Top ten must do's in NY

[OddCat]

My daughter and I are off to New York for 4 days and I'm after recommendations for things not to miss.

I've prebooked tickets for 9/11 museum, we plan to take the Staten Island ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, we're going to go up the Empire State Building, anything else that you can suggest we see ? Or places to eat ?

I think it's worth doing the tour to liberty island, as you won't get any decent pictures of the statue from the staten island ferry

My list was:
Helicopter ride
Ice skating in Central Park
Empire State
Ground zero
KATZ deli
China town
Grays papaya hot dogs 🌭
Macy’s
Bloomingdales
5th Avenue
Times Square
Brooklyn bridge

It is my favorite place and I enjoyed all of those so so much 💕 I could walk around NY all day!!

Shamelessly place marking as I am going too!

Times Square is mobbed and tourist hell, especially during the day and/or when people are running to and from the broadway shows, BUT, it is somewhat magical at night.

If your daughter is into art, another place to go is the Cloisters. It is quite a hike uptown and medieval architecture probably not as novel to someone in the UK, but it does have the fabulous unicorn tapestries.

We liked the film and tv sites bus tour. We saw where our favourite tv series and film scenes were shot eg the Friends apartment, Men in Black HQ, the court steps where Barzini was shot in the Godfather, scenes from Home Alone 2 etc. They show some key scenes on tv monitors on board the take you to where they were shot. They check everyone's priorities at the beginning.

I'd avoid Times Square like the plague other than a quick look to say you've been. Awful place. Also hated the bus tour that we got from there.

Empire State at night.
Top of the Rock during the day.
Broadway show.
Lots of time for Central Park. My favourite bit.

The film bus tour sounds ok though. The one we got was at night, bloody freezing and the tour guide thought he was both hilarious and that me and DH would want to share our opinions on British politics. We just wanted a tour.

We were there a couple of years ago at half term - lots of snow which made Central Park magical. Saw a basketball game at Madison Square gardens which was £££ but amazing!

Loved all the activity and lights in Times Square, Staten Island ferry was great - timed it to come back at sunset so got great views of the NY skyline. Empire State in the day and TOTR at night, personally I didn’t like the 9/11 museum but the memorial outside is very moving. Just near there is the Occulous - incredible building, especially from the inside, Grand Central for the ceiling. We walked the Highline and Chelsea Market great for food.

Loved walking Brooklyn Bridge too!

Central Park
Guggenheim
Brooklyn Bridge
Ellis Island museum
Agree on Top of the Rock- do the full tour if you can (only a few dollars more) very interesting about Rockefeller and about art.
9/11 museum was one of the most upsetting tours I’ve been on- very well done but very emotional.

The Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station, for cocktails and seafood at the counter
Circle Line boat trip
Staten Island ferry, agree dusk is a good time, go out in daylight then see the Manhattan skyline at night inbound
Sports depending on the season - Yankees or Rangers for baseball, or hockey or basketball as mentioned upthread.
United Nations tour is interesting but not a must-do

If the weather's nice go to Coney island, you can get the subway the whole way.
Don't bother with the Staten island ferry it's too far away from the statue, get the actual ferry over to Liberty.
In nice weather Greenwich village and Washington square park are nice.
We loved walking through Central park, especially seeing the Alice in wonderland statue. You can also hire a boat on the water there.
The Museum of Natural History was excellent.
Definitely concur with Top of the Rock in the day. We went up at night and did the Empire State in the day and wished we'd done it the other way round.

Top of the Rocks
Empire State Building day and night
The High Line
Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
9/11 Memorial and Museum
Central Park
Natural History Museum
Ice Hockey at Madison Square Garden
Broadway Show
Times Square

Tiffany's of 5th Avenue now has a restaurant so you can have breakfast at Tiffany's!
Highly recommended! Lots of food for your money and it's all delicious x

Don't know if it's already been recommended but dinner in the dark. They may not have availability this close though.

Just to add

• If you want to go in the Crown of the Statue of Liberty book these as far in advance as possible (gets booked up very fast).
• See Manhattan from Brooklyn at dusk/nightfall is amazing. Could do this after pizza at Grimaldi's or Juliana's.
• If going in the summer check out the free concerts filmed by Good Morning America in Central Park. For popular bands there will be queues ! Very early start but you're from the UK so you'll wake at 5am anyway !
• The View revolving restaurant- don't go for dinner (expensive), but you could go before 8 and just have a cocktail or two and make it last 1 hour - the time for one full revolution