[Satan]

My 25 year old nephew and mate of his are heading from Down under to the Big A next week for a couple weeks, staying in Manhattan .He has not been there before .

Other than the usual standard, statue of liberty etc places to visit, anything worth going to which is not in lonely planet?

Nightlife , bars ,resteraunts etc (and no I dont want the bars where you end up on front page of ny post)

sport, yankees or mets game( i realize this might start a thread by it self lol)?

shopping, any good shops off the beaten track,clothing electronics etc

Cheers

[Beamen]

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Ali's Kebab Café, on the west side of Steinway Street between 25th & 28th Ave in Astoria.

If they're open minded, and into great food and a great overall meal experience, this is absolutely the place to go. I recently went with two other people, and sat right next to the kitchen for 3 hours, while Ali served up 18 of the most delicious dishes I have ever had, while chatting with us....

This place, and Ali, are the epitome of what New York City is all about, and are located in a great neighborhood (my neighborhood) many tourists completely miss out on when visiting NY....

[Phyr]

Originally Posted by Beamen

Ali's Kebab Café, on the west side of Steinway Street between 25th & 28th Ave in Astoria.

If they're open minded, and into great food and a great overall meal experience, this is absolutely the place to go. I recently went with two other people, and sat right next to the kitchen for 3 hours, while Ali served up 18 of the most delicious dishes I have ever had, while chatting with us....

This place, and Ali, are the epitome of what New York City is all about, and are located in a great neighborhood (my neighborhood) many tourists completely miss out on when visiting NY....

That's great if you want to spend 2 hours going back and forth from Astoria to Manhattan.

[Beamen]

^ It's 3 stops on the train... 15 minutes....

[TommyGreen]

They're going to spend a good half-day just waiting in line to visit the top of the Empire State Building. Tell them to go to Rockefeller Center's "Top of the Rock". Hardly a wait, and a MUCH better view of the city. Trust me.

Don't bother with the neighborhoods outside of Manhattan. If you want culture, go down to Chinatown. Avoid Harlem after 8pm, not that there's anything to see there anyway. Don't know why tourists are so fascinated with that place anyway.

Just tell them to walk, walk, and walk some more. They'll experience the entire city just by hopping from place to place. Check out some of the local sports bars, and visit a nightclub or two.

Bam.

[jonnyd]

Originally Posted by Phyr

That's great if you want to spend 2 hours going back and forth from Astoria to Manhattan.

2 hours? it wouldnt take you 2 hours if you walked

[brothermoose]

Central Park's cool...there's a zoo, a coupla museums...natural history museum rocks, and the met might be around there too. It's all in the middle and on the east side.

[Satan]

appreciate the info

[panos]

Buy them the Fodor´s guide. That´s what I got the first time I went to NYC and it was my best buy ever.

[KOZ]

Tell him to come back in February and take a handsom cab ride, followed up by a bone-chilling harbor crossing on the Staten Island Ferry and finish with a trip to the Top O'the Rock, as the wind whips right through his bones...Right, Greendude?

[jonnyd]

Originally Posted by KOZ

Tell him to come back in February and take a handsom cab ride, followed up by a bone-chilling harbor crossing on the Staten Island Ferry and finish with a trip to the Top O'the Rock, as the wind whips right through his bones...Right, Greendude?

haha.........

[Jtuds]

Originally Posted by Satan

My 25 year old nephew and mate of his are heading from Down under to the Big A next week for a couple weeks, staying in Manhattan .He has not been there before .

Other than the usual standard, statue of liberty etc places to visit, anything worth going to which is not in lonely planet?

Nightlife , bars ,resteraunts etc (and no I dont want the bars where you end up on front page of ny post)

sport, yankees or mets game( i realize this might start a thread by it self lol)?

shopping, any good shops off the beaten track,clothing electronics etc

Cheers

Statjeff had some great info in another thread about some good restaurants in couth Manhattan I think.....

Form my travel experiences, I am sure they will want to check out the touristy stuff first...but after that, I recommend checking out Soho and Tribeca and Greenqich Village, etc.....it's a far more organic NYC experience....the kind of thing that makes you say "man, I'd love to live here"

[statjeff22]

I agree with panos that a good guide is essential. Having said that, the best advice is to be prepared to walk and take the subway, so be sure to get a subway map and a detailed map of Manhattan. I strongly recommend taking the Circle Line boat ride around Manhattan - it gives the best views of Manhattan, and is truly spectacular (To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily. - do the full 3-hour cruise, and sit on the left side of the boat).

If he's going to be here for two weeks he will have time to get to the outer boroughs, and there is plenty to see there as well (taking the subway down to Coney Island, walking the boardwalk, and eating at Nathan's is fun, and walking across the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn and having pizza at Grimaldi's [To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.] is something everyone should do). Over two weeks both the Mets and Yankees should be home, and going to a home game at each will also get him up to the Bronx and out to Queens.

A different sports experience is The Sports Museum of America at 26 Broadway (To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.), which is also very close to Wall Street, Ground Zero, and Battery Park (all worth seeing). He should certainly go to Greenwich Village and walk around - every possible restaurant and club imaginable is there (a very incomplete guide can be found at To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily.).

The official city tourism site is To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily., which obviously has information about all of this and much more.

Edit: one other thing occurred to me. Since 9/11 you haven't been allowed to go up inside the Statue of Liberty (only to the pedestal), which to me considerably reduces the need to get on Liberty Island. The same ferry goes to Liberty Island and Ellis Island - personally, I would stay on it when it gets to Liberty Island, and get off at Ellis Island. You get the closeup view of the statue from the ferry, the same great view of lower Manhattan from the island, and a fascinating look at immigration to the US in the 1800s and early 1900s. All four of my grandparents went through Ellis Island when they came to the US, so it was obviously of special interest to me, but I think it would give a couple of Ozians some real insight into how the US became the country it is.

[statjeff22]

Originally Posted by Jtuds

Statjeff had some great info in another thread about some good restaurants in couth Manhattan I think.....

Form my travel experiences, I am sure they will want to check out the touristy stuff first...but after that, I recommend checking out Soho and Tribeca and Greenqich Village, etc.....it's a far more organic NYC experience....the kind of thing that makes you say "man, I'd love to live here"

Actually, that was just three blocks on one street in the Village (West 3rd between Thompson and 6th Avenue)! Here is the link, but the Village is full of lots more than just this: To view links in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. Your post count is 0 momentarily..

[Satan]

As to the original question, Washington Square is not as nice as usual nowadays, as about one-third of it is closed for renovation. Sullivan Street itself between West 3rd and West 4th is very nondescript - on one side it is Vanderbilt Hall (part of the NYU Law School), and on the other it is the NYU Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies. Just south of that and nearby, however, are a decent pizza place (Ben's), the Groove (R&B club), the Blue Note (one of the best jazz clubs in the world), an excellent but ridiculously expensive Italian restaurant (Il Mulino), unbelievably great felafel (Mamoun's, just down Macdougal Street), a very good Indian restaurant (Baluchi's), and a comedy club (Boston Comedy Club) - and that's only on the three blocks between Thompson Street and 6th Avenue.

__________________

nephew back, loved it, stayed opposite mamouns in an apt

he does ask why for a city that does not sleep why do bars shut at 4am?

thanks for all the advice again

he took lots of it ie walking brooklyn bridge

saw a jets practice game

and i reckon he had a few of those too

[statjeff22]

Originally Posted by Satan

As to the original question, Washington Square is not as nice as usual nowadays, as about one-third of it is closed for renovation. Sullivan Street itself between West 3rd and West 4th is very nondescript - on one side it is Vanderbilt Hall (part of the NYU Law School), and on the other it is the NYU Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies. Just south of that and nearby, however, are a decent pizza place (Ben's), the Groove (R&B club), the Blue Note (one of the best jazz clubs in the world), an excellent but ridiculously expensive Italian restaurant (Il Mulino), unbelievably great felafel (Mamoun's, just down Macdougal Street), a very good Indian restaurant (Baluchi's), and a comedy club (Boston Comedy Club) - and that's only on the three blocks between Thompson Street and 6th Avenue.

__________________

nephew back, loved it, stayed opposite mamouns in an apt

he does ask why for a city that does not sleep why do bars shut at 4am?

thanks for all the advice again

he took lots of it ie walking brooklyn bridge

saw a jets practice game

and i reckon he had a few of those too

The rumors are that closing time may be moved back to 2 AM over the next few years.

I certainly hope he went to Mamoun's! I'm glad he did the Brooklyn Bridge walk, and glad that I could be helpful.