A McTour of New York City—Part 1
I needed a birthday gift for Julie.
Whenever her birthday rolls around, I usually ask her what she wants, and she’ll usually give me one or two ideas, like a necklace or a skirt she liked, or a gift card, or (sigh) yet another Vera Bradley bag. She struggles to come up with ideas, mostly because she isn’t materialistic and doesn’t feel like she needs much. And I have to admit, I usually look at her list and feel…bored.
You see, I’m a romantic. I love big, sweeping, grand gestures. I am forever trying to come up with ways to sweep Julie off her feet (see: an adults-only weekend in Disney World). And I always end up feeling like Don Quixote, forever attacking windmills, because like the windmills, Julie does not really have a romantic bone in her body.
Mind you, this is not a criticism. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t thank the Good Lord for making her a low-maintenance woman. Valentine’s Day? I’m off the hook. She views it as a Hallmark holiday and a waste of time (plus, candy is 50% off on Feb. 15). She’s very un-demanding, which by and large makes life easier for me. She just wants to get through the day with everything ending up where it’s supposed to be so she can get some sleep. You have to love that.
But on the flip side, my grand romantic gestures don’t elicit much reaction more than, “Yeah, it was nice.” And yet, because I am wired the way I am (or because I’m an idiot), I just keep trying.
Anyway, I was trying to come up with better ideas for her gifts than the ones she gave me, and I had an idea: Julie really loves live musicals. She loves Broadway shows. And it had been ages since we’d last been to New York. And we’d heard great things about
Aladdin on Broadway. Why not try to get tickets?
So I did some research, found tickets at less than the list price on Stubhub, and then found a cheap downtown hotel deal on Hotwire.com. Her birthday is mid-March, and the weekend prior looked like the last weekend before peak-season pricing hit New York City. This was suddenly looking very do-able.
So I floated the idea past Julie as an early birthday present, and the unthinkable happened:
I got a reaction.
“Oooh, I’d love to!” she said. Sounds like a green light to me.
And yes, we were only 3 months removed from ditching the kids for Disney World alone, so we were really abusing both our kids’ goodwill and my parents’ patience for child care, but…well, sorry, kids. Mom outranks you.
We only had the budget for a 24-hour getaway, so it would be a whirlwind visit to the city. I like to refer to this as a “McTour”, or the fast-food of vacations.
I worked a half-day, then picked up Julie at home. She had already dropped the kids off at my parents’ house. We drove two hours up the New Jersey Turnpike (and lived to tell the tale), and then took the Garden State Parkway for a very short distance before exiting at the Metropark station. When determining how best to enter the city, I considered driving all the way in for…oh, about a half-second. Traffic congestion is always a nightmare at both the Holland and Lincoln tunnels. And I don’t want to say parking fees are exorbitant inside the city, but it may actually be cheaper to just leave your car there and buy a new one for the ride home. Generally speaking, when planning a trip to New York City, expect to be gouged at Disney-level prices while dealing with much surlier Cast Members.
So, I researched transit options and found that the very best option for us was to take
New Jersey Transit. The Metropark station was very convenient, right off the Garden State Parkway, train tickets were $10/person each way, and it would only be about $15 to leave my car there overnight. I currently drive a Hyundai P.O.S., so I wouldn’t even have been heartbroken if it wasn’t there when we got back.
We had no issues getting train tickets or a seat, and settled in. It’s a slow ride, with 7 stops on the way, and takes about an hour to get into Penn Station, which is a labyrinth of tunnels located directly underneath Madison Square Garden.
And with that, Julie and I were now in the heart of downtown Manhattan. I decided to go right away to get a slice of my favorite NYC pizza.
Just kidding. Any guesses as to where I stole that joke from?
When I say it had been a long time since we’d been in New York City, I mean it had been a different world back then. We had last visited in May of 2001, and we’d gone to the top of the World Trade Center that day. Four months later, it was gone.
We were traveling light—we’d layered our clothes and only packed toiletries and a change of underwear. We figured we could survive with one outfit for 24 hours, and this enabled us to pack only a single backpack and walk around the city, using the subway if we had to. For now, we walked from Penn Station north through Times Square.
Times Square gets a bad rap from native New Yorkers, and I can see why: it’s loud, crowded, obnoxious and crammed wall-to-wall with every national chain brand you can think of. And yet, I also have to point out: it’s distinctly New York. Where else in America could you see a place like this? So I get that it is a tourist trap, but I don’t mind visiting as a tourist, because I can’t see something like this at home.
We made only one stop: the
Disney Store. It’s basically the same as any other Disney Store, only larger and with more NYC-centric merchandise. We didn’t buy anything there, but I did enjoy the Tangled theme they used for the escalator inside.
We walked a few more blocks north to our hotel: the Sheraton Times Square North. This place turned out to be a great deal. It was a great location, within walking distance of Times Square, Central Park, and Rockefeller Center. But it wasn’t in the middle of Times Square, so we didn’t have to deal with the hubbub there. The rooms were somewhat small, but that’s the case in most large cities. It was clean and (thanks to Hotwire) affordable. The view from our window, looking south:
After we got checked in and settled, we set out again for dinner. Some friends from our church had moved to the NYC area a couple of years ago and we were taking advantage of the chance to meet up with them. We decided to meet at Columbus Circle, just on the southwest edge of Central Park and only a few blocks from our hotel.
On the way, I found the Ed Sullivan Theater, where they film the Stephen Colbert Show (formerly David Letterman). Always wondered where that was.
We got to Columbus Circle early, so we decided to wander into Central Park a bit. Aside from the crowds at Times Square, walking around the city wasn’t a bad experience at all. It was pretty easy to navigate and we always felt safe.
Dusk was fast approaching, so we didn’t stay long in the park. We found a little path that led to a bridge and just enjoyed being in the city.
Our friends arrived soon after. We had reservations for dinner and were still early for that. We checked at the restaurant, but they were packed and not ready to seat us yet. So my friend gave us a diversion. I will keep his employment status vague, but he works for some wealthy people and has some connections. So he took us up to the top of a tower for some rooftop views of NYC at night. It was pretty sweet.
Towards New Jersey:
Across Central Park:
Finally, it was time for dinner. We’d relied on our friends to find us a good but not-too-expensive (for New York, anyway) place, and they recommended
The Smith. It bills itself as an upscale place with twists on American comfort food, with four different locations in the city.
The place was very crowded, which is always a good sign. I decided to forego my usual burgers and ordered a pork rib chop, which came with some mashed taters and other veggies and frou-frou accompaniments which I calmly pushed to the side of my plate.
Julie chose a couple of small plates from the appetizer menu: a tomato-cheese soup and spicy meatballs.
Her favorite item, however, was her dessert: S’mores in a jar. Or on top of the jar, as the case may be.
Our friends made it a delightful evening in the city. We loved their company, and it was great to catch up after a couple of years. The restaurant was excellent. Julie and I would definitely return for another meal. Afterwards, however, there was a troubling development. It started innocently enough, as my friends were eager to show us more around town. We went to his office nearby, and it seemed like an ordinary office, if by ordinary you take it to mean a corner office in downtown New York City. But there they revealed a painful secret: their son may in fact be a budding supervillain. I mean, it makes sense that this type of development would take place in New York; the movies have been warning of this for decades. My friend brought up a map of the world on his smart television screen, and there was his son’s evil plan to take over the world, all laid out in careful detail.
Basically, it involves breaking all of the toilets in New Zealand in Phase 1, and then following up immediately with Phase 2, the detonation of a nuclear fart bomb over the heart of China. Fiendishly simple, yet elegant in its design. I’m only sharing this with you now after having alerted the proper authorities so you can make preparations to protect yourself when the time comes.
After sharing this terrible secret with us, our friends tired and took their leave. We walked back to the hotel, a little wiser, but now better-prepared to face the day ahead.
Coming Up Next: The whirlwind McTour concludes, with stops in Rockefeller Center, the World Trade Center Memorial, and Broadway. We even had an unplanned DIS meet!
I think you know him too well Andy! 
It was been a long time since I was there too. The last time, like you, I traveled to the top of the WTC also...... well, at least the observation level. 
