at long last, I finally finished the thing I said I was gonna do! apologies to any for whom this is too late, but not having a computer for two weeks (yes, that happened last month) threw off my groove quite a bit.
this is probably most readable in PDF form, which you can download here. but I’mma also do a c&p under a read-more righty-here…
FREE THOUGHTS ON THE VISITING OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK TO SEE
HAMILTON
How lucky you are to be alive right now and going to see Hamilton! But what about the time before the curtain rises and
after it falls? Due to popular demand, here is my completely biased and
whimsical advice.
If you just wanted a
guide to visiting New York City, there’s lots of people who are actually paid
to put things like that together as their real-life job. And if you live here
in the city, why the hell are you asking me what to do? So this guide is skewed
toward people not very familiar with New York and works along a few specific
axes:
1) I SPENT ALL OF MY
MONEY ON HAMILTON TICKETS & DON’T
HAVE ANY LEFT and/or
2) HOW DO I MAXIMIZE
MY CITY VISIT WHEN I’M RUNNING OUT OF TIME and/or
3) GIVE ME EVERYTHING
HAMILTON-RELATED
INDEX
1 – Before You Leave
5 – Where to Stay
6 – Getting Into the City
8 – Getting Around the
City
10 – “Not being That
Tourist” for Beginners
12 – SEEING THE SHOW
(ham4ham, the stage door, etc.)
16 – Doing Stuff: food
& drinks, bathrooms, seasonal, other theatre (randomly covering Midtown,
East Village, Greenwich Village, West Village)
26 – The Hamilton NYC
experience
Spoiler: the longest
section is when I talk about food.
GET YOUR EDUCATION: BEFORE YOU LEAVE
There are a few
mailing lists I’d recommend signing up for ahead of time to support Doing Stuff
Other Than Hamilton and saving some Hamiltons in the proess. With deal sites,
I’d start those mailings up to a month ahead of time, since you if you see a
deal you like, you can just buy it and save the voucher for your trip.
Groupon (http://www.groupon.com) – Set your location
as New York City and you’ll find tons of food deals. While they’re not always
conducive to solo dining, you can get some great deals.
Gilt City (https://www.giltcity.com/newyork) –
Similar to Groupon, but higher end. If you’re planning to treat yo self but still
want to save a few bucks, you sometimes get some real awesome scores on here.
NY Deals (http://nymag.com/deals/) – A deal-list
aggregator. Includes Gilt City, Living Social, Pulsd, etc.. It will send you
what it deems to be “highlights.”
BlackBoard Eats (https://www.blackboardeats.com/) –
Very limited but also generally a very good deal for very good quality. Once
per month, they send you a deal, which you claim to get a code, which you then
have a month to use. (No penalty if you don’t use it.) It can be something
ridiculous like 30% off the bill for your entire table. Totally worth signing
up for.
The Skint (http://www.theskint.com/) – You’ll only
want to sign up for this one a couple days before your trip, but this is a
daily e-mail that comes a bit after noon with free/cheap things going on in the
city that day. (For the weekend, the mailing goes out on Friday.) Despite it
being daily, I do recommend a few days ahead of time because you’ll sometimes
get heads-ups on things.
Things like Eater NY,
Thrillist NY, the Gothamist and Spoiled might also give you ideas for what else
you might want to hit up. By which I mainly mean food. I told you that this was
going to be biased. Some random examples: https://www.thrillist.com/eat/new-york/where-to-eat-for-free-in-nyc,
http://gothamist.com/2015/11/19/nyc_crowd_pleasing_restaurant.php,
http://gothamist.com/2015/12/10/best_new_bars_2015.php,
http://ny.eater.com/2015/12/10/9883672/best-new-york-city-restaurants-2015-santina-ryan-sutton,
http://spoilednyc.com/2015/10/28/9-best-lunch-spots-in-midtown-nyc
And check if there are
any new-user deals for Uber Eats! (I.e., the same app that you use to get a
car, except that a menu of selections from different
normally-not-take-out-places restaurants is released each week, from which you
can order food that is dropped off to you and charged through your Uber
account.)
Also, it might be
worth checking out if you coincide with my favorite event, NYC Restaurant Week (http://www.nycgo.com/restaurant-week).
The chances of this are higher than the name may imply, as Restaurant Week
occurs multiple times per year and lasts about three weeks each time. For
example, as of this writing, the next one is January 18-February 5, 2016. NYC
Restaurant week features restaurants offering $25 lunch and $38 dinner menus.
Generally, the places offering are pretty nice, so this is a great deal (though
you will want to see what their specific Restaurant Week menus are – if they’re
offering you a choice between standard sounding chicken, salmon, and pasta, for
example, probably not so much of an opportunity). The selection can actually be
a bit overwhelming, so I usually narrow it down by first seeing if anywhere I
specifically want to go is on the list, then filtering the rest by when I want
to eat (some offer the deal only for dinners, or only on weekdays, etc.) and
how convenient the location is to me, and skimming through the remaining
choices from there.
My last word of
preparation advice would be to take note of if there are any big events
happening in the city during the time you’re there – it might affect traffic
and/or create areas you want to avoid (or go to). A non-exhaustive list of
examples includes:
Five Boro Bike Tour –
May, all over (http://www.bike.nyc/events/td-five-boro-bike-tour/)
Puerto Rican Parade – June,
Midtown (http://www.nprdpinc.org/)
Brazil Day –
September, Midtown (https://newyorklatinculture.com/events/brazilian-day-new-york/)
Korean Festival –
October, Midtown (http://www.nykorean.org/english/event.asp)
Halloween Parade –
October, West Village (https://www.halloween-nyc.com/)
New York Marathon –
November, UES/Brookyln/Queens (http://www.tcsnycmarathon.org/)
Santa Con – December,
tba gaping maw of Hell
New Year’s Eve/Day – I
mean really now
ARRANGE THE VENUE: WHERE TO STAY
There are a lot of
websites dedicated to people rating specific hotels. They have gone to so many
more hotels than I’ve ever gone to. What I can provide, however, are a few
things to keep in mind when narrowing down your choices.
The Richard Rogers
Theater is located on 46th Street, between 7th & 8th
Avenues. Anything within the radius of /~10 north-south blocks (i.e., 36th-56th
Streets)/2 east-west blocks (i.e., 5th-10th Avenues) will
be very easy to walk. (Even a 15-block north-south range is quite doable.)
Midtown will be expensive, but if you have the hamiltons to do so and are only
in town for a short period of time, it might be worth it. While it’s definitely
a busy area, my experience has been that if you’re staying on the thirtieth-ish
floor or above, noise isn’t a problem.
If you’re saving $$ by
staying farther away, it will probably be easiest for you to stay at a place
near a subway stop that will easily bring you to midtown near the Richard
Rodgers. The 42– Port Authority (A,C,E), Times Square – 42 (1, 2,
3), & 49 Street (N, Q, R) stations are all very close to the theater. The
A, 2, 3, and Q are express lines, which skip some stops & thus run faster.
Keep in mind that express lines are regularly scheduled to run local at certain
times (late nights, weekends). Also check http://www.mta.info/
for scheduled service changes.
If you’re only staying
a short time and looking to save some dough, I would personally check out
AirBNB before trying a hostel. Another option for people who have any sort of
actor friends is to ask them to ask around – you might find a cash-strapped
actor who’d love to pick up some extra bucks for a couch crasher. If you decide
to go a route like this, remember to be mindful and stay safe.
THE SHIP IS IN THE HARBOR NOW: GETTING INTO THE CITY
There are two major
airports within the city: La Guardia (LGA) and JFK. Some people have fierce
loyalties, but if you’re going to midtown, it’s mainly just a matter of your
schedule and budget when getting your tickets, plus preference for traveling
from the airport.
LGA is cheaper but a
little more complicated if you’re taking public transportation from the airport
into the city. It’s only one metro card fare, but then it’s the M60 bus to the
N or to the 4/5/6 or ½/3 in Harlem. And I hear that the
M60 is a bit tricky, as you have to 1) buy a metro card at the easy-to-miss
machine indoors near baggage claim (near the info kiosk) and 2) insert the card
into the skinny machine at the M60 stop (outdoors) to get your select bus
service ticket (you can’t pay on the bus). If you’re saying “screw that,” LGA
may be a shorter cab ride than JFK.
From
JFK, you can take the air train for $5, then get on the subway (the E is the
faster route into Manhattan and you can get to just about anywhere from there).
And the
above perspectives are thanks to a couple of friends of mine who use the
airports more often than I do. Air travel is pretty much a work-only thing for
me, so I use a car service to wherever the org has booked my ticket for. Carmel
Car Service (http://carmelcarservicenyc.com/) has always been reliable for me.
Or you
could judge them based on food: LGA (http://ny.eater.com/2015/5/21/8632995/laguardia-airport-dining-best-restaurants-guide) vs. JFK (http://ny.eater.com/2015/5/20/8628195/best-restaurants-dining-jfk-airport-guide).
Sometimes people fly
into Newark. That is in New Jersey. Everything is legal in New Jersey.
You couldn’t pay me
enough to drive into the city, and I love driving. Personally, if I were
roadtripping to NYC, I would dump my car in Poughkeepsie and catch the Metro
North in from there. Driving in New York is possible, but it can be very
stressful if you don’t know where you’re going (e.g., the vagaries of traffic
flow, one-ways, etc.) and parking is a bitch.
GUNS AND HORSES GIDDYAP: GETTING AROUND THE CITY
Navigating around is a
lot easier these days now that everyone has maps on their phones. But it still
helps a lot to have some idea of where you’re going and how the city flows,
because it can get very fast-paced and chaotic, especially in the midtown
theatre district. Most of the streets are on a grid, which makes it easier to
navigate. “Streets” run from east to west, and their numbers increase
the farther north you go. “Avenues” run from north to south, and
their numbers increase the father west you go (toward the Hudson River).
Also, when using your
maps device, remember some important address distinctions: borough (New York
vs. Brooklyn etc. – you’ll find a 50th Street in multiple boroughs,
for instance) and east vs. west (from the center line, address numbers increase
in opposite directions like the negative and positive numbers on a number line,
so 400 W. 42nd Street would be a good distance away from 400 E. 42nd
Street).
You will probably be
doing a lot of walking! Most of the city is most easily accessible by walking. When
estimating walking time, remember that Street-blocks – e.g., from 45th
Street to 46th Street – are shorter than Avenue-blocks.
If you’re there for
only a few days (or less), it probably won’t be worth your money to buy a
weekly pass. (I believe the rule of thumb is 13 rides per week recoups your
upfront cost.) The subway is your friend if you concern is just Point A to
Point B as quickly as possible. Just remember to take note of your route.
Remember that getting from east to west is a bitch; the subway runs cross-town
in only a few places.
A point at which I
still get disoriented is when I’m exiting a subway station for the first time –
trying to figure out which way is east, which way is north. If you can, look
for landmarks! For example, if you’re below 34th street and can find
the Empire State Building, you know that the direction of the Empire State
Building is north. (The Chrysler Building works well for this, too.) Or note
anything landmark-y ahead of time when you’re checking out a map before you go.
(E.g., Katz’s and Russ & Daughters are on the south side of Houston!)
(Also, it’s pronounced “How-stun,” not “Hew-stun.”) If you see a sign pointing
out the direction of the Hudson River, remember that the river borders
Manhattan on the west. And in the end, thanks to most of the city being on the
grid, if you get it wrong, you probably only have to walk a block before
finding out.
There are a bunch of
those tourist buses driving around, including the ones that threaten to drive
over the Ham4Ham crowds each week. Back during my tourist-y years, my family
and I did one of those hop-on-hop-off buses, and it was actually pretty great –
if you’re trying to see a lot in a little bit of time, it can really help to
maximize your trip.
If you have giant
luggage with you and are able to splurge, it might be worth it to get a cab or
car service. Uber and Lyft both operate in New York. If you search around, you
can probably find deals for first-time users for both. Lyft is the newcomer, so
they seem to be running a lot of deals. There are also the traditional yellow
cabs, which have a mobile app called Arro now in addition to the old-fashioned
hailing.
And if you want to get
around more quickly than walking but keep your head outside, there’s CitiBikes.
Just don’t die riding a bicycle around the city. Please, don’t die.
“IT’S MY FIRST TIME IN THE BIG CITY BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE
INEXPERIENCED AND RUINOUS”
Because you don’t want
to be That Guy.
A good rule of thumb
is to remember that the sidewalks are just a much of a commute for many people
for whom New York is their home as the highway is for other people elsewhere.
If you were in a rush to get to your job, you would probably not appreciate a
line of cars horizontally blocking up all the lanes, going at 30 mph, and sometimes
suddenly throwing on the brakes without warning to stick their head out the
window and take a picture. Just keep in mind that “commuter traffic” really is
just that and be mindful of others.
Continuing with the
driving metaphor! If you want to stop to take a picture, that’s great – just
“pull off” to the side first, so you aren’t suddenly stopping in front of
someone who then has to dodge you. Coming up out of the subway? Don’t stop
right at the top of the stairs, blocking a line of people behind you trying to
exit. Going into the subway? Have your swipe card out and ready before you get
to the turnstile.
Also note that subways
can get very crowded, especially around rush hour. If you have a backpack, taking
it off before you get on the train and sticking it on the floor between your
legs will help out with the crowding. And don’t try to hold the doors open,
whether for trying to let someone on behind you or running to get onto a train
– not only is that not all that safe, but it can cause delays.
Semi-randomly, I’ve
always found having a smaller umbrella to be helpful. NYC in the rain sucks
(and the drainage is actually pretty awful, so yeah, your shoes will get it),
but it doesn’t really reduce sidewalk traffic that much – you just have each
person’s radius increased by the size of their umbrella, so it can feel even
more crowded.
While I can’t really
speak for anyone but myself, I think that it’s great to have so many people from
so many places come to and love our city. And most folks honestly aren’t
assholes (unless you’re an asshole to them first, in which case they won’t
hesitate to respond in kind). People are just trying to get where they going.
And if you’re used to some southern/Midwestern friendliness thing, yeah, we
don’t do that. (I’m looking at you, Minneapolis, with your random people saying
hi to me in the street. YOUR NICENESS IS CREEPY, MINNEAPOLIS but your bahn mi
is fucking amazing.)
I’M TRYNA WATCH THE SHOW: SEEING HAMILTON
The show is at the
Richard Rodgers Theatre at 226 West 46th Street (between 7th
and 8th Avenues). The stage door, where actors exit after the show
to give autographs, is also on 46th Street, to the west of the lobby
door (i.e., closer to Les Mis).
Make sure to give
yourself enough time to get to the show! City traffic means you never know when
there will be a subway delay or even if pedestrian traffic in midtown will just
slow you down. That being said, the theater generally doesn’t even begin to
seat people until, at most, a half-hour before, so as long as you’re very
close, there’s no need to be super-duper early.
Especially over the
coming months, the performance schedule varies from week to week. Be sure to
know when your performance is or, if you’re doing the lottery, check the
official website (http://www.hamiltonbroadway.com)! But to give an example of
how lottos and Ham4Ham are scheduled, here is a semi-standard example of a performance
week:
*Normally, the line
for the lotto goes from the stage door toward 8th Avenue, but for
the second show on two-show days, it goes from door of theatre lobby toward 7th Avenue. (This is to keep
the stage door clear for people exiting between shows.) If the line hits the
point of the On Your Feet box
office/lobby doors, it will snake back around and through the Marriott Marquis
underpass, then continue back toward 7th Avenue on 45th
Street. I have gone to the lotto for evening shows on two-show and gotten on
line by the Starbucks on 45th Street. So just keep an eye out for
where it is heading.
Remember,
this is only an example. Check the official website for
the time you’ll be there. December through February, there are a bunch of weeks
with one-performance Wednesdays and/or two-performance Sundays (and
two-performance Sundays have the 2:00pm/8:00pm schedule). On 3/28/16, Javilton
switches to performing for the Saturday matinee. For 4/4/16-5/16/16, the dark
day is Sunday and there is a performance on Monday evening.
The ticket lottery is for 21 front row
seats. All you need to do to enter is show up and put your name in. It’s free
to enter! (That is standard practice for all Broadway ticket lotteries – you
only pay for your ticket to the show, should you win.)
Winners can claim up to two tickets, so
there could be as few as 11 winners (or as many as 21, but that will never
happen). Each ticket won via lottery is $10, cash only. The winner also needs
to have a photo ID.
There are sometimes standing
room tickets available. (The most I’ve ever seen was 6.) If there are any
standing room tickets available, they will just continue pulling names at the
end of the front-row lottery. Again, winners can claim up to two tickets. The
standing room tickets are $40 each (cash or credit) & slightly partial view
(the upper level is mostly cut off).
There is a Ham4ham ticket lottery before
every performance unless otherwise specified (e.g., if the full theater is
bought out for a fundraiser, etc.). They begin taking names 2.5 hours before
curtain, with a drawing 2 hours before curtain.
There is not a Ham4ham show before every Ham4ham
lottery. The standard schedule for those is prior to the drawing for the
evening show on two-show days. This is subject to change, but it has been
fairly regular. in practice, this usually means Wednesday and Saturday at
5:55pm, however the weekly schedule is going to start changing up. Check out
the official performance calendar at hamiltonbroadway.com to
be sure!
On days of Ham4ham
shows, folks begin lining up for the lotto as early as 4:00pm. This is because
getting through the line earlier allows you to get into the waiting/viewing
area earlier and get a better spot. Even being in the front of the line doesn’t
guarantee a front row view, however, as, for better or for worse, some people
have started tag-teaming ham4ham, having part of a group save a spot in the
viewing area before the entry period even starts, and then switching out when the
other members of the group have gotten through the line and can hold the spot.
You may also see a line of people at the
actual box office. They are generally trying their luck at snatching
cancellations.
While you’re there,
please be kind to the Hamilton lotto workers and theater staff. There are areas
blocked off in the street for you to wait. When the tell you not to wait on the
sidewalk (and preferably not up against the building), yes, they mean you. And remember that they have to pull those
entry slips out of the bucket and touch them with their hands, so don’t do any
weird with it like kissing it. Seriously.
If you want autographs
after the show, you’ll want to wait by the stage door. There are also a lot of
really great selfie-takers in the company. After the last show of the day,
usually most of the cast will exit through the stage door. (Oak has been the
most elusive for me.) There tends to be fewer people after the first show of a
two-show day, just because some folks will be resting up between two shows or
have escaped quickly in order to fit something in in the time before the next
show. Company members tend to come equipped with their own black sharpies, but
it doesn’t hurt to have one of your own, and you’ll definitely want to bring
your own if you want something signed in a different color (e.g., silver
sharpie on the black star of the poster, etc.).
Also, if you just want
to purchase merch, they allow people into the lobby about 20 minutes after the
show starts. However, everyone involved is mindful of the fact that the purpose
of this should be just for getting swag, not for listening to the show over the
monitors, so get your business done and move along!
SLUMMIN’ IN THE CITY IN YOUR FANCY HEELS: DOING STUFF
Midtown(ish)
Food and Drink
Let’s start in upper
Midtown at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.
Pretty much right at
Times Square, there’s a lot going on. But with all of the crowds and bright
lights, it can be a little overwhelming. Also, if you’re looking for something
that’s a little less tourist trap-y, the home of Guy Fieri’s American Kitchen
& Bar (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-guys-american-kitchen-bar-in-times-square.html)
can actually seem a bit of a wasteland at first glance. But it needn’t be that
way.
If you’re looking for
eat right by the theater, you can check out City Kitchen (http://citykitchen.rownyc.com/)
at 700 8th Avenue at 44th Street. It’s like a mini food
court, except the kind where you can get a lobster roll. Even if you aren’t
getting a full meal there, it would improve your life to stop by for a
doughnut, as the Brooklyn-based Dough has a station there.
(Storytime: I was
meeting a high school classmate from Japan there, texted my mom a “You’ll never
guess who I’m having dinner with!,” had her respond “Lin-Manuel Miranda?,”
replied “hahaha as if”… and then Lin-Manuel Miranda goes jetting past in his
Hamilheadphones and salmon-colored cargo shorts. “So, Yuki,” I said to my
friend, “that man was Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote a show that’s playing one
block up and is kind of a big thing.”)
Also nearby is Shake Shack (http://www.shakeshack.com/location/theater-district/),
which is usually packed and of which I’m actually not a huge fan, but that
specific location is probably one of the few family-friendly burger joints next
to a porn shop, so if you want that experience, there you go.
Head farther east, and
you can go to the Vanderbilt Food Hall
at Grand Central Station (https://urbanspacenyc.com/our-markets/urbanspacevanderbilt/).
It gives you a large selection of vendors, many of which are based in Brooklyn
and are hella hard to get to otherwise. The Delaney BBQ chicken sandwich has
gotten great talk. (I’ve been to their restaurant in Brooklyn, and while it’s
good, it doesn’t hold a candle to actual Texas and feels like it takes you just
as long to get there.)
If you’re looking for
something casual and quiet, the café upstairs at the Kinokuniya bookstore by Bryant Park (http://www.kinokuniya.com/us/) is a
great little place to pick up a quick sandwich or sweet treat and take a load
off your feet.
On 45th
Street is one of the locations of Xi’an
Famous Foods (http://xianfoods.com/), a
local chain that does northwestern Chinese hand-pulled noodles. Cheap and
delicious! Also notable for those who really want to get their spice on. While
there are some non-spicy dishes and you can request different levels of
spiciness, they’re not joking about the heat. A very hand feature of their
website is that it features real-time traffic meters for each location, so you
can see how busy they are. At rush times, they can get SUPER crowded. I really
need to make it back there more often so I can try something other than the
spicy cumin lamb, but I just know that I’d just probably end up getting spicy
cumin lamb more often.
Going west of the Richard
Rodgers, you’ll find that 9th Avenue and the adjacent side-blocks
are pretty much just lined with restaurants. Of note to anyone chasing the
ramen craze, are Ippudo (http://www.ippudony.com/) on 51st
Street and Totto Ramen (http://tottoramen.com/) on 52nd
Street. Ippudo is a semi-formal sit-down restaurant, while Totto is a basement
joint where you sit right at the cooking counter. While each place has its
loyalists, I find them both delicious. (If you’re into spicy, I think that
Totto offers the spicier option.) What they both also share is that they don’t
take reservations and there are generally crowds, where you must wait your
turn. So, not where to go if you’re in a rush, but worth the experience if
you’re not.
Pony Bar (http://hk.theponybar.com/) on 45th
Street is one of my favorite places to catch a drink in this area. It’s a small
beer bar that also has a small but delicious menu. And while I haven’t been
there myself, the French restaurant Pigalle
(http://www.pigallenyc.com/) on 48th
Street has been recommended to me for its fantastic happy hour (Monday-Friday,
3:00-6:00pm, 50% off drinks plus food specials). Also not somewhere I’ve
personally been, but a life goal of mine, is Bar Bacon (http://www.barbacon.com/)
on 54th Street. Just look at the menu and decide for yourself.
These days, you can
sit down in a Halal Guys restaurant
(http://thehalalguys.com/), but if
you’re going to get it, you really should get it on the street. They have a
cart on 53rd and 6th that almost always has a line, but
it moves pretty quickly. Remember: WHITE SAUCE.
Continuing northward,
we end up near Columbus Circle (59th Street and Broadway, the
southwest corner of Central Park). I highly recommend Momofuku’s fuku+ (http://momofuku.com/new-york/fuku-plus/)
on 56th Street. A fast casual joint, it can get you Momofuku brand
deliciousness for a lot less dough and less wait time. Note that seating is
limited and you may end up standing at a counter. But the Mission Chinese Fuku
Fingers gave me life. And possibly spicyness-induced delirium. (But in that
very sneaky way where they were spicy but totally edible… and then I was still
breaking a sweat the whole subway ride home.) The shops at Columbus Circle
itself also features a number of restaurants, most of which are too rich for my
blood, but Bouchon Bakery & Café
(http://www.thomaskeller.com/time-warner-new-york/bouchon-bakery-café)
is on a more human scale and offers a beautiful view onto the southwestern
corner of Central Park, if the statue of the genocidal maniac doesn’t mar it
too badly for you. There’s also a Whole
Foods on the basement floor. Across the circle, Maison Kayser is a nice little French bakery, and Argo Tea is basically like Starbucks
only with a better layout for sitting down with your computer to do work (three
hours of free internet with purchase, three hours of free internet per day with
computer sign-inn). At the south-east corner of Central Park, you’ll find the The Plaza Food Hall (http://www.theplazany.com/dining/foodhall/)
at the Plaza Hotel (i.e., Home Alone 2:
Lost In New York). Another food court, but with caviar.
If you go up as far as
Lincoln Center/Juilliard at 66th Street, you’ll find a number of
nice places. I’ve eaten at Bar Bouloud
(http://www.barboulud.com/nyc/)
thanks to Restaurant Week. On the other side of the spectrum, there is the
classic Gray’s Papaya (http://grayspapayanyc.com/) at 72nd
Street, open 24/7, cash only. The price of Recession Special has gone up… so it’s now a whopping $4.95 for two
hotdogs and a medium drink (except pineapple and OJ).
If you love yourself, get a cream puff at Beard Papa’s (http://beardpapa.com/). Or if you’re feeling a
bit mad, perhaps Alice’s Tea Cup (http://alicesteacup.com/) is just your… well.
And while it’s really pushing too far north out of a
reasonable range, I need to mention the Gin
Mill (http://www.nycbestbar.com/ginmill/)
up at 81st. Back on my last Arrival Day (my celebration of the
anniversary of my arrival to America), I did a hivemind poll of the most
American thing I could put into my body that day. The Gin Mill won, as it
happens to boast the Healthy Alternative on their menu – i.e., a cheese burger
sandwiched between a tomato grilled cheese sandwich and a bacon grilled cheese
sandwich.
I didn’t die. I would
totally do it again.
Swooping back to down Times
Square and heading southward…
If you want Korean
fried chicken, I’ve found that the best place to get it in the city is BonChon (http://38thstreetny.bonchon.com/),
a fast-casual chain with a location on 38th Street. If you’ve never
had Korean fried chicken, just do yourself a favor.
For even more Korean
food, head down to Korea Way – i.e., West 32nd Street, between 5th
and 6th Avenues (very close to Penn Station). There are a lot of
Korean restaurants in that little stretch – my friends and I usually get our
barbeque at Shilla (http://www.yelp.com/biz/shilla-new-york-3),
although because we just always go there out of habit, I can’t provide any
comparison. If you’ve never done Korean barbeque before, it’s really best as a
group outing. You could do it with just two people, but I’ve found it to be
best with at least five people. 32nd Street also features one of the
many Caffe Bene (http://www.caffebeneusa.com/) locations
in the city, which is a great place to get caffeine and carbs (HONEY BREAD). At
certain times of the year, the Broadway
Bites outdoor food court (http://urbanspacenyc.com/broadway-bites/)
is open in Greely Square right near here.
Just south of midtown
but still close is more Korean food at Barn
Joo (http://www.barnjoo.com/), whose
fried chicken is almost as good as BonChon’s and which has very good happy hour
deals. It’s really close to the NQR, so it’s actually quite convenient for
getting food before an evening show. Also in the area is Eataly (https://www.eataly.com/),
a marketplace that also serves food. You need to be able to handle crowds and
some chaos, but it’s a wonderland of a place, if on the pricey side. And
depending on the time of the year, Mad.
Square Eats (http://urbanspacenyc.com/mad-sq-eats/),
an outdoor food court, may be operating.
Bathrooms
Of course, all of that
eating and drinking means that no matter how hard you plan, you’re going to end
up needing to use the bathroom 10 minutes after you leave the restaurant. My
usual go-to places…
The Toys R Us second
floor (games/babies) is great, but this will now until be the store shutters at
the end of 2015. If you’re there, just go to see the dinosaur.
Despite some of the
late-night sketchiness outside, the Port Authority Bus Station (second floor)
on 42nd Street at 8th Avenue is pretty decent.
There’s the McDonald’s
in Times Square if you’re damn desperate.
If you can stand to
walk a bit or are a little farther east, just head into the NY Public Library on
the east side of Bryant Park. Or Bryant Park itself – there’s only a few stalls
so there’s generally a line, but it is consistently the cleanest public park
bathrooms I’ve ever dealt with. Farther up, there are restrooms in the Columbus
Circle shops.
BE WARNED: Starbucks
in Times Square generally don’t have public bathrooms.
For The Nerds
The Strand has a pop-up
book shop on the east side of Central Park, near the south end of the park.
There is, of course, Midtown Comics (http://www.midtowncomics.com/)
on 40th Street. And the earlier-mentioned Kinokuniya, 1073 Avenue of
the Americas between 40th & 41st Streets (http://www.kinokuniya.com/us/index.php/fho003),
is a great bookstore with an English-language selection, imported manga and
anime/manga products upstairs, and a stationary shop in the basement. Book-Off
(http://www.bookoffusa.com/) on 45th
Street is also amazing – a used bookstore that also carries music and movies,
it has cheap prices and a large Japanese language selection (including music).
West Village/Greenwich Village/NoHo/The East Village
Food and Drink
There is so much great
fucking food down here, so here’s just a random sprinkling of places that have
particularly tickled my fancy.
Murray’s Cheese Bar (http://www.murrayscheesebar.com/)
is amazing for anyone who likes cheese in the least and heaven for anyone who
loves cheese. They treat it as an art. It’s the sort of place where the
cheesemonger on duty will pair a cheese with your wine. (One time, a friend got
a dessert cider and decided partway through that she needed some cheese with
it, and I swear to god, the cheesemonger came up with a pairing that made it
like apples and peanut butter.) Bosie Tea
Parlor (http://bosienyc.com/) is also a delight.
Because I assume that
most of you are musical theatre nerds, you might be interested in Marie’s Crisis (http://www.yelp.com/biz/maries-crisis-new-york)
59 Grove Street at Bleecker and 7th Avenue, cash only. It’s
basically a gay bar with musical theatre sing-alongs with a live pianist.
For some super cheap
and casual eats by Washington Square Park, I’m a fan of 100 Montanditos (http://us.100montaditos.com/).
A Spanish-style sandwich shop where you can get as many or as few little
sandwiches as you want, and either eat them there or take them to the park. And
also get super cheap pitchers of sangria, that are literally fruit soda and box
wine, but when you’re having a cheap get-together with friends, it’s perfect.
For the block below
the Public, 3rd Street becomes Great Jones Street. Great Jones (http://www.greatjones.com/) is a
delicious little NOLA place with surprisingly reasonable prices for the area. Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria (http://www.ilbucovineria.com/) is much pricier, but quite
worth it if you’re going to splurge – and if you only want to splurge a little
bit, you can just pick up some of their baked goods, like one of their heavenly
bombolini.
Just above the Public is another Ippudo
location. If you continue heading north, you’ll be on the south side of Union
Square, where you can find Vanessa’s
Dumplings (http://vanessas.com/), which
is delicious and so, so cheap – one of those $3.00 sesame pancake sandwiches is
literally a meal (though heads-up that they have cilantro in the filling). On
the pricier but more mod side is BAOHAUS
(http://www.baohausnyc.com/), the
restaurant of Eddie Huang, whom you might know as the hip-hop head from Fresh Off The Boat. (PS: read his book
of the same title. Just do it.)
Heading back south
again will take you into the East Village, where it’s basically just all food
all the time. I would like to give individual mentions to a few places, though:
Otafuku x Medetai (http://www.otafukuny.com/), where I go for
my takoyaki fix in the area; Duck’s
Eatery (http://www.duckseatery.com/),
a moderately priced restaurant with a creative and delicious menu; Azasu (http://www.azasunyc.com),
an izakaya specializing in cup sake and with a very satisfying menu of Japanese
bar food; Lovecraft (http://www.lovecraftnyc.com ), which has
the absinthe and fun décor without the xenophobia; Wafel and Dinges (http://www.wafelsanddinges.com/),
which also has carts all over the city, has a daily challenge with which you
can earn a free extra dinges and sometimes has Living Social/Groupon deals; and
Clinton Street Baking Company (https://clintonstreetbaking.com/),
which is delicious year-round but celebrates PANCAKE MONTH for all of December.
Slightly farther
afield but worth mentioning are the Public
(http://public-nyc.com/), which is of no
relation to the theater and which sometimes runs some nice deals on Gilt City,
and Apotheke (http://www.apothekenyc.com/), which is a
pricey-as-hell cocktail bar that does give you fair value in return and
features a discriminating absinthe selection.
Places of Note
If you are enamored of
the image of old men playing chess in the park (I see you, X-Men fandom),
Washington Square Park is the place to go. A lovely little place, it also tends
to get a lot of musicians busking around. Where by “musicians busking around” I
mean that there’s sometimes a grand piano on the east side, but hey.
Just a few blocks east
of the park is the Public Theater, where Hamilton
(among other shows) originated. And just east of there is St. Mark’s Place,
which at this point is still the home of Trash and Vaudeville (http://www.trashandvaudeville.com/),
which was the former home of Alexander Hamilton Jr., though they are relocating
soon.
For The Nerds
The actual Strand
bookstore (http://www.strandbooks.com/)
is located between Union Square and the Public. So is the Forbidden Planet
comic book store (http://www.fpnyc.com/).
On a smaller scale, there’s St. Mark’s Comics (http://stmarkscomics.com/) and Toy Tokyo (http://www.toytokyo.com) in the East
Village.
Looking for some
actual games? Just south of Washington Square Park is the Uncommons (https://www.uncommonsnyc.com/),
which is a board game café where you pay for access to their sizeable game library.
If you skew more digital, there is one of multiple Barcade (http://barcadestmarks.com/)
which is – you guessed it – a bar with an arcade. The St. Mark’s location skews
mid-80s through mi-90s, which means that it has the Michael Jackson Moonwalker
game.
Holiday Specialties
As of this writing,
the holiday season is nearly over, but many things carry over into early
January (and it probably won’t be long until people are buying tickets for next Christmas, anyways).
There is, of course,
the ice rink and tree at Rockefeller Center. Right across the street from them,
is Saks Fifth Avenue, which does a great light display on their 5th
Avenue storefront – watch the clock, because when it hits “12,” there’s a video
show!
There’s also a tree
and skating rink at Bryant Park. Bryant Park also features a holiday market,
with shops and food (http://www.bryantpark.org/things-to-do/wintervillage.html).
There are smaller outdoor holiday markets to be found at Columbus Circle (http://urbanspacenyc.com/columbus-circle-holiday-market/),
in the Garment District (http://urbanspacenyc.com/garment-district-holiday-market/)
on Broadway between 39th and 41st Streets, and in Union
Square (http://urbanspacenyc.com/union-square-holiday-market/).
Also, don’t tell
anyone, but while all of those crowds are crushed together in Times Square for
New Year’s? There are fireworks in Central Park.
Other Theatre, Etc.
Get your TodayTix app
fired up and refresh yourself on the rush/lottery/SRO policies (http://www.playbill.com/celebritybuzz/article/broadway-rush-lottery-and-standing-room-only-policies-116003)
and student discounts (http://www.studentrush.org/products/)!
But if you have the time, consider exploring beyond the Great White Way.
Check out what’s going
on at Juilliard (https://events.juilliard.edu/)
– who knows, you might see the next Phillipa Soo – or free performances at
Lincoln Center (http://atrium.lincolncenter.org/index.php/free-performances).
Send your mind to a different place at the Dream House (http://www.melafoundation.org/) sound
and light installation down at 275 Church Street. Night Vale fans and also Not
Night Vale fans, don’t forget about the New York Neo-Futurists (http://www.nyneofuturists.org/)! Catch
some jazz in Harlem, to say nothing of delicious food, at Ginny’s Supper Club (http://www.ginnyssupperclub.com/). Wanna
rise up? Check out what the Eco-Music Big Band (https://www.facebook.com/ecomusicbigband/)
– a modern Afro-American big band group following the legacy of Fred Ho, the
anti-imperialist activist and Afro-Asian composer and musician – is up to.
I’m thoroughly biased
in that I’m most familiar with NYC’s Asian-American theatre groups, but
consider: the Ensemble Theatre Company, Ma-Yi Theater Company, NAATCO, Pan-Asian
Repertory Theatre, and Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company. There are also multiple
Black and Latin@ groups in the city. Just look around!
THE REVOLUTION’S HAPPENING IN NEW YORK: HAMILTON WAS HERE
As the Billy Strayhorn
classics says, you must take the A train. To check out some sweet Hamilton-related spots, you gotta go
north of 96th Street. So hop on, and head north!
Getting off at the 190th
Street stop will bring you to Fort Tryon
Park, which LMM mentioned on the Late Show. It’s true: “where Washington
made his last stand before he bounced with his troops is right uptown.” Be
warned, it’s a very hilly park, so put on your walking legs. It’s also the park
where Tobillo’s groundhog friend lives (http://thefederalistfreestyle.tumblr.com/post/126871442801/gentlemen-start-your-vocals-day-8-saga-of-tobi).
At this point, you’ll
be in Inwood, LMM’s old haunt. Keep on going north through Fort Tryon Park, and
you’ll eventually get to Dyckman Street, which was shown briefly on the 60
Minutes segment. You can keep going north and find Inwood Park, which has the
handball courts where LMM showed his dominance (http://remezcla.com/culture/video-battle-of-the-handball-titans-lin-manuel-miranda-juan-bago/).
Or if you cross east
on Dyckman Street, you’ll find some nice little Dominican bakeries between
Broadway and Nagle Avenue. Nagle Avenue also has some good cheap eats, where
I’m particularly partial to the Tacos Y Burritos place at 142 Nagle because I
am not going to argue with three tacos for $6.00 when I get off the 1 train
after work at, like, ten at night. Also, if it’s warm weather and
mid-afternoon, there’s usually a piragua guy on Nagle, because there’s an
elementary school right there.
You can easily take
the 1 train to 137 Street and then walk to Alexander Hamilton’s home, The Grange (http://www.nps.gov/hagr/index.htm)
at 141st Street. (The ABCD will get you there as well, via the 145
Street stop.)
If you’re in more of a
Burr mood, you can head to Morris Jumel
Mansion (http://www.morrisjumel.org/)
between West 160th and 162nd Streets, near the C train
160th Street stop. (http://thefederalistfreestyle.tumblr.com/post/132289466986/all-about-the-hamiltons-ny-magazine-for-a)
When Hamilton was
gonna get a scholarship to King’s College, it was downtown near Trinity Church
at that point. But these days, it’s called Columbia
and is on the Upper West Side. If you go to Amsterdam and 116th
Street, you can find his name. (http://thefederalistfreestyle.tumblr.com/post/128655835457/imma-get-a-scholarship-to-kings-college-i)
Most other places of
note within the city are downtown.While the death rock is in New Jersey, the
plaque of Hamilton’s death spot is at 82
Jane Street – although the accuracy of that designation has been disputed (http://untappedcities.com/2013/06/24/lost-incorrect-historical-plaques-new-york-city-thomas-edison-alexander-hamilton-edgar-allen-poe/).
The Public Theater is right on Lafayette
Street. Mercer Street is quite
nearby.
The Park Theater where
George Eacker was trying to watch the show burned down in 1848, but it had been
located at 23 Park Street (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Theatre_(Manhattan)).
Head down past where the room where it happened happened at 52 Maiden Lane (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_Lane_(Manhattan)),
and you’ll get down to Wall Street. Trinity Church (https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/)
is at 75 Wall Street. At 26 Wall Street is Federal
Hall (http://www.nps.gov/feha/index.htm),
where George Washington took the first oath as President, and at 48 Wall Street
is the Museum of American Finance (http://www.moaf.org/index).
Going even farther
south will take you to the Revolutionary War Fraunces Tavern (http://frauncestavernmuseum.org/
and http://www.frauncestavern.com/)
at 54 Pearl Street. In addition to its usual offerings, the museum is having a
Lafayette exhibition through December 2016… and then you can go catch a pint
afterward!
IN CONCLUSION
Have a great time. Stay
safe. These thoughts are by no means exhaustive, comprehensive, conclusive, or objective.
But if you’re new-ish to the city and have Hamiton
on the brain, hopefully they’ll give you a place to start.
We’re waiting in the wings
for you… Welcome!
-MC Publius