Many NYC parks offer free Internet

Andrew D. Smith | June 28, 2011 | No comments

If you need to get online during a trip to New York, you don’t need to buy a coffee at Starbucks. Many city parks provide free Internet already, and many more will add it by the end of the summer.

Already offering WiFi: Bowling Green, British Memorial Garden, Bryant Park, City Hall Park, Jackson Square Park, Madison Square Park, Times Square, Union Square, Vietnam Veterans Plaza.

Scheduled to add WiFi: Battery Park, Thomas Jefferson Park, Central Park (multiple locations), the High Line, Holcombe Rucker Park, Marcus Garvey Park and Tompkins Square Park.

Related Posts:

  • No Related Posts
Category: innovation, Saving Money in New York | Tags: , ,

Outdoor movies in NYC, Summer 2011

Andrew D. Smith | June 23, 2011 | No comments

Providing that the weather is nice, outdoor movies rank among the best cheap activities for summertime visitors to New York. You get to see large crowds of locals at play, which gives you a good sense of the city. You get to see a good movie (because they rarely screen bad ones). And you don’t generally have to pay a dime.

How do you go? Here’s what seems to be a comprehensive list of outdoor movies this summer in NYC.

Related Posts:

Category: Events, Getting the Most from New York | Tags: , , ,

Smoking now banned in NY parks. Is that legal?

Andrew D. Smith | May 25, 2011 | No comments

The smoking ban at NY parks, beaches and other public areas took effect Monday. Technically, smokers now face a $50 fine but newspaper reports say the cops are just spreading news of the law by issuing warnings — for now. The law has received a lot of media coverage, but none of the stories I’ve read have answered the basic questions that pop up in my head.

1. The city justifies the ban on public health grounds that are clearly mistaken. There is no decent science that suggests any link between outdoor smoking and the health of non-smokers. Can the law thus be challenged in court? If the premise for a law is demonstrated to be wrong, does the law go away?

2. What established limits, if any, are there on the city’s right to regulate conduct on city-owned land? Presumably the First Amendment would prevent it from banning people from denouncing city government on city property, but could a mayor who really disliked hearing people sing in public ban that? Could the city ban smelly people from public property and, if not, how can it ban smokers? Smelly people are at least as annoying but neither group does any provable harm.

3. How does this law deal with people who refuse to cooperate? How, for example, will the cops give a ticket to smokers who claim to have no ID or decline to provide said ID? Walking the streets is not like driving a car. You’re not required to have ID at all times. Will they arrest people who can provide no ID, haul them down to stations and keep them there until someone comes to the station and furnishes ID? If so, they’ll be committing several hours of police time to dealing with an infraction so minor that it carries a penalty that’s just one tenth as high as the littering fine.

Related Posts:

  • No Related Posts
Category: Dirty Deeds, Etiquette | Tags: , , ,

Shake Shack may be America’s best cheap burger, but visitors should still avoid it

Andrew D. Smith | May 21, 2011 | No comments

The food blog Serious Eats says Shake Shack serves a better burger than either Five Guys — the reigning champion of the DC area — or In-N-Out Burger — the legendary chain from California. I agree whole-heartedly. Shake Shack serves the best fast-food burger I’ve ever eaten and prices, while far higher than McDonald’s, are cheap for New York.

But I still think visitors should stay far away, particularly from the orignal Shake Shack on Union Square.

The problem with Shake Shack is the cost. Not the dollar cost, which is low, but the time cost. Go at any normal eating time on a reasonably nice day and you can easily wait upwards of an hour for your food. If you live in New York, it’s annoying but worth it for the occasional treat. If you have very limited time in the city, however, it’s hard to justify. Are they very good burgers? Yes (and the shakes are good, too). But if you value your time in New York conservatively at $50 an hour, a trip to Shake Shack could end up cost you $75, plus the actual cost of the food.

$90 is too much for a hamburger, fries and shake.

Related Posts:

  • No Related Posts
Category: Eating Out, Getting the Most from New York, Uncategorized | Tags:

New Yorkers once hated the iconic library lions

Andrew D. Smith | May 2, 2011 | No comments

Patience and Fortitude, the lions who guard the main branch of the New York Public Library, are always a hit with folks who take my Grand Central and Times Square Walking Tour. They also rank among the sculptures that New Yorkers love most. But it wasn’t always so.

When the lions first went up, almost exactly 100 years ago, observers were unimpressed.

When they were still new arrivals, passers-by complained that they were “squash-faced” and “mealy-mouthed and complacent.”

“We do not want square-jawed lions,” one man declared in a letter to the editor of The New York Times. Another letter-writer, who said that they looked like “a cross between a hippopotamus and a cow,” dismissed them as “monstrosities.”

And that was after the sculptor had trimmed their manes because people had complained that the lions were too hairy.

Related Posts:

  • No Related Posts
Category: Only in New York | Tags: , ,

Your kids are safe in New York

Andrew D. Smith | April 30, 2011 | No comments

Safe from kidnapers, that is. The cars are another matter.

Whenever I see families walking through the city, I see anxious parents who yell at their kids when they get more than five feet away. But it’s really not necessary. The only danger your kids face is from the traffic. If they’re old enough to steer clear of cars, then the city holds no dangers real dangers for them.

What about evil strangers? If a stranger talks to your kid, it’s most likely because he or she doesn’t see you and thinks your kid may be lost. It’s incredibly unlikely that they mean your kids any harm.

How unlikely? Of the more than 20,000 kids who went missing in New York State at some point last year, just one of them was abducted by a stranger. (The vast majority were runaways. The rest got lost or abducted by an estranged family member.)

So relax. Let your kids explore a little. Perhaps even give them some time on their own, even if they seem a couple years to young.

Related Posts:

Category: Getting the Most from New York | Tags: , ,

NYC Restaurant Week 2011 announced

Andrew D. Smith | April 28, 2011 | No comments

The now-annual event — which debuted during the Democratic National Convention in 1992 and has stuck around to spur restaurant business at a slow time of year — will span 13 day, from July 11 to 24. Lunches will cost $24.07. Dinners will cost $35 on weeknights (and Sundays, if the restaurant wants) but the special menu won’t be available on Saturday nights.

As I’ve written before, Restaurant Week is only as good as the restaurant you happen to be in. Some otherwise excellent restaurants abandon all standards for both food and service and rush you through cut rate chow you could get at your local mall. Others rise to the challenge of maintaining standards for taste and excellence with cheaper ingredients and more imagination.

My general rule of thumb: If you really want to try a certain restaurant but know you’ll never convince yourself to pay full price, try restaurant week. If you can pay for a regular seat — and do realize that lunch comes way cheaper than dinner every day — do that. You’ll get to see what the actual restaurant is like, not the restaurant of the same name that only exists at Restaurant Week.

Related Posts:

  • No Related Posts
Category: Eating Out | Tags:

Visitors should skip the NY International Auto Show

Andrew D. Smith | April 26, 2011 | No comments

Take a glance at Time Out or anything “Things To Do” publication and you’ll see a lot this week about the New York International Auto Show. But if you have limited time in the city, you should ignore the show and see other stuff.

Yes, the show here is one of half a dozen truly major auto shows in the world, a show that comes with concept cars and previews of coming models, but it’s nowhere near as fun as you’d imagine.

The biggest problem is access. Visitors can kick the tires and sit inside pretty much any existing production car in the world up to the Mercedes level of luxury. But anything beyond that is off limits. Want to sit in one of those concept cars or even one of the fully completed cars that hasn’t hit dealers yet? You can’t. They’re all off limits, up on platforms, behind velvet ropes. Want to sit in a Bentley or a Rolls, just to see what it’s like? You can’t do that either. The really nice cars are off limits, too.

Basically, if there’s no realistic chance that sitting in it will inspire you to walk out and buy it, you can’t sit in it. Going to the show is, thus, a lot like going to the local Ford dealer, only you have to wait in line just to sit in the mediocre cars — because the place is mobbed, at least on weekends — and you can’t actually drive anything.

If you’re actually looking for a car and want a chance to browse through nearly every production vehicle in the world before choosing some favorites, you might want to head over. But if you’re not looking to buy a car and you have limited time in the city, there are much, much better things to do here.

Related Posts:

  • No Related Posts
Category: Events | Tags:

See the New York Stock Exchange while you can

Andrew D. Smith | April 23, 2011 | No comments

There will be a stock exchange at the corner of Wall and Broad streets for many more years, I’d guess, but it probably won’t be called the New York Stock Exchange for much longer.

The NYSE — which is actually NYSE Euronext because of an earlier merger — is looking to sell itself to Deutsche Börse AG for $9.3 billion. The merged entity could, of course, choose to call itself the NYSE, but I’d guess that national pride will keep the Germans from doing that.

And even if the name remains the same, you just won’t feel the same looking at the grand columns and the big flag and knowing that a German firm controls it.

Related Posts:

  • No Related Posts
Category: Dirty Deeds, Walking Tours | Tags: ,

New York City: Car or public transit?

Andrew D. Smith | April 21, 2011 | No comments

Every guide book warns visitors against using cars for a trip to New York City, and this advice is absolutely correct — if you’re staying in the city several days.

But if you’re taking a day trip into the city, conventional wisdom is dead wrong. The train is not the way to go. The car is a much better option, both for price and convenience, particularly for groups of three or more.

Many folks who day trip into the city always take the train because they expect horrible traffic getting into the city and dangerous conditions once they get there. But these fears are overblown. If you’re not driving at rush hour, when waits can be truly terrible, you probably won’t experience all that much traffic.

The real waits come from public transit. First, you have to drive to the station and park and allow some extra time on the platform. Then, you have to wait at every station on the way in. Then you have to spend another half hour getting from the train station in New York to wherever you want to go. (When you’re in your car, you drive right to the correct neighborhood, and you leave whenever you’re ready to go.)

Still doubt that driving is really faster? Go to the “Directions” function on Google Maps and ask it to calculate trip times for driving and public transit. Then add in the time you’ll need to get from your house to the station. You’ll be amazed at how much slower transit is.

But what about cost, particularly the high cost of parking?

So long as you’re not going to Midtown or Downtown on a weekday, it’s actually pretty easy to find on-street parking in much of Manhattan. Some of it requires that you feed a meter, but a shocking amount of it is free. Even if you end up parking at a garage, the $30 you spend may well be less than the money that you spend on parking at the train station and tickets. (It will certainly be less for a family of four.)

There are even websites that help you find free parking and get good rates on garage parking.

So go ahead and take the car. The public transit advocates overstate their case.

 

Related Posts:

Category: Getting Around | Tags: , , , , ,
« Older Entries Recent Entries »