided to have lunch at Virgil’s BBQ on 44th. Another kid-friendly and great choice, with good grub, a Yankees game on the TV, and everyone relaxed. We went back to Toys R Us, then revisited the shops on Fifth (American Girl etc). My daughter was too young, so I saved a bundle. I wish I had planned a museum trip for this time slot, because at the end I ran out of time. Instead, we wandered and shopped and went through the Park again. Babysitter night; we went to Spice in the Meat Packing district to meet some friends. I’ve had better Thai food, but it was a crowded, fun place to relax, eat and catch up.
Day Five: My son’s school friend is also in NYC and we meet them for the 8:30 ferry to Liberty Island. This is just an awesome experience. I’ve never been, although my husband once was up in the crown. Now, you can get to the top of the base and peer up inside the monument but you can’t go up inside it. There is a lot of security before you get on the ferry and then before you get started on the tour (including the bomb detecting puffer machines). Everyone enjoyed this outing, although having a 2-year-old made it tough. Here, she would shout to hear her echo and there were areas I couldn’t take a stroller. I had hoped to have our boys do the junior ranger program but they were very hyper seeing each other, and so we headed back to Manhattan. We could have gone to Ellis Island as part of our ticket, but chose to save it for next time. Instead, we walked to Ground Zero to pay our respects (this interestingly did not seem to go over my son’s head), then to Chinatown where we ate at the Peking Duck House that somehow I remembered from years ago. It was fine, not that baby-friendly, but a fun way to end our time with friends. We wandered a bit more, including my father-in-law’s childhood neighborhood and a stop at Gertel’s bakery for black-and-white cookies, before heading up by subway to our hotel. This night, we took the family to Gallagher’s Steak House. No high chair, but child friendly. They poured a coke in my son’s new NBA Store cup, brought house potato chips for free, and they split a nice roasted chicken for them while we enjoyed cocktails and steaks.
Day Six: We skip breakfast and take a subway to Brooklyn to the Basquiat exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. I’m a big fan of his work, as is my son. However, they had a no-stroller policy in the exhibit (crowd control), and my daughter was just awful. Since it was pretty empty, I begged for an exception, but they would not relent. I still see this as a highlight of our trip. It was an incredible collection of a tremendously talented artist who was once a junior member of the very museum! After this, we took a subway up to Jacques Imo for Cajun food near the Natural History Museum. Not the best restaurant, but very close to the museum and kid-friendly. We walked through the park to the Met, where we tried valiantly to see everything. We managed to see the mummies, instruments, the Washington/Delaware painting, moderns and the Europeans before our collapse. I personally could spend a day at the gift shop at all the books. We cabbed to our hotel, exhausted. Room service for the kids because Mom and Dad are meeting friends at Blue Hill restaurant downtown. This place gets most of their food from their farm, and while the atmosphere and wine list and service are great, the food was slightly strange. I loved my spring veggie salad, but the poached chicken looked raw and was just kind of plain. We wanted a nightcap and went to Flute, a tiny little champagne bar in a basement on 54th Street with a deejay and dark atmosphere. It was fun.
Day Seven. It’s a sunny Saturday, and everything is now extremely crowded. We breakfast at the Brooklyn Diner (no high chair) and head to Moma, but the lines are around the building and our kids aren’t up to it. I try to push for the Whitney, but am outvoted as we go to SoHo again to wander around. We return to John’s Pizza on 44th for lunch (big hit, but I was glad we went at 1:40 when we missed the matinee crowds). It was fun to walk past the lines waiting to go into the hit shows: Spamalot, The Producers, Billy Crystal. A last stop at Toys R Us, then up to meet a friend for coffee at the Dean and Deluca inside the Borders at the new Times Warner Center. It was great to check out the TWC. Now it’s time to pack, but we head out one last time to watch the skaters still doing their thing at Wollman Rink (to the song Imagine, which was touching). We feed them burgers in a little grill in the hotel lobby (crowded but fine plain burgers-fries-shakes). Then we had the sitter one last time, and headed to Picholine on W. 64th for a dinner for two. This was a very quaint place with great food and service. I had a fantastic duck and truffle risotto and we had an interesting and smelly cheese course; the waiter knew one of our beloved Angels baseball players from childhood; we had to wait for our table but the comped our drink at the bar. Just a nice night.
Day Eight: The wake-up call is 4:45 a.m. and we’re back in our California house before lunch. Exhausted.
Some regrets: I should have gotten the City Pass. I didn’t think it was worth it, but it would have let me go in and out of museums as I had an opportunity. I would have pushed to do Moma or the Whitney during the week, before things got so mobbed, and saved some of the wondering stuff for the weekend. There were many things I discovered to do while there and we ran out of time: A stage production of Junie B. Jones; an exhibit on first ladies at the Historical Society; the puppet show in the park. I am glad I figured out the subway with kids (carry her down in stroller, have them open gate to platform, keep her in stroller on ride). I probably should have figured ways to feed my kids healthier and cheaper dinners.
Mostly, considering the drawbacks of travel with young kids, we had fun and everyone did the things we wanted. Even if it meant Toys R Us nearly every day of the trip.
Apr 25th, 2005, 12:17 PM
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Wow, sfamylou, I am impressed! You did a ton of stuff with two kids in tow - and enjoyed yourself to boot! As a NYC parent, I compliment you on hitting some terrific places, having some very good meals and staying sane! So glad you had a good time.
Apr 30th, 2005, 02:20 PM
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Great trip report! I think you planned an amazing trip and managed to have an authentic NY experience with young kids - even though we live in the city, we often find ourselves lunching at Virgil's and then spending time at the Toys R Us! Thank heaven for babysitters, huh?
I'm also impressed that you made it out to Brooklyn for Basquiat. Despite the no-stroller policy for this particular exhibit, the museum is kid friendly. For future reference, on most weekend mornings they have a free program for the younger set called Arty-facts, which is a lot of fun.
I'm also impressed that you made it out to Brooklyn for Basquiat. Despite the no-stroller policy for this particular exhibit, the museum is kid friendly. For future reference, on most weekend mornings they have a free program for the younger set called Arty-facts, which is a lot of fun.
Apr 30th, 2005, 07:08 PM
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Thanks, yes, I think the Brooklyn Museum also has a Saturday afternoon dance party sometimes, but we went mid-week and missed the fun. It was a trip highlight and I was shocked that in all my trips to NYC over the years I never made it there before now.
