One Traveler's Opinion: Thanksgiving in New York
 

I have lived in or around New York City several times in my life. I have also been a frequent visitor to that metropolis for more than three decades for both business and pleasure. In the course of that experience I have accumulated considerable wisdom about visiting that wonderful city.

Near the top of my list of “do’s and don’t’s” is that you should never, ever go to New York over the Thanksgiving Day weekend. The city is filled with tourists – many there for the first time - who have no idea of where they are going. It’s a circus. Also, a substantial percentage of New Yorkers decamp for other parts of the country over Thanksgiving. The result is something like Paris in August. The physical city is there, but the thing that gives New York its uniqueness is missing. Oh, and if you are driving into New York, you are on the road with everyone in the Northeast Corridor, headed either for the mall or for grandma’s house. The traffic jams are legendary.

We currently live near Boston and, since October, my wife and I have twice planned and twice not gone to New York. One time the weather was miserable. The other time one of us was coming down with something. We had tentatively re-scheduled for December 13. Then, apropos of nothing more significant than going to the pantry and finding that we were down to our last can of Dr. Brown’s Diet Black Cherry soda, my wife suggested on Friday that we advance our Day in the City to Saturday. My immediate reaction was one of horror… of sixty-mile-long backups on I-95 and of endless circling of streets before finally caving in and paying extortionate rates to park in a garage, where an attendant would likely back our car into a concrete pillar (if he did not take our car for a joy ride through the New Jersey Meadowlands).

But presented with a challenge, I let my logic kick in. What if we timed our trip so that we arrived in New York at, say, 9:30 a.m.? We just might catch a break from the On-Street Parking Gods, particularly if we parked on the Upper West Side instead of trying for the Holy Grail of a spot near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Of course, if my logic was wrong, then we were looking at $40 to park in a garage.

We left our suburban town at 6:15 and encountered nary a tap of the brakes. If fact, the closest thing to a traffic jam we encountered was pulling into a rest area on the Connecticut Turnpike and finding that three busses had just disgorged their passengers, every one of whom had a weak bladder. We pulled off at the next exit and found a McDonalds. At exactly 9:30, I turned off the 79th St. exit of the West Side Highway, drove two blocks to Broadway, turned left and then right onto 80th Street. From Broadway to Amsterdam there were no spaces. From Amsterdam to Columbus… I was getting ready to kick myself for getting caught in the traffic maelstrom that is the collection of no-entry streets around the Museum of Natural History when my wife yelled STOP!

I stopped. To our left, a car with Vermont plates was backing out of a space. Not a metered space. Not a space within twenty feet of a hydrant (fine: $110). A genuine, on-street space with alternate-side-of-the-street restrictions on Monday and Thursday. The car pulled out, we pulled in. We didn’t have to circle the block. Not even once. In three decades of driving to New York, this has never, ever happened. Moreover, our car was in the ideal place for our planned day.

We had a wonderful walk across Central Park on a picture-perfect morning under blue skies to the Met where we saw two terrific temporary exhibits, looked at the Met’s wonderful tree with its hundreds of Italian 18th Century Baroque crèche figures (you can see it at http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Chr...005/images.asp), and spent an hour in the new Roman galleries. Then, it was back across the park and lunch, followed by extended, leisurely trips down the aisles of Zabars, H&H Bagels, and Fairway, the holy trinity of food on the West Side.

And, by being in the museum shortly after it opened, we had the luxury of stepping back and marveling at the creative hand of Man without bumping into six people in the process. By the time we left the museum, the place was the zoo we had feared, with half-hour lines just to check coats and galleries jammed with the Thanksgiving weekend tourists intent upon adding some culture to go with the memories of the parade.

We left in the late afternoon and, yes, we encountered some traffic on the homeward leg of the journey. But overall it was a fantastic day. I have now revised my mental visitor’s guide to allow for Thanksgiving in New York – but only on the right schedule.

This morning, my wife and I dined on wonderfully warm, still-fresh bagels, scrumptious smoked salmon, and to-die-for apricot strudel. As I sipped a cup of tea, I had the wonderful sensation of knowing, first-hand, that timing is everything.

Oh what a glorius report and a treat to read--but tell me more about Fairway?

Neal -

Good story.

But I believe the minimum parking fine is now $150.

Neal - interesting report and so glad the parking gods shined down on you. Thanksgiving in NY is interesting. Midtown and other areas are mobbed, but where I live on the UES, it becomes a delightful ghost town. The garage in my building is almost empty because so many people leave to visit family. When we used to go to relatives on Long Island, the drive would be murder. But when they come to us, the drive to the UES is easy. Many NYers head to relatives in B'klyn, Queens, LI and NJ. Like you, I like to go a museum when it opens and get out when it becomes claustrophobic. It's so much more pleasant that way.

Great report!

I once spent nearly an hour on the rooftop with no one in sight but a security guard.

I have a secret free parking spot that has not yet failed me within a couple of blocks of the Met. I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you...

I walked in today from Fort Lee, but never thought to stop at the Met for the Christmas tree... on my list now...

gb944 - you walked in today from Fort Lee??? Explain please.

Easy, great parking near the western end of gwb... about a 20 minute walk each. I catch the A train at 181st and Fort Washington... from there, the city is my oyster...

gb944 - aaah, the A train - I visualized you walking to the Met!

I am glad the city was all you wanted it to be. And knewing where and when to go certainly made that easier.

By the way you may consider the following heresy. Instead of Dr. Brown's Diet Cream, I have become addicted to Stewart's Diet Cream.

Love Stewart's diet root beer.

Neal,

I loved this little snippet of your dream day trip. :)

Thanks! and Merry Christmas! :)

First, many thanks to all who have posted a comment. It's gratifying to hear from people even when you're not posing a question for the Fodors experts.

LoveMaine, Fairway Market (www.fairwaymarket.com) is an incomparable and inexpensive source for both fresh fruits and vegetables and for homesick ex-New Yorkers. The Dr. Brown's I mentioned is five dollars and change at Zabars for a six-pack. At Fairway, it's two dollars and change. The produce is wonderfully fresh. The market is at Broadway and 74th St.

NYTraveler, there was a fairly frightening article in the Times the day after Thanksgiving (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/ny...yregion)noting that the issuance of parking tickets is up 42% over the past few years and that last year parking tickets generated $624 million in fines. If the minimum fine is now $150 rather than $110, I believe you!

CentralParkGirl and GB944, for what it's worth, the two not-to-be-missed exhibits are 'The Philippe Montebello Years' and 'Beyond Babylon: Art Trade and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.'

The Montebello exhibit is noteworthy because, while it incorporates several hundred pieces already in the Met's collection, each one gets a curatorial note that adds to the understanding of the work. For example, I've long admired Thomas Anschutz's 'A Rose' in the American Wing, but this was the first time I was able to learn about the background of the painting and its subject.

The 'Beyond Babylon' exhibit is just overwhelming in its scope. If I had to choose a highlight, it's the contents of the circa 1800 BC 'shipwreck' that has been painstakingly retrieved over the past 20 years. It's an eye-opener.

And Sarge.... ditto!

Where did you have lunch? Inquiring minds. Good to "see" you here Neal.

Neal, where is that Beyond Babylon exhibit? Is it temporary and if so, when does it close?

sf7307 - The Beyond Babylon exhibit is at the Met.

Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.
November 18, 2008–March 15, 2009
Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall, 2nd floor

Neal - thanks for the info on the exhibits - they're now on my list of things to see.

About parking tickets - I've noticed a blitz in my neighborhood. And in early Sept, on a very quiet Sat morning, I ran into my bank to get cash while dh waited in the car. He waited in a bus stop on 79th and 1st - there was no bus in sight and no one waiting for a bus. A traffic cop in a car came and literally boxed him in the stop - no warning, please move on, etc. - trapped and then the ticket - $115 - not pleasant.

About Fairway - some of their prices have crept way up over the years - my Thanksgiving turkey was $2.99 lb. I think that's very high.

McLaurie, at the risk of getting slammed by the Fodors gourmets of the upper west side who will say in unison, 'you ate WHERE?', we had a teriffic lunch at the Silk Road Palace, just north of 81st St. on Amsterdam. It is right next to E&J's Luncheonette; one of the west side's great hangouts, but where the wait in interminable. Silk Road serves Chinese food at extremely reasonable prices (think lunch for two for $15 including tip). It is also fast, making it our default choice for a day trip to the city.

CentralParkGirl, I bought a fresh turkey at my local Roche Bros. for 49 cents a pound Thanksgiving week. But you could search their aisles all day and not find Dr. Browns, Stewarts ice cream, or a mango or avocado that I would care to bring into my home. There are certain things that are functionally unavailable outside of New York (except at nosebleed prices). For those things, Fairway's prices are more than reasonable!

Sounds good to me. Will have to give it a try sometime.