Johnnyman7,

Don't spend a huge amount of money on food. Food in LA is just as good, if not better in every category you can name.

I was raised in LA and now live in New York, so for me the "we're not in LA anymore" things to do are:

Drink. You don't have to drive.

Go to the top of the Empire State building at twillight.

Go to the Guggenheim.

Take taxis.

Rent a bike or skates and enjoy Central Park.

Wander through Greenwich Village, but not on Friday or Saturday nights.

Take the subway and visit Wall Street, especially around lunch hour. Take the Staten Island ferry.

Eat out of pushcarts. Don't worry -- you won't get sick. You might enjoy wandering through Chinatown and Little Italy.

Visit the Met, but not the whole thing.

If you have a special interest of almost any sort, you can pursue it in New York. If you kayak, or are into television, or into cooking, or jogging, or art, or writing, or Native American history, kinky sex, there is a way to plug into it here.

Pod hotel is new and in a reasonable area. for October they showing rates of about $300 per night (including tax) for a room with double bed and bath. (They do have lower rtes but it's for bunk beds and shared bath.)

Applecore hotels (La Quinta, Red Roof etc - have availability - depending on dates from about $260 up). Check tripadvsiro.com to see latest reviews - since theese are simple and should be clean - but again - very basic).

Hi,

I just returned from New York (I'm 24) and thought I'd throw in my two cents.

SEE A SHOW. It's an amazing experience. I'm not sure if you're into theatre at all, but there's something for everyone. Avenue Q is a bit naughty (language, situations) but very relevant for 20 somethings. And hilarious. I got the tickets for 35% off at TKTS at South Street Seaport. Got in line an hour and 20 minutes before it opened and got terrific seats. Or check broadwaybox.com for discount tickets to a bunch of stuff.

Jersey Boys and Spring Awakening are wonderful too (they still have the original casts), but aren't discounted and tickets (esp. for Jersey Boys) sell out well in advance. All 3 (Ave Q, Jersey Boys, and Spring Awakening) won the Tony for Best Musical in their respective years. RENT is also great, as is Wicked.

I also loved walking/shopping in SoHo and the Village. Washington Square Park was great for people watching - all ages, socio-economic status, ethnicity, etc.

I mostly ate at deli's (sandwiches, salads) and prices were incredibly reasonable. Stayed at the Affinia Dumont and it was terrific. I HIGHLY recommend it.

Loved the MoMA. Seeing Starry Night is amazing (as are the other works, many of which I recognized, and I have a limited art background.)

Anyways, enjoy the city!

I absolutely do not mind staying in a budget hotel. My husband and I stayed at the infamous (think Borat) Wellington once and we thought it was just fine. I also used Holiday Inn Points and stayed at Holiday Inn Manhattan with my teens and it was just fine, too.They really enjoyed taking the NYC Party Shuttle tour. That will give you an overview of the famous stuff and help you get your bearings as far as the city is concerned. Do it on your second day! Go to the library and get a guide book. I have a fun one called "Irreverent Manhattan". You can find small ethnic eats everywhere. Pack a few bottles of your own wine for an evening cocktail. Drinks are really high. Use the subway when you don't walk. It's lots faster than taking cabs!

Wow, this forum seriously rocks. Thanks for all the advice guys! If you ever need any info about California (SF, LA, etc), feel free to email me: it's my screenname at hotmail dot com.

I got a laugh when "Fall06" said that one memorable thing is to take a cab. HAHA - in LA, nobody takes cabs, so it is a once-in-a-lifetime thing for me.

jubil - what apartment did you stay at on the Lower East side?

All - more questions, of course!

1) I'm thinking the best way to pick a hotel is to pick the general area first. My fiance and I dont mind taking the subway/walking (we do marathons, actually), so keeping that in mind, is there a specific area of town that you recommend staying? In other words, do you know of an area that may be "outside" of tourist-central that is still in a good location - perhaps where other NYers live so we can really be immersed in the way of life? One caveat to this: we are foodies, so we want an area with great food nearby. Frommers says that Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Murray Hill, or the Upper West Side are like this. Is that true?

2) In your opinion, whats the best hotel in the Empire and Affinia hotel groups?

Thanks again everybody!

Johnnyman:

I go to NYC couple times a year and now my daughter lives in Brooklyn. They have some great restaurants there as well.

We stay in the theater district (the hotels I mentioned earlier). We get on the subway and take the N or the R down to Prince/Broadway or on down to Canal and walk back up Broadway to SoHo. and get off there. We love to wander around SoHo, Little Italy, Canal street (which is wild)and the Village. Our fav pizza place is Two Boots On Bleeker off Broadway. Hole in the wall, but great pizza. We walk almost everywhere because there is so much to see and I hate cabs.

Not the Upper West Side if you want good food.

Actually, even though it's tourist-central, staying in "midtown west" isn't a bad choice:
- Hell's Kitchen immediately to the west is a great, "real" neighborhood. It has some good food options, especially for breakfast/brunch (Amy's Bread for a quick yummy bite or two; Vnyl for brunch or lunch; Rice & Beans (Brazilian) or Pam's Real Thai for hole-in-the-wall cheap ethnic home cooking).
- Central Park is just a few blocks north: take your morning run, then grab food at the above, or Pain Quotidien (lots of locations), or the premade section of the huge Whole Foods in the lower level of the Time Warner center.
- Centrally located, and lots of subway options to take you everywhere else! (Take a cab for the experience - but not at rush hour, and not crosstown unless it's late at night!)

Another hotel suggestion would be the Hudson, which is a bit past its hipster glory of a few years ago but is still a cool hotel, located just west of the Time Warner Center on 59th and 9th Ave.

I wouldn't consider either Murray Hill or the Upper West Side particularly known for their restaurants; Chelsea is marginal...

As foodies, you'll appreciate the places I mentioned in Brooklyn: Superfine changes their menu daily according to what's fresh, plus they have a great bar - and an orange-felted pool table! Grimaldi's always tops everyone's list for best NY pizza (do a search on Fodor's or Google to see what I mean). And Jacques Torres' chocolate is one of quite a number of high-end boutique chocolateries we have now in the city. (There's also a Manhattan location.)

I personally love Two Boots - but the restaurants, not the takeout branches like the one mentioned above. Restaurants are on Ave A in Manhattan and a Park Slope, Brooklyn location. Note, however, that this is *not* typical NY pizza: the "two boots" are Louisiana and Italy, and there is a high degree of fusion between the two! (Crawfish pizza, anyone?) The pizza is thin-crust and dusted with cornmeal on the bottom; many eclectic toppings with names such as "Mr. Pink" cover the spicy sauce and cheese.

Lastly, you may want to go to the Guggenheim for the architecture, but it's not a must-see for the art inside. Go ahead and wander into the lobby to see the Frank Lloyd Wright building when you're in the neighborhood for the Met museum, but don't pay to go in unless there's a show you really want to see. Also, I have heard that the experience of going to the Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center is better than that of the Empire State Building. Having only done the latter, I will say that I try to dissuade my visitors from doing so since the lines are really long! (TOTR takes reservations for timed entrances.)

fall06 advised you to skimp on food during your NYC vacation. I disagree. There are plenty of great restaurants in Los Angeles and even more lousy restaurants in New York City; but most of the BEST restaurants in America happen to call Manhattan home. If your tastes go in that direction (you did call yourself a "yuppy", didn't you?) then I think you should go for at least one splurge dinner when you are in town. Gramercy Tavern is an old classic, or you could try a newer spot like Eleven Madison Park or Batali's over-the-top Del Posto (though I prefer Babbo personally). I'm ignoring the super-high-end choices like Le Bernardin and Daniel because a truly filthy-rich yuppy wouldn't have waited this long to see the big city lights. Want the best steak in the world? Try Peter Luger's. Corned beef? Try the Carnegie Deli or Katz's. Pizza? You have your choice of John's or Grimaldi's or DiFara's or Arturo's or Patsy's.

Have fun. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

The Upper West Side is not known for its very upscale restaurants,but it is an upscale neighborhood (ok, "yuppie" still fits)that has lots of food options at reasonable prices. If you want to walk around an area of town, shop, admire buildinga and then eat, it's a great neighborhood. Good food shopping too at Zabars etc

Johnnyman7,

Here's a link to my Trip Report which might help;

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...1&tid=34778469

Jim

look, if you live in LA, it's not like you've never tasted great food. The best restos of NYC are not better than the best restos of LA. If I were spending a week in NYC coming from LA, I wouldn't spend a lot on food. I'd eat off the best pushcarts and in the best dives.

By the way Johnnyman, if you're coming for a week, why not rent a studio? A hotel room won't be bigger and you can probably get one for 200 per night.

By the way, Le Bernadin is more moderately priced and better service and food than most places rated over it in this thread.

But it's not the fun of bing in New York -- to fight your way into some famous restaurant and pay through the nose for it. Speaking of noses, follow your nose.

Definitely go to Chinatown.

If you happen to come the weekend of October 6th and 7th, check out OpenHouseNY. It's a wonderful annual weekend event where many special places throughout the five boroughs which are normally closed to the public or usually charge a fee are open and free. The list of places participating has grown every year since it started about 5 years ago. openhouseny.org

Upper west side is mid/upscale residnetial with lots of families. There are tons of restaurants and outdoor cafes with good neighborhood food of every possible ethnicity at inexpensive to moderate prices (since many people either eat out or order in most nights).

It is not a haven for really upscale restaurants until you get down to Asiate and Per Se at the Mandarin Oriental. Nor are thre a lot of super trendy clubs - those are downtown.

Most of the food on the Upper West Side is barely a cut above diner food. It is made for take-out and families and a substitute for cooking at home without breaking the bank. It's just undistinguished food -- and it's actually not all that cheap. You can of course ferret out the delicious pizza or falafel or Thai dish, but there is a greater density of good eats elsewhere in the city.

As another poster pointed out, the area of Hell's Kitche, west of Times Square, is great for budget-conscious foodies and it's convenient to just about everyplace you might want to go in New York. It's very well served by subway lines. A rental in that area, or even a bit north or south of it, would work for me.

Gotravel,
I actually drove down from Ontario. So I had my own vehicle. We stayed in Totowa and travelled in every day. Last trip I actually stayed in Manhattan at the Interconintental and I flew into JFK.

topping for myer

Johnny,

1) Seven nights is a good first trip - you won't see everything but you will get to see many of the major tourists sights and at least a glance at many of the differnt neighborhoods.

2) Put me in the "do not stay in Times Square area" camp - I consider it more of a place for the tour bus crown that is only in town for few days. No matter where you are, you'll never be far from anything you want because of the extensive subway system and endless taxis.

Better options for late 20 somethings:

Hells Kitchen - a good neighborhood only a few blocks from Times Square and with great neighborhood restaurants, cafes, etc. without paying tourist trap prices.

West Village is another good neighborhood with an overwhelming number
of cafes, retstaurants, bars, clubs and boutiques.

East Village/Soho has similar amenities to West Village but has a younger aged population. Population is also more diverse.

3) Take the same effort get the most out of your evenings as your daytime sightseeing. See a Broadway show (or two), walk the Brooklyn Bridge, go to a nightclub and see some talant (BTW, many bands and such visiting from Europe don't make it past NYC), try to walk through at least a dozen neighborhoods in the course of your time here.

First of all, I wanted to thank everybody for their advice. There is some great nuggets of information in this thread that hopefully helps every NY visitor out, not just me. So thank you all for your time and effort.

An update: my fiance, through her place of employment, has booked the Club Quarters Rockefeller across from Rockefeller Center. This is a business hotel (so no frills), but the rate we can get is incredible, so we're taking advantage of that.

The only problem is that the hotel is fully booked for ONE night we are there, so I think we'll have to find another hotel just for that one night. Lame. I'm thinking either a Marriott in Midtown or in the Financial District (so I can use my Marriott points).

Will Financial District be totally dead on the weekend?

I have some specific food-related questions, so I'm going to start another thread regarding those specific questions.

Thanks again for all the input!