NY, NY: Our Toddlers take on the Big Apple

This is Part I of the New York City Travel Series

 

OUR AMTRAK pulled into New York Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station right on time. I don’t know how they did it. We were about 40 minutes late leaving Boston, where we’d spent a delightful visit with family, but somehow the engineer had put the pedal to the metal and shot us through some fine country sites of New England countryside to reach the Big Apple in roughly four hours.

We rattled about gathering our stroller and luggage, much to the strained patience of other passengers (“if the train’s stopped, you get off!”—maybe we weren’t quite as back on schedule as I thought) and then tumbled off into the sea of people milling the platform.

Okay, we told ourselves. This is the big leagues. Boston’s subways were nada compared to this.

I had a lot of mixed emotions coming back to NYC. You know that feeling you get when you visit a place you haven’t been to in a really long time, and there’s that odd pull of constantly looking for things you remember and then being overcome by all that’s changed. The last time I’d been a child visiting grandparents over in Long Island, and I distinctly remembered the vintage colonial that stretched up and up to three stories, the way the home would get overwhelmingly hot in the muggy grips of summer, and an outrageous green staircase. I remembered the classic train stations, the Empire State Building, and a beach where I’d been bowled over by a giant wave and had to spend the next week feverish in Grandma’s bed with a splitting ear infection.

This time we were doing the ultimate tourist extravaganza in Manhattan with the next generation, and we were going to see it all. The Statue of Liberty. Central Park. Museum of Natural History. Did I mention the “next generation” were toddlers?

So there we were, standing on the sidewalk and trying to keep walking like we knew where we were going while surreptitiously checking our Google Maps. The hotel was only a 16 minute walk away but my God, the traffic. My God, the people. So we joined the throng waiting for a taxi (31st Street midblock between 8th and 9th Aves). There was plenty to be entertained by while we waited, like our first taxi driver brawl (no cutting in line, folks, you will be called out). The poor guy helping passengers load into their taxis was like a conductor, turning the warmth of his smile on us sweaty and tired tourists while at the same time dancing around catching one taxi that tried to zoom away with the trunk wide open, breaking up fights, and reminding the drivers there would be no sass or they could take a hike. He saw the size of our group and got us a taxi van lickety-split. We were off. At a snail’s crawl. Tons of construction up and down streets; another one closed off for an event. Out comes the phone to show a marathon of Bluey to the displeased toddlers. So in double the time it would have taken walking, we arrived at our esteemed hotel. Step One, done!

There was a playground nearby, and we stocked up on food at Whole Foods—I recommend the smoothies. The hotel had graciously given us a fridge stocked completely with alcohol. We politely informed them that our ask of a minifridge was because we had little kids, and they shuttled a much smaller, but empty one up to us.

But who wants to eat in when there’s so much to see, so much to try! I will say the Australian-flair Bourke Street Bakery on 28^th Street completely stole our hearts. A perfect mix of savory breakfast rolls, decadent croissants, and this truly excellent Culture Coffee plus great customer service had us coming back more than once.

And where else to go first but the American Museum of Natural History!

Let me tell you: we severely underestimated the size of this place. We thought all the time would be spent at the dinosaurs. So there we were, lazing our way past these awesome fossils (gawking at how much we’d forgotten since elementary school). Did you know about the Titansaur? This Cretaceous period giant is so long its neck stretched clear out of the room! It was great. Then we stumbled into the life-like mammal exhibits. Then we come face to face with a blue whale suspended from the ceiling in a marine exhibit that seemed the size of a football field. (You see where this is going, don’t you—yes, nap time was definitely in jeopardy).

So our youngest passed out in the gemstone exhibit, which was filled with brilliant jewels of every kind and size, including a sixteen foot amethyst. We’ve maybe seen a quarter of the place. It’s giant, truly impressive. Really plan for a whole day.

However, with six days to spare, we were off to Central Park, which is right across the street. It was time to run for miles! (yes, the youngest was up now). Again, this is another place that we truly enjoyed and could have easily spent the whole day there. In the space of a couple hours, we stumbled upon Belvedere Castle, a beautiful overlook first built in 1872 that overlooks the Turtle Pond and the Great Lawn. Everyone was out enjoying the beautiful day on Great Lawn with plenty of games, plus we checked out Cleopatra’s Obelisk which carries Egyptian hieroglyphics. Coming back, we found what we thought was the famous tunnel bridge from Home Alone 2 but later discovered it is more toward the far south of the park.

Catching the subway back downtown was... interesting. Rush hour was in full swing, but luckily we had two very tuckered out kids, and one hardened New Yorker appointed himself our guardian and made sure everyone gave us room to exit. The hardest part was trying to find an elevator for the stroller. At one point, we got out of the subway, waited until the crowd died down, and then manhandled that stroller up two flights of stairs as stealthily as we could (can’t wake the toddler!) No, elevators are not standard at every stop.

As such, an early night! Just as I was falling asleep, I caught the forecast for our upcoming day at Statue of Liberty: rain… (To be continued)

Disclaimer: The above is depicted as fiction, not fact.