Visit all the sites in whirlwind tour of NYC
Published Saturday October 11th, 2008
NEW YORK - En route to New York my wife and I made a pact.
With only three days in the Big Apple we decided to do and see as much as possible - credit card bill be damned.
That meant staying at not one, but two, great midtown Manhattan hotels, tickets to the hot Broadway musical Xanadu and eating well.
Also, we took in such Gotham icons as the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Rockefeller Centre, Chrysler Building, Trump Tower, Modern Museum of Art and Brooklyn Bridge.
All in all, not bad for 72 hours in the megatropolis.
The thing with New York is you know these places even if you've never personally set eyes on them before.
They are household names seen in countless TV shows and movies and in newscasts, newspapers and magazines.
It makes the sightseeing that much more exciting.
"New York is a unique city with a distinctive ambience and speed," said Veronica Popova, the associate sales director of the well-located Muse boutique hotel where we spent two nights.
"It's just so famous worldwide. It's one of those places everyone has to see before they die."
Such magnetism brought Popova to New York in 1988 as a tourist from Moscow.
"It was my first time to the U.S. and it just had to be New York," she remembered.
"I decided then I have to move here and work in the exciting hotel industry."
To get acquainted with New York's marquee attractions we first took the Gray Line double-decker hop-on, hop-off bus tour for US$39 each.
It starts in the tacky spectacle of Times Square - the place where Seventh Avenue and Broadway intersect and throngs of people congregate to shop in the mega-stores and simply bask in the energy of massive neon signs.
From there the big-name sites on the tour came fast and furious - Broadway theatres, the Empire State Building, Macy's (the largest department store in the world), Madison Square Garden, the Ground Zero site of the two towers of the former World Trade Center, City Hall, Wall Street, Battery Park, Brooklyn Bridge, Chinatown, Little Italy, the Chrysler Building, United Nations, Central Park and Rockefeller Centre.
The glimpse we got of Central Park enticed me to go jogging the next morning to check out some of the park's 337 hectares of trails, lawns and forest.
In the evening my wife and I returned for a romantic half-hour horse-drawn carriage ride through the south end of the park - the best deal in this expensive city at US$34.
Xanadu, that flop of a 1980 movie featuring Olivia Newton-John and Electric Light Orchestra music, has been transformed into a Broadway hit. (Tickets: US$110.) The movie's dubious lineage meant we went in as Xanadu doubters but emerged fans.
The show is hilarious.
It's one of those classic boy-meets-girl scenarios, but with lots of humour and tongue-in-cheek references to bad-movie-makes-good-musical.
There's also the easily identifiable Newton-John hits Suddenly, Have You Never Been Mellow, and, of course, Xanadu, along with the Electric Light Orchestra songs Evil Woman, Strange Magic" and All Over the World.
Other popular shows playing currently include the Wizard of Oz prequel Wicked, the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons show Jersey Boys, and at 20 years the longest-running show in Broadway history The Phantom of the Opera.
The daytime Circle Line Cruise (US$29) allows you to see from the water many of the landmarks you saw on the double-decker bus.
The highlight comes halfway through the two-hour cruise of New York Harbour when the Statue of Liberty comes into sight. The gowned lady stands almost 100 metres high on her own island, torch in hand thrust into the air.
The boat tipped slightly as everyone raced to one side to get the best pictures of the monument as the boat swished by as close as it could get.
For yet more differing views of the skyline we went to two famous towers.
The 86th-floor observation deck of the Empire State Building at night (US$19) allowed us to see the city illuminated in 360 degrees.
During the day we took the US$20 ride to the Top of the Rock (the 70th floor of the Rockefeller Centre).
While the views were fantastic, going to the Empire State Building on a balmy summer Saturday night was a mistake. Lineups and holding pens meant we didn't get to the top for almost an hour.
No such crowd problems at the Top of the Rock, which provides expansive vantage over Central Park to the north; midtown and downtown to the south; Hudson River and New Jersey to the west; and East River, Brooklyn and Queens to the east.
The Modern Museum of Art (the catchy MoMA for short) is the most talked about museum in Manhattan.
Currently it's the venue for a special exhibit of paintings and films by Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali. But all the other modern masters are displayed there too - Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Jackson Pollack and Andy Warhol.
With nine million permanent residents and 46 million tourists annually - all of them hungry - New York is a dining mecca.
On the recommendation of the concierge at the landmark Roosevelt Hotel, where we spent our other overnight, we headed to the Trattoria Dopo Teatro pre-theatre.
This affordable Italian eatery just off Broadway has made a name for itself with a big open lobster ravioli, extensive wine list and tiramisu for dessert.
Tao Restaurant on East 58th Street between Park and Madison avenues is trendy, noisy and busy as a result of its funky Chinese-Thai-Japanese fusion cuisine and modern decor featuring low lights, different levels and centrepiece five-metre Buddha.
We went back to Italian for our last night at Becco on Restaurant Row just off Broadway.
You can enjoy the US$22.95 prix fixe theatre menu of antipasto, salad and pasta there whether you're going to the theatre or not.
If you go
* The 205-room Muse boutique hotel on West 46th Street just off Broadway features modern art deco rooms. Overnight rates start at about US$309. www.themusehotel.com.
* The 1,015-room Roosevelt Hotel on East 45th Street at Madison Avenue takes up an entire city block. Overnight rates start at about US$345. www.theroosevelthotel.com.
* For general information, visit www.nycvisit.com.
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