14. NEW YORK

NEW YORK CITY ( May 4th – 7th)

The drive From Boston to New York City (New York) was around 4hrs, taking us through the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. On route, we decided to stop at a nearby shopping mall, just outside Boston for a mooch, but to be honest it wasn’t that great.

As we approached New York the skyline came into view and the skyscrapers are just incredible. Our first impression as we drove into the city was one of huge buildings, narrow avenues, traffic congestion and packed sidewalks full of people. Den was driving and it was certainly not easy, but we found our way to the busy Hampton Inn, Times Square, on 48th street, by 7th avenue, unloaded the car and checked in. Den & Ang went to drop off the hire car while Keith & Ian took the cases to the rooms. The lifts were unusual. You selected your floor on an I- pad terminal outside the lift and it told you the lift number to take, there were several, all numbered. Once inside the lift there were no floor buttons and it just took you to your floor. It took some getting used to but It all seemed quite efficient to be fair. The hotel itself was prime location, right in the thick of things near to Times Square and Broadway, absolutely perfect.

For dinner on the first night we headed to an Italian, that was a favourite of Den & Keith’s as they had been to it on a previous trip and the food was fantastic. On the way back to the hotel we had a stroll around Times Square surrounded by crowds and the Ultra HD, actually probably 8k definition screens, that just bombarded your senses with adverts and music.

We were in New York for 3 full days, 4 nights and because there was so much to do we had a busy schedule, so we’ll take it one day at a time.

Day 1

After breakfast, first up was the Empire State Building which was about a 20 minute walk on 34th street. At 1454 feet high (including its antenna) it’s not the tallest building in New York anymore but it still draws a lot of visitors due to its iconic history, including of course King Kong. We were booked in for two visits, once in the morning and then the evening, to see the city all lit up. One thing we immediately noticed was the enhanced security, just like going to catch a flight at the airport, through the scanners etc. We were very lucky to get a nice sunny day and the views were stunning. For the first time we got to see lower Manhattan in all its glory and the new One World Tower, which had been built on the same site as the twin towers. It was a 360 degree view, upstream was Central Park, to the East was Brooklyn and the West was New Jersey, fab.

We then headed off to catch the tour bus. There are two tour bus loops, the red loop, which takes you down to lower Manhattan and the Blue loop, which takes you to the upper area and Central Park. We had set an ambitious target to do both loops in the afternoon, each loop was a couple of hours. Both loops were great, with more to see in the red loop. The only downside was the traffic congestion and they should definitely ban parallel parking like they do in some other cities. The roads are so narrow it just log jams everything. The tours do give you a real sense of the pace, hustle and bustle of the city and it’s not the place to come if you are looking for a nice relaxing break away from it all (ha, ha). In between the two loops we stopped for a drink in a bar near Hell’s Kitchen and then later on we had a stroll through Central Park which was also a very lively place.

In the evening we headed off to a Sports bar for some great food before heading back to the Empire State Building to see the city lights. It was much quieter than in the day and the views certainly did not disappoint. After that we walked back to the hotel and went to bed all knackered.

Day 2

Today, Ang & Ian were heading off to the see the Statue of Liberty and Den and Keith were heading to Brooklyn (they had visited the statue on a previous trip).

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France in 1886 to commemorate American Independence and the abolition of slavery. It was designed by sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (nice name) with the internal frame designed by Gustave Eiffel (yes, he also built the Eiffel Tower). It’s located on Liberty Island in New York Harbour, so you have to take a ferry to get to it and go through more security checks.

Ang & Ian had booked to go up to the crown on the statue, which is via a 162 step, very, very narrow spiral staircase up from the pedestal observation deck. It’s certainly not an easy climb and you could see that a few people were struggling. It’s so narrow that if you were slightly on the larger side it would be a very tight squeeze.

When back on the mainland, they headed off to Brooklyn Bridge and despite the drizzling weather decided to walk across it, which took about 25 minutes.

Den & Keith’s daughter, Molly, had recently completed an internship in New York and she had been living in the Northern part of Brooklyn. She had given Den & Keith a list of places to see, where she lived, some nice bars, restaurants and shops etc so they spent most of the day exploring around that area, including taking a water taxi, very nice. Later in the day they had a walk through Manhattan before getting back to the hotel to meet up with Ang & Ian.

In the evening we were heading to the iconic Yankee Stadium to watch the baseball, the New York Yankees were playing the Texas Rangers. Before that though, we had dinner at the Stardust restaurant. This was an amazing place as the staff are all very talented singers and they take turns blasting out tunes to entertain everybody in the hope that they will be talent spotted and get a gig in a show on Broadway and apparently quite a few have. It’s a lot of fun while you are having your dinner and definitely something worth doing again.

Back to the baseball, the stadium is about a 30 minute metro ride north, just on the edge of the Bronx and then a 10 min walk from the metro station. The Yankees are the most successful baseball team in Major League Baseball history, dominating the sport with 27 World Series wins. The stadium is great and we had a good view, but today they got well beat 6-2, but at least we saw 3 home runs, where they smash the ball into the crowd.

After the fifth innings Den went and got us all massive ice creams which were the Mr Whippy type (remember them). We ducked out before the last innings to get a jump on the crowd and made good time getting back to the hotel by 1030, all knackered again after a very long day.

Day 3

We had two big things to do today. First a visit to the 9/11 Memorial Site and One World Tower in lower Manhattan and secondly we are off to Broadway in the evening to watch the Michael Jackson ‘The Musical’ Show.

The sun was shining brightly and first up was the 9/11 Memorial. The centre piece is two 4000m2 pools with the largest man made waterfalls in the USA that comprise the footprints of the original Twin Towers symbolising the loss of life and the physical void left by the attacks. The waterfalls are intended to mute the sounds of the city, making the site a sanctuary for reflection and they are very moving and done very tastefully as you can imagine.

Next up was the One World Tower, or Freedom Tower as it is referred to. It is the tallest building in the USA and the seventh tallest in the world. It took 7 years to build, on the same complex as the Twin Towers, near to their footprints and was opened in 2014. At 1792 ft high it was made exactly the same height as the original twin towers. The views from the observation deck are amazing, looking out into New York Harbour and the Statue of Liberty and then uptown to the Empire State Building and further on to Central Park, fantastic. We were very lucky to get such a clear day.

From there, Ang & Ian went off to the 9/11 Memorial Museum and Den & Keith, having visited before, took a leisurely, but very long, stroll back up Manhattan, taking in many sites including in particular Soho and Greenwich Village to see a different aspect of New York life. They said it was fantastic, full of little bars and restaurants and a little less hectic than the main tourist spots.

The 9/11 Museum includes more than 40,000 images, 14,000 artefacts, more than 3,500 oral recordings and over 500 hours of video. It includes many pieces of rubble and steel from the Twin Towers, such as the last column to leave ground zero in May 2002. It even has parts of old concrete stairways that survivors used to escape. Anything you ever wanted to know about the attacks and the aftermath are in the museum, especially the memorial to every single individual who lost their lives and their backgrounds. You could easily spend several hours there and still not see everything.

It was a very, very quick turnaround back at the hotel as we headed out to Broadway for dinner and the show. We had dinner in a very nice ‘boujee’ steakhouse where they showed us a set of different knives and asked us which ones we would like to cut our steak with. That was a first for all of us!

After dinner we had a short walk over to the Neil Simon Theatre for the MJ ‘The Musical’ show. It was very busy, but we were in good time and had fantastic seats. The ‘jist’ of the story is that it focuses on MJ’s creative process prior to his 1992 Dangerous World Tour and it also includes elements of his early life growing up with his family and forming the Jackson 5. The star of the show was Matte Martinez who apparently only took over the lead role on September 2025, having previously served as a standby in the production. Well, he obviously must have had a lot of time to practice because he was incredible, he looked like MJ, danced like him and sang like him (loads of hits).The show was sensational and if you ever get the chance to see it don’t hesitate.

The show finished around 10.30 and it was only a short walk back to the hotel and Times Square was rammed as usual. We were checking out in the morning, saying farewell to New York and heading off to Pennsylvania and the city of Philadelphia.