BRIAN BLAKE'schildren had seen New York on screen and heard it eulogised in countless songs. Now they were thrilled to be part of it
FOR A GENERATION used to travelling abroad for their summer holidays, few destinations can still generate a feeling of anticipation quite like New York.
If this is true for adults it is even more so for children, who appear to develop an endless and seemingly insatiable fascination for all things American from an early age. Our kids had seen the Big Apple on TV and at the cinema, and heard it eulogised in countless songs, but now they were going to be part of it for a week – and, boy, were they looking forward to it.
The decision to go had been sealed when the cost of flights for the four of us dropped from more than €1,800 to just over €1,300 during the weeks of monitoring fluctuating prices on www.aerlingus.com.
It was never going to be a cheap holiday, but at least we were getting value for money. Hotels were also offering deals as the recession took its toll on the number of tourists visiting the city.
After clearing security at Kennedy Airport we got our first sight of the iconic New York skyline during a 40-minute journey in one of the city’s famous yellow cabs, which took us to our hotel.
Then reality began to sink in for Aoife, who is 11, and Aisling, who is nine, who couldn’t quite believe they were heading to a city they had dreamed of visiting. “I can’t believe we’re actually really here,” said a tired but happy Aoife as she tried to keep her eyes open as the gently rocking taxi made its way over Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan.
It is a good idea to take a cab from the airport into Manhattan, as a fixed-price arrangement means it costs just $55 (€43), including tolls and tip – cheaper than the deal the minibus drivers were offering.
We were staying at the family-friendly Hotel Beacon, ideally located at Broadway and 75th Street, just far enough from the bustle of the city for comfort but within a short subway ride of the sights.
It’s also close to Central Park, which, with its playgrounds and wide open spaces, is the perfect venue for families wishing to take a breather after a few hectic days of sightseeing.
All the rooms at the Beacon have a kitchenette, with fridge-freezer and gas cooker, which is invaluable for heating up a takeaway when you’re too tired to venture out after a long day.
Whoever coined the phrase “So much to do, so little time” could have been talking about New York. You have to approach sightseeing as if it’s a military operation. The first trick is to list in order of preference the things you want to do, then work through them methodically. With this approach, if you don’t get to all of them – and, believe me, you won’t – it isn’t too disappointing when you miss the attractions at the bottom of your list.
With time of the essence, you’ve got to hit the ground running, so after a good night’s sleep that helped to ease the jet lag we decided to walk downtown. A good starting point is the new NYC Company visitors’ centre, on Seventh Avenue at 52nd Street, where you can use interactive displays to customise your itinerary and print a unique Google Earth map of the city with your choice of attractions.
Our first port of call was Times Square, which, although at its best at night, still packs an impressive punch during the day, with its wall-to-wall – or should that be building-to-building? – neon displays. It also has some of the city’s most popular tourist attractions.
There’s Madame Tussauds, where you can get your photograph taken with wax models of everybody from Johnny Cash and The Beatles to Leonardo DiCaprio and Britney Spears. One of the attendants raised a giggle when she announced that the restrooms were behind Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Star billing or what?
Our girls’ favourites were the latest pop sensation, the Jonas Brothers, and the man of the moment, Barack Obama. Aisling was the first to notice that a rather sad-looking George Bush stood alone in the room – nobody seemed to want to get their picture taken with him. Politics can be a cruel business.
There’s also a 4D movie theatre in Madame Tussauds, the fourth dimension being shaking seats, water sprays and rumbling floors that spark into action as the animal stars of a BBC wildlife feature narrated by David Attenborough make their presence felt around the cinema.
Perhaps best of all, the girls got a wax impression of their hands as a lasting souvenir of their visit, in a process that involved dipping them into ice-cold water and hot wax. Although it brought a grimace to their faces, both agreed it was well worth it.
Next door to Madame Tussauds is Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, based on the TV series, featuring such exhibits as a lock of Elvis Presley’s hair, a torture chamber with all its grisly tools, a collection of shrunken heads and a six-legged cow. Not to everyone’s taste, but the kids loved it.
These attractions don’t come cheap. Entry for a family of four to Ripley’s costs $100 (€80), and it doesn’t end there. When you add souvenirs, professional pictures and the wax hands if you go to Tussauds, you won’t get much change from $200 (€160).
Also on Times Square, but free to visit once you manage to resist the temptation to spend, spend, spend is the Toys“R”Us flagship store, a 10,000sq m shop that describes itself in that very New York of ways as “the center of the toy universe” and has as its star attraction a 20m indoor Ferris wheel.
If you’re thinking of taking in a Broadway show – and it would be a pity not to – Times Square is the place to buy cut-price tickets. You can’t miss the TKTS kiosk, where shows available at discounts of up to 50 per cent are displayed on an electronic billboard. One word of warning: be prepared to queue.
The show we ended up going to – with a degree of scepticism, it has to be said – was Disney’s The Little Mermaid, but we needn’t have worried. It turned out to hugely enjoyable, both for adults and children, and confirmed that Broadway delivers a theatrical treat that’s hard to beat.
Although it’s tempting to take taxis everywhere, you’re better off using the subway. Children pick up things quickly, and our two had mastered the mysteries of the system within a day or two – so much so that they were the ones leading the way through the myriad of tunnels as we headed from destination to destination.
There are few better ways to experience the authentic Manhattan than by squeezing into a packed carriage at rush hour, seeing how New Yorkers really live. And don’t be afraid of getting lost – once the locals saw a family with a map, they were tripping over themselves to offer advice.
A holiday to New York wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the top of one of its skyscrapers. We chose the Top of the Rock attraction at Rockefeller Center, where we took the high-speed elevator to the 67th floor for breathtaking views of the city.
Rockefeller Center, described as a city within a city, is made up of 19 buildings, which include the NBC TV studios, a sunken garden that doubles as an ice rink in winter, a shopping concourse, the Paine Webber Art Gallery and, our favourite, the legendary Radio City Music Hall.
We took the Stage Door Tour of that venue, getting to experience what it would be like to perform there when we stood at the centre of the stage. We also met Margaret, a member of the venue’s dance troupe, the Radio City Rockettes, who posed for a treasured photograph with the girls.
Having visited the Top of the Rock, there was no need to do the same at the Empire State Building, but we did take in the NY Skyride there, a virtual tour in a simulator that takes you on a roller-coaster ride of the city’s landmark buildings. It’s the next best thing to a trip in a helicopter.
Of all the museums in New York, the huge American Museum of Natural History is one of the best, if a little daunting even for the kids, with 30 million specimens and cultural artifacts in 45 permanent exhibition halls spanning four blocks. The dinosaur and ocean-life sections are good places to start.
Within the museum, the Rose Center for Earth and Space was the most popular with our girls. Don’t miss the Cosmic Collisions show at the high-tech Hayden Planetarium, which takes you on a journey through space and time, simulating the impact of meteorite strikes on earth.
The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are a must-visit, given the resonance they have for visitors to New York from this country, and offer some idea of the ordeal faced by the estimated 750,000 Irish people who were “processed” here on their way to new lives in the US.
Allow the best part of a day for this, as the queues for the ferries can be quite long, but it’s well worth the wait. The ferry journey to and from the islands provides probably the best view of the Manhattan skyline you’re likely to experience during your visit to the city.
Don’t be put off by guilty feelings of morbid fascination if you’re thinking of visiting the World Trade Center site, which has become a tourist attraction since the events of 9/11. There’s an air of serenity about the place that is unique among the bustle of the rest of the city.
The nearby Tribute WTC visitor centre (www.tributewtc.org), which features original missing-persons posters, personal stories and pieces of the building, is sensitively handled and gives adults and children a sense of the enormity of what happened on that fateful day.
Shopping is the first thing that pops into many people’s minds when New York is mentioned, and there are great bargains to be had, whether in Manhattan itself, in stores like Century 21, Filene’s Basement or Loehmann’s, or in the outlet malls outside the city. We spent a day at Jersey Gardens, a 40-minute bus ride from Port Authority Bus Terminal (www.njtransit.com), where it was hard to miss the Irish bargain-hunters as they wheeled empty suitcases from shop to shop with grim determination etched on their faces.
New York may be the city that never sleeps, but one thing’s for sure: after a day traipsing around the attractions your kids will sleep like logs. And you won’t hear that most annoying word in your children’s vocabulary – New York and “boring” just don’t fit in the same sentence.
We didn’t get to do or see everything we wanted to, but – whisper it in case the kids are listening – there’s always next time.
[ www.nycgo.com ]
Where to stay, where to eat and where to go if you're planning a family trip to New York
Where to stay
Hotel Beacon. 2130 Broadway at 75th Street, 00-1-212-7871100, www.beaconhotel.com. Lives up to its billing as the “jewel of the Upper West Side”. Kitchen facilities, spacious rooms and widescreen TVs make it ideal for families.
Best Western Hospitality House. 145 East 49th Street, 00-1-212-7538781, www.bestwestern.com. Apartment-style accommodation in the heart of Midtown. Suites include full kitchen and living-and-dining area. Daily in-room continental breakfast included in price.
Affinia Manhattan. 371 Seventh Avenue at West 31st, 00-1-212-5631800, www.affinia.com. Within walking distance of Times Square and near Penn Station. Studios and one- and two-bedroom suites with kitchen and dining facilities.
Westin New York at Times Square. 270 West 43rd Street, 00-1-212-2012700, www.westinny.com. At the centre of Times Square, probably more suited to families with older children.
Comfort Inn Midtown. 129 West 46th Street, 00-1-212- 2212600, www.comfortinn. com. Smoke-free hotel in central location within walking distance of Rockefeller Centre, Grand Central Station and Fifth Avenue. Continental breakfast included in the price.
Where to eat
Niko’s Mediterranean Grill Bistro. 2161 Broadway at West 76th Street, 00-1-212- 8737000, www.nikosgrill nyc.com. Reasonably priced Greek-style cooking.
Lombardi’s. 32 Spring Street, between Mott and Mulberry Streets, 00-1-212- 9417994, www.firstpizza.com. As close to perfect pizza as you’ll get at the heart of Little Italy.
Mughlai. 320 Columbus Avenue at 75th Street, 00-1-212-7246363. Indian restaurant on the Upper West Side featuring dishes with a Persian influence. Takeaways are also available.
The Boathouse Central Park. East 72nd Street and Park Drive North, 00-1-212-5172233, www.thecentralparkboathouse.com. A touch of class at the heart of Central Park, with linen tablecloths and napkins. Less expensive than you would imagine for the location.
Fairway. 2127 Broadway at 74th Street, 00-1-212-5951888, www.fairwaymarket.com. Traditional New York-style supermarket with a large hot-food counter for takeaways on nights when you’re too tired to venture out.
Where to go
American Museum of Natural History. Central Park West, between 77th and 86th Streets, 00-1-212-7695100, www.amnh.org. Plenty to do and see in this mother of all museums.
Radio City Music Hall. 1260 Sixth Avenue at 50th Street, 00-1-212-2474777, www.radiocity.com. If you can’t get to a show there, be sure to take the Stage Door Tour.
Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. 00-1-212-3633200, www.nps.gov/stli. Deservedly one of New York’s most popular attractions, with close to four million visitors last year. Purchase tickets to board ferries at Castle Clinton, Battery Place. Get there early to avoid queues.
Broadway. Be sure to take in a show. Disney (www.disneyon broadway.com) currently has three productions: The Little Mermaid, The Lion King and Mary Poppins.
Central Park. A 340-hectare oasis of greenery at the centre of Manhattan featuring playgrounds, nature treks, a reservoir, boating lake, public theatre and zoo.
Where to shop
Century 21 (22 Cortlandt Street, 00-1-212-2279092, www.c21stores.com), Filene’s Basement (2222 Broadway, 00-1-212-8738000, www.filenesbasement.com) and Loehmann’s (2101 Broadway at 74th Street, 001-212-882-9990, www.loehmanns.com) for cut-price designer labels.
Jersey Gardens. 651 Kapkowski Road, Elizabeth, New Jersey, 00-1-908- 3545900, www.jerseygardens. com. Tommy Hilfiger, Abercrombie Fitch, Calvin Klein and any other designers you care to mention. Pick up discount vouchers by showing your passport at reception.
Hot tip
Buy a book of discounted passes if you’re planning lots of sightseeing. CityPass (www. citypass.com) and Explorer Pass (www.explorerpass.com) offer up to 50 per cent off entry fees and allow you to bypass queues.
Go there
Aer Lingus (www.aerlingus. com) flies to Kennedy Airport, in New York, from Dublin and Shannon. Continental Airlines (www.continental.com) flies to Newark Airport, in New Jersey, from Dublin, Shannon and Belfast. Delta Air Lines (www.delta.com/ie) flies from Dublin to Kennedy Airport.