NYC'ers..locals please help :)
 

Sorry I know this is not really travel related but I need some guidance. My husband is up in NYC for a year..possibly more. He has an apartment off of 3rd and 37th.
If you live in the city and don't have a car..but will use public transportation...where is the easiest location to get to for shopping at Wal-Mart, Target, you know discount stores (doesn't have to be those specifically).
I am going to go up and get him situated..Please any advice would be great appreciated.
Thank you:)

No Walmart or Target near the area. You could probably take NJ Transit to a big box store.

There is a Kmart in the NYU area, next to the Astor Place subway stop.

I have heard from friends that New Yorkers will rent a car for a day or two to drive out of town for a shopping run. But they tend to do this rarely, or so it seems to me.

Yeah, I do that once in a while, but I rent by the hour from Zipcar. Especially when there's just too much to carry or an item that's to big and heavy.

Thanks for your replies. I will check out NJ Transit.

With rare exceptions, Manhattanites don't shop at Walmart or Target. What do you need? You can find everything you need without leaving Manhattan.

There is also a Kmart on 34th Street between 7th And 8th Avenue. Rather than rent a car and schlep to NJ, it would probably be easier to buy what you need at the Kmart and take a ca back to the apartment, if you can't carry it.
More importantly, most NYers don't buy a lot in bulk because their apartments are small and we don't have the storage.

Also, if you determined to buy at a Target, there is one in Queens and also in Brooklyn.

What are you looking for specifically?

oohh nice typos . . .
take a CAB back to the apartment,
if YOU'RE determined to buy

First, what does he need that has to go Target?

NYC is filled with thousands of stores that offer the cheapest crap to the most expensive stuff in the world.

There is even an IKEA in Brooklyn that delivers and assembles.

Although there are more chain stores in Manhattan than before, there are no malls in Manhattan and the chain stores have less square footage.

So give us a shopping list and price range and maybe we can help out.

Yeah, he doesn't really need Wal-Mart, but I certainly missed Target while I lived in Manhattan.

In addition to KMart, there is a Bed, Bath & Beyond near the Bridgemarket on 1st around 60th.

So I guess that means he's staying in the Marriott longterm apartments there. I live in that neighborhood, so if you have more questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

That's a pretty convenient location. It's going to be way too difficult for him to get to Wal-Mart. As people have recommended below, we go to Bed, Bath & Beyond or KMart to get most household stuff (alarm clocks, cooking utensils, water bottles, etc.).

There's a Bed, Bath, and Beyond at 61st/1st Ave (he takes the bus up 1st Ave and gets off just north of the store); to return, he takes the bus down 2nd Avenue and gets off between 36th/37th.

There are 2 convenient Kmarts (Astor Place ... 6 Train to and from Astor Place; store is accessed directly from the downtown subway platform). Or at 34th (but a worse store, IMHO).

For typical soap, shampoo, etc., we tend to shop at drugstores. There's a Duane Reade at 34th/3rd and a Walgreen's (with a particularly good food selection, including milk and cheddar cheese) at 36th/3rd.

There's a (rather expensive) grocery store at 39th/3rd ... a D'Agostino). If you can believe, it a cheaper option is Whole Foods at Union Square (esp. for produce); an even cheaper option is Trader Joe's on 14th Street between 3rd and Irvin Place.

As another poster suggested, you can get to Target in Brooklyn by subway, but I find that store particularly ill-stocked and way too crowded. The savings just aren't worth it to me. There are no Wal-Marts in NYC, and I doubt very much if he could get to one on any transit line, though it's possible.

If you want to do a lot of shopping in one fell swoop, then it might be worthwhile to do a one-day car rental. You can get a car for $62 per day from Alamo on 31st Street (between 3rd and Lex). Tolls will cost you an additional $12 or so, including an $8 tunnel toll coming back into NYC. I think you can see why we don't usually bother with trips to NJ for shopping unless we already have a car. NJ Transit tickets are also not cheap.

Zipcar is meant for habitual renters and is simply not set up for a one-time rental. It has a one-time fee plus a monthly fee in addition to the hourly or daily rental charges.

But there's a big Newport Center Mall on the PATH train from 33rd/7th Ave. in Manhattan, and that trip is much cheaper ($2 I think). It has a Sears and some other big stores; another mall on the subway is the Queens Center Mall.

Also, there is a Bed Bath and Beyond at 6th Avenue and 18th Street - they have everything from sheets and towels to toothpaste and toilet paper. They also deliver in Manhattan, same day for (I think) $15 or so . . .

Wow thank you for the feedback and sorry it took so long for me to post. Thank you for all of the responses. Doug Stallings- bingo that is where he is at! I think at this point I am going to rent a car and do the one fell swoop deal. My husband is already up there. I am just trying to take care of the set-up with things he likes. He is too busy to take the time. Also trying to get the "lay of the land" in his neighborhood. Doug he is working down off of Union Square. His commute is not bad at all. Doug I welcome any suggestions. I will definitely post from time to time. I have ordered several books on NYC..including Fodor's :) Books are helpful but I really prefer a local perspective. I appreciate everyone who responded..your insight is very helpful to me. Thank you again!

P.S. Thank God for the internet and travel websites!

the Newport Mall mentioned above by Doug, there is also a BJ's warehouse store.

That is "Across from" the Newport Mall.

poor guy

If you rent a car, it just dawned on me that you should drive to Long Island instead of NJ (no tolls except at the Midtown Tunnel, and you can take the Queensboro Bridge or Brooklyn Bridge for free). There are Wal-Marts, Targets, and other big box stores out there, as well as many malls. There's even an Ikea store in Hicksville. I think you could get to these stores fairly easily, and it would help to minimize your costs.

Still, I'm not completely sure you'd save enough to really justify the cost of renting a car plus gas.

If you really wanted to make a day of it, you could rent a car and go to the Woodbury Common outlet mall in upstate NY. On the way, you pass a big super Wal-Mart (it's on the left side of the NY State Thruway, but I can't remember the town), and there are other big box stores in a few shopping centers along the way as well. There are outlets closer to NYC (including a brand-new one in Long Island), but Woodbury Common is really one of the best in the US, though it's a zoo between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Assuming this place is basically furnished and you're looking for smaller items, it's really silly to leave Manhattan (imo). TJ Maxx, Century 21, Daffy's, Bed Bath & Beyond, K Mart and dozens of other home stores would certainly have what you want. IKEA is a ferry ride away in Brooklyn and the ferry is FREE on weekends. If you add the cost of a car rental into the equation, any money you MIGHT save by going to these big box stores will certainly be lost in the rental price not to mention tolls, gas and perhaps parking.

katefrisco - I'm still wondering what your husband *needs* for his year in NYC that you can't get from the various shops mentioned above within Manhattan. When you add up the car rental cost and toll, I don't think you'll save any $ by going to the discount stores.

For me it would be easier...I really don't want to walk all over the city dragging things around..not for me. I just want to spend a day buying groceries, linens etc..to get him properly set up. There is at least one other wife that wants to team up so really the cost is not bad at all.
But thanks again for the suggestions :)

You could also order from Fresh Direct (online grocer) so you are getting groceries delivered directly rather than hauling them from wherever even with a car.

Does your husband's building have a driveway where you can park your rental car and drop off your purchases? If not, wouldn't that be a huge hassle to drag your purchases from whereever-you-park-your-car back to his building?

Many people have suggested you go to a store and just take a cab back to your husband's building. No "walking all over the city draggin things around."

Virtually every supermarket in NYC has delivery services. You will waste more time, money, and agony driving around suburban NY than it would take to visit the neighborhood grocer, Kmart, and Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Why not have a real NY adventure and live like most NYers do? You asked for our advice . . .

There are a few supermarkets a few more blocks south of your husbands place on Third Ave bet 31st and 32nd, a Gristedes and a Food Emporium. Both are in the basements of tall apartment buildings. Doug may know if they offer better prices than the closer Dagostino.

Also opposite the Bed, Bath and Beyond is The Container Store if you need to get organizer-type things.

I know alot of New Yorkers who shop in the 'burbs and bring back their spoils to the city.

It's under different circumstances though as alot have family there, but there are still advantages in doing so.

If you take a hypothetical shopping spree where you need food, electric stuff, bedroom stuff, cleaning stuff, little furniture stuff, etc..., you can accumulate it all in the car and dump it home in one fell swoop. That's why you see everyone double parked on the weekends in residential areas.

If you were to do this in the city, you can't accumulate your stuff along the way. You have to take as much stuff back to the apartment, go to another store and repeat n-times. Cabbing in NY is no picnic either, especially crosstown and during rush hour and sometimes your stuff won't fit in the cab, especially if you hail a Prius. Also, there is Sam's Club (where you can save much money) and the like up there, none of which are in the city.

Shopping locally would work though if you have at least a couple of days to buy your stuff so you can spread yourself out and not kill yourself. If you're pressed for time, I'd go the car route.

Yours,

A *fake* New Yorker

(who has been living in NYC for the past 10 years)

if you do not mind buying bulk, there is Costco( w a wine department) in Long Island city . You would need membership to get in or ask a member to bring you in.
If you need home stuff there is a home depot( a hugh one) within 5 min driving distance from that costco.
I personally order everything I could order like toothpaste and soap and cereal and organic dry fruit in bulk from Amazon.com so that they are delivered to my home.

Hope this helps.

I have lived in NYC all my life the last 12 years in Manhattan and I never felt the need to go to a subirban store for clarity or purity.

The OP has never stated what her husband desperately needs, the size of the apartment. and whether it is furnished or not. So how can you recommend any place when you do not know what the need are?

And we rent cars very often. That is own inconvenience in terms of finding a place to park, what car you actually get at the car agency, and how much junk you can fit into the car.

And then there is another concept, adapt to your new environment.

wow. This has been funny to read.

I don't think kate gets the whole car thing in Manhattan.

Kate: Renting a car for a day in Manhattan will cost approximately $70. for one day. You can try zip car but there are membership fees and once you have a car for more than 4 1/2 hours, the daily rate doesn't pay. You'll pick up the rental car somewhere around 40th Street on the East side,(most of the big companies have their major offices there). Say you take Doug's good advice and you drive to the Target in Queens, at the Queens Center Mall. You'll take the Midtown Tunnel, which is free when you exit. You'll drive to the all, park, fill your shopping cart with everything you think your husband needs, come back and put it all in the rental car. Then you'll drive back to Manhattan through the Tunnel, which will cost you an additional $5. ($4.50 if you use an EZ pass, which you can rent for an additional $2. from some of the big agencies)

That was the easy part.

Now you want to unload all your stuff into your building. You will probably have to double park and unload, because there probably won't be a parking space within 200 feet of your building . If you're lucky, the doorman will have a cart and can watch all your stuff while you go return the car. But first you have to get gas for the car or pay $6.00 per gallon for the gas you've used. Then you return the car to the agency, walk back to your building, and tip your doorman for the help.

I'd say conservatively, you'll spend $80 doing this.

Or, you can order everything you want online and have it shipped or you buy whatever you want with 12 blocks of his apartment and can have it all delivered or you can just get a cab home.

really. be environmentally sensitive. lose the car.

And that assumes that you can double park. There are a lot of police in that area (it's not far from the UN) and you may find your self moved along - and having to circle for a while before you can double park.

If you're ticketed a basic parking ticket is $150. It goes up if other factors apply (hydrant, etc). And if it's a day they clean the streets and your car is towed is costs in excess of $1000 to get it back (parking ticket, towing fee and impound fee) - plus most of the day.

Most people in Manhattan don;t own cars since they are just too much trouble. You're much better off buying locally and dragging things in a cab - or paying for delivery for something extra large - than doing the whole car rental thing - including wandering around the wilds of Queens when you don;t know where you're going.

This is Manhattan - we have groceries, medications, and meals delivered all the time. We have EVERYTHING delivered. That's just how the city is set up.

In the poster's defense, it's fairly easy to park short-term at this location on 3rd Ave, but there will be no doorman to help the poster with her purchases. I assume they have a cart, but I've never seen one. This building is nowhere near the UN and won't have any of those issues.

These apartments are fully furnished, so the purchases we're talking about are personal things (perhaps an extra spatula for the kitchen or an alarm clock or laundry detergent).

I also agree with the rest of the posters here that it's far easier and probably cheaper to make one trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond and have all those purchases delivered. That store also has an extensive drugstore with the best prices in Manhattan, if not NYC. Kmart will have everything else (especially larger sizes of soap, laundry detergent, etc.). Anything else can be picked up at Duane Reade, which is less than 5 minutes away by foot (Walgreen's is 30 seconds away by foot).

It's hard for newcomers to Manhattan to get over the suburban notion that it's easier and quicker to jump in the car and drive to a big store. But as all the New Yorkers here will tell you, one of the reasons why we choose to live in Manhattan is to avoid that very thing. Families here often buy in bulk, particularly groceries and paper products, which are about twice as expensive in Manhattan as Wal-Mart. For everything else, you save about 20% by buying outside of Manhattan. Most of us also don't have room for the super-sizes that you get at Wal-Mart, so it would never enter our mind to go to all that trouble. But if you have a lot of kids, you make the room.

I like the suggestion about going out at the Midtown Tunnel. That's an exceptional suggestion since it's free going out of Manhattan and a toll coming INTO Manhattan (the same thing goes for the two major tunnels to NJ, though those tolls are onerous, at $8).

The Queens Midtown Tunnel was a toll in each direction

http://www.mta.info/bandt/traffic/btmain.htm

Or, again, go to freshdirect.com and order a value pack of bounty paper towels, charmin toilet paper, groceries and have them delivered. Fresh Direct doesn't have a great selection of drugstore items (IMHO)...but again, that's what Duane Reade's on every single corner are for. GL to the OP.

Seriously, it's easiest to just order everything online.

Freshdirect.com for food and basic toiletry items.

67wines.com for wine/liquor, though fresh direct has some selection, the prices are higher for on their wines and liquors.

drugstore.com for pretty much everything toiletry and semi-household.

target.com for stuff from target.

bedbathandbeyond.com for bedding towels, or potterybarn.com, or thecompanystore.com or wherever you like to buy your bedding/towels--they all have websites and ship. You can hang out at the house and wait for it/set it all up for him or whatever you want to do, though if it's a doorman building, there is no need to wait. I am a NYC local, I do have a car, but never really use it except occasionally for work or to go upstate or whatever, I have nearly every single thing that I purchase delivered to my doorman.

There is no reason to schlep around in the car, or on foot for that matter.

Your call though. Just an FYI, the Targets in Brooklyn and Queens are kinda nasty, picked over, and you will probably have to pay to park. Yes, the malls charge for parking--even in Westchester, when you just dropped some cash at Nordstrom, you'll suffer the indignity of having to pay for the privilege to have wasted time schlepping there to shop.

Boy, you're right adu, I'm living in the past - the tunnel charges both ways now . . . since March!

I am one of the rare Manhattanites that DOES have a car (my husband needs it for work), so we're spoiled by making regular trips to Costco, Stew Leonard's, and yes, Target. It's rough in our 5th floor walkup, but we do it for the savings! :)

Other than the Target in Brooklyn (which I agree is very crowded and unpleasant) there's also a Target in Queens that's decent, and from the 37th and 3rd that will be much faster anyway. But I agree, Long Island the best suggestion if you do end up renting the car.

If you really want to stock up on inexpensive home goods, I would suggest a trip to the Ikea in Hicksville, Long Island. It's under an hour from the east side of the city, and there's also a nearby Target.

Your husband will have all year to adjust to NYC's "all delivery, all the time" lifestyle - for now, just focus on getting him all set so YOU'RE comfortable leaving him alone for the year :)

Once a month I rent a car, for a very important business appointment, a poker game. We use the car the next morning to drive to Brooklyn and stock up at the Fairways.

Yes. I and many NY'ers do the once a month car rental thing . . . and the big shop at either the Fairway or Stew leonards or wherever is particularly convenient . . but we know where we're going and all the little tricks to make it convenient. It's really not that logical for the OP to attempt. But it seems katefrisco has made up her mind. Good luck.

K-mart is the same as Walmart and Target. If he needs bulk items it's easier to carry on different trips than lugging it back all at once from Brooklyn or Queens.

That is true, there are many little things to know that make life easier for day trips - where to park, where not to park, where to gas up, traffic patterns, having an EZpass (some rental places *charge* you for using their EZpass), avoiding garbage trucks in the side streets, squeezing through double parked cars, taxi cab behavior, etc...

I suggested the car because it looked like a one time deal. I'd definitely go carless if this was a regular thing.

If you are going to rent a car anyway, I would suggest driving up to Westchester. White Plains to be exact. There is less traffic than Queens and Long Island and although you will have to pay for parking, it is cheap and there are no tolls to get there. There is a Target, Walmart, two major shopping malls, the Westchester (Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus), The Galleria (Macy's, Sears), with all the stores you can think of plus Fortunoff, Whole Foods and a Container Store all within a walking distance (without packages) or five minutes with car. Tons of restaurants if you get hungry. If you are up to a quick splurge have a drink ($13.00) at sunset at 42, the rooftop bar at the Ritz Carlton and you will see a magnificent view of NYC. You can mapquest directions, but it is simply Thruway north to 287 exit 6, make a right into White Plains. You can find the exact locations of these places on-line. oops there is a small toll on the thruway on the way back but there are alternate routs with no toll if you mapquest or have a gps.