Cross the Brooklyn Bridge and if you have time walk down into the Brooklyn neighbourhood DUMBO, it’s a buzzing and beautiful neighbourhood. It’s about 5 miles to walk from the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn bridge up to Central Park but if you take Broadway you hit a lot of the major sights on your way.
The Wall Street Charging Bull. This huge bronze sculpture of a bull, created by world renounced sculptor Arturo Di Modica was created in Brooklyn, put in the back of a truck and driven over to Wall Street. It was dumped right outside the New York Stock Exchange in the aftermath of the Black Monday stock market crash. It was created as a symbol of hope and resilience in a time when the economy had collapsed. It has since been moved from outside the stock exchange to its current spot at the bottom of Broadway. It’s a great piece of New York history and to get a clear photo with it I would recommend getting there early (9am).
The High Line is worth a visit although I wouldn’t put it above doing other things if you don’t have a lot of time. The High Line was originally an elevated railway line which has since been turned into a park. It’s in the Meat Packing district which is a great area and it has sun loungers and some nice contemporary art pieces in it. It ends at Vessel, a new landmark installed in Hudson Yards that consists of several joining set of stairs. It's $10 to go up.
Take the Staten Island Ferry over to Staten Island and back. It’s free, regular (maybe every 15 minutes) and provides amazing views of the Statue of Liberty. Top tip: the sun sets behind the Statue of Liberty and this means you and the Statue of Liberty are silhouetted in photographs. This can sometimes look cool but I found it just made my photos look a bit rubbish. I didn’t find that there was a lot to see on Staten Island unless you get a bus to the fort which looks cool. It’s popular to get the ferry over from the Staten Island ferry port down by battery park in Manhattan and then get off the ferry at Staten Island, walk round and get straight back on the ferry again at the Staten Island terminal back over to Manhattan.
Go to Joe’s Pizza for a slice of New York style pizza. It’s cheap and surprisingly really good. There are 5 located around New York - I tried the Times Square one and the Williamsburg one!
Go to The MET and see the Camp, Notes on Fashion exhibition. I would recommend going on a weekday and obviously the earlier the better. On the weekends the queues can be out the door and round the street corners on both sides of the door. The Met houses a range of exhibitions and when my mum joined me in New York and we went to see Notes on Fashion we also went to see Apollo's Muse celebrating 50 years since the moon landing. Notes on Fashion is a fabulous exhibit exploring the origin and meaning of the word 'camp' inspired by Susan Sontag's essay Notes on Camp as well as showcasing creative high fashion pieces.
Go and experience the One World Observatory. At first we were hesitant about spending approx $42 each for a nice view. We were worried that with limited time having to pick a time slot would constrain us too much and that this was going to be a very touristy expensive activity that would just leave us feeling a bit scammed. We went to check it out and decided to go back the next day. Having time slots has the huge perk of no queueing, you just turn up at your time and head up. The information about building the tower is really interesting and the user experience is really well thought out. The views were the best in New York and we spent about 1.5 hours on the experience. I would definitely recommend spending the time and money to do this attraction.
Go to a Broadway show. We went to see Chicago on Broadway and the performance was amazing. We got our tickets from the TKTS kiosk in Seaport. It was a much quieter kiosk than the Times Square one and we bought our Chicago tickets for 50% off. The production was of a really high quality and Times Square area at night is buzzing and busy when you come out of the theatre.
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