Tomorrow In NYC
April 28, 2015 6:14 AM Subscribe
I have most of the day free in NYC tomorrow - anything particularly fantastic going on?
I'm getting into NYC early tomorrow for a conference (99u) and have most of the day free until conference-related activities begin in the evening. I used to work in the city and visit often with my family, so I'm not looking for the "quintessential" NYC day trip but rather any interesting exhibits and/or off the beaten path stuff that happens to be going on Wednesday for whatever reason. For example I see the Museum of the Moving Image has a Mad Men exhibit so that's a possibility. Outdoor suggestions definitely welcome - looking at the weather forecast for tomorrow I might just decide to walk around outside all day!
I'm getting into NYC early tomorrow for a conference (99u) and have most of the day free until conference-related activities begin in the evening. I used to work in the city and visit often with my family, so I'm not looking for the "quintessential" NYC day trip but rather any interesting exhibits and/or off the beaten path stuff that happens to be going on Wednesday for whatever reason. For example I see the Museum of the Moving Image has a Mad Men exhibit so that's a possibility. Outdoor suggestions definitely welcome - looking at the weather forecast for tomorrow I might just decide to walk around outside all day!
Best answer: * pulls up chair and sits down *
First I'm going to point you to the web site Atlas Obscura (disclaimer: I write for them sometimes) because "off the beaten path" is its bread and butter. You can type an address into the search string and it will pull up a map of all the cool stuff it knows about near that address.
I also found that there's a pop up minigolf green on top of the Hudson Hotel in Hells' Kitchen.
If you want a REAL outdoors experience, try heading out to some of the farther-flung parts of the city - like Floyd Bennett Field or Staten Island's Greenbelt. You can get to Floyd Bennett with a subway/bus combo pretty easily (take the 2 train to its southern terminus, and get on a bus that's RIGHT THERE that goes on towards the Rockaways and it's about 9 stops), and they've got a couple cool hiking trails, guys playing with remote-control cars and planes, and a couple of the hangars have antique planes in them that you can poke around looking at. Staten Island will be a bit more of a trick for public transit, but they have a huge trail system - one of the trails also takes you to part of a national park area on the coast. And it's surprisingly "wildernessy" - here's the Flickr album from when I went last week.
And actually, Fort Tilden is another "this is New York?" adventure - you can also get to that via the same subway/bus combo you'd use for Floyd Bennett, just staying on a couple extra stops. That's another former-military-base-turned-recreational-area, and it's right on the water so there's a huge stretch of beach that is usually pretty empty even at the height of summer so it'd be near-deserted now (more photos of that here).
I think the travel time from northern Brooklyn to Fort Tilden took about an hour; I'd count on 90 minutes coming from Midtown. Similar travel times for Floyd Bennett, and Staten Island would be longer. But it's still worth a couple hours' visit in all places.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:39 AM on April 28, 2015 [11 favorites]
First I'm going to point you to the web site Atlas Obscura (disclaimer: I write for them sometimes) because "off the beaten path" is its bread and butter. You can type an address into the search string and it will pull up a map of all the cool stuff it knows about near that address.
I also found that there's a pop up minigolf green on top of the Hudson Hotel in Hells' Kitchen.
If you want a REAL outdoors experience, try heading out to some of the farther-flung parts of the city - like Floyd Bennett Field or Staten Island's Greenbelt. You can get to Floyd Bennett with a subway/bus combo pretty easily (take the 2 train to its southern terminus, and get on a bus that's RIGHT THERE that goes on towards the Rockaways and it's about 9 stops), and they've got a couple cool hiking trails, guys playing with remote-control cars and planes, and a couple of the hangars have antique planes in them that you can poke around looking at. Staten Island will be a bit more of a trick for public transit, but they have a huge trail system - one of the trails also takes you to part of a national park area on the coast. And it's surprisingly "wildernessy" - here's the Flickr album from when I went last week.
And actually, Fort Tilden is another "this is New York?" adventure - you can also get to that via the same subway/bus combo you'd use for Floyd Bennett, just staying on a couple extra stops. That's another former-military-base-turned-recreational-area, and it's right on the water so there's a huge stretch of beach that is usually pretty empty even at the height of summer so it'd be near-deserted now (more photos of that here).
I think the travel time from northern Brooklyn to Fort Tilden took about an hour; I'd count on 90 minutes coming from Midtown. Similar travel times for Floyd Bennett, and Staten Island would be longer. But it's still worth a couple hours' visit in all places.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:39 AM on April 28, 2015 [11 favorites]
Do you have time to go grab a New Yorker magazine today? The front part is tiny reviews of stuff going on that week. And once you get in town check out Village Voice and Time Out NY and see what they advise?
posted by Don Pepino at 7:43 AM on April 28, 2015
posted by Don Pepino at 7:43 AM on April 28, 2015
Response by poster: Thank you for the suggestions - all good! Unfortunately, the winner was "have early morning flight cancelled; hang out at airport waiting for replacement flight".
Still, the weather was glorious and I walked the length of the High Line to my evening conference party so I won't complain!
posted by mikepop at 11:57 AM on May 6, 2015
Still, the weather was glorious and I walked the length of the High Line to my evening conference party so I won't complain!
posted by mikepop at 11:57 AM on May 6, 2015
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posted by jammy at 6:17 AM on April 28, 2015