We are going to back track a bit. Even though this blog seems like it’s all about me (much like my life) I’m not traveling solo. Steve is also here and he has some thoughts. So, lucky you, you get to experience New York from his perspective –
New York is beautiful. New York is dirty. New York is exciting. New York is exhausting. New York is an old friend that makes you feel at home every time you come back to it and it’s an indifferent acquaintance that doesn’t even realize whether you’re there.
Now this blog is supposed to be about Sarah’s and my travels highlighting all the things we do at each of the places we stop, but this is going to be a bit longer of a post. I want to give a little background and of course highlight some of the things to do in the city and since I spent three years there rather than three days, there are a few more things on the list.
I grew up close enough to the city that it was always a place you could go without much fanfare, but far enough away that it had very little bearing on your everyday life at least as a child beyond knowing that some people’s parents didn’t get home until 7 or 8 o’clock because they worked there. As a kid I was never a fan. What did it have for me? There were better parks, better playgrounds, better sports facilities out in the suburbs; the beach was close by and half the people I knew had their own pools. I knew there were restaurants and bars and museums and theaters, but those were uninteresting, inaccessible or both. It wasn’t until after college that I even considered that I might enjoy living in the city, but I was an aerospace engineer by that point and it turns out New York is a place for artists, journalists, doctors, lawyers, and financiers not people looking to build hardware.
After several years around the country I found my way back to New York. Sarah had been offered a job in the city and after sticking it out with me in DC for a few years we decided to move somewhere for her career. When I finally imagined living in New York after college it always in the context of something I could do when I was young for a couple years at most. I’d need to still want to be out til 4 AM multiple nights each week, to be willing to pick up and go where ever the party was at any time to enjoy it I thought. But I came as a boring grown up instead. I was someone who was more excited about the bar that had a bunch of local craft beers on tap than $2 PBR tall boys.
Living in New York turned out to an amazing experience, even if was nothing like I would have pictured it when I considered it right after college. Rather than going out to the rowdiest dive bars and staying out late every night I turned out to be more of a home body who spent most of his time in his own neighborhood. I know that gentrification is quickly turning massive swaths of the city into remarkably similar yuppie havens with little character or history, but there are still neighborhoods to be found in the city. Astoria was definitely one while I lived there, as was Sunset Park when we moved to Brooklyn.
So with that overly long intro out of the way, let’s talk about some amazing things to do in New York. I haven’t read Sarah’s post on this yet so I’ll apologize for any overlap. Consider anything mentioned in both to just be that much more worth doing.
I love riding my bike in the city. My parents think it’s among the craziest most dangerous things I’ve ever done, which includes that time I went solo sky diving with only 5 hours of training, but it can actually be very nice. I recommend to anyone even if you need to rent a Citi bike to do it, ride the bike path along the Hudson River. It stretches all the way from the Battery to the Harlem River and has basically no streetlights, stop signs or car traffic crossing the path. Most importantly the views throughout are incredible, especially as you get up north towards the George Washington Bridge and ride across the river from the Palisades. I also highly recommend taking a bike or walking from Greenpoint to Long Island City. The view from the Pulaski Bridge is one of the best views of Midtown in the city.
Everyone knows there’s amazing food to be had in New York City so I’ll just highlight the places people might not know around where I lived. Sunset Park has amazing Chinese food. All of 8th Avenue is full of delicious dumpling places and I recommend setting aside an afternoon and going with a group of friends and getting 1 or 2 items at each place and then moving on, 8 dumplings will generally run anywhere from $2-4 so it’s also a super cheap excursion. Sunset Park also has amazing Mexican food and 4th and 5th
Avenues are filled with places to get an amazing taco, some of the trucks are as good as any restaurant, so don’t pass on the Tacos El Bronco truck on 5th and 37th . Everyone knows Astoria has some great Greek and Italian food so I’ll skip that and mention The Strand barbecue. It’s extremely good barbecue by my northerner standards (the meat is great, but don’t miss the corn bread a serving is the size of your head and delicious), plus a great beer and whiskey selection. My final food plug is Steve’s Key Lime Pies in Red Hook. I love Red Hook in general and highly recommend checking it out to anyone, but this place is far out of the way even for that neighborhood so I feel it’s worth mentioning.
There’s so much more worth doing of course. The museums are great; I’d recommend checking out the Cloisters, it’s a bit off the beaten path, but well worth it. Make the time to get to Coney Island, get a Nathan’s hot dog, ride the Cyclone, some things are clichéd for a reason. If you’re ever stuck in Times Square and hating the tourists duck into St. Andrews, an amazing Scotch bar that somehow avoids the throngs of camera-happy, map toting visitors.
But that’s it for now. I’ll be back to visit, but it’s on to the next adventure. So keep reading and I hope you enjoy the trip with us.
Bicoastal Surf 