The Big Apple for Peanuts-per-Day

By Mark T. Cockson

Ethel and Mark Cockson in front of the “Peace Fountain” at Cathedral Church of St John the Divine, New York, N.Y.

My globe-trotting mother wanted to see her only great grandchild, so just before Thanksgiving, she and I flew to New York to see baby Orli. Because this was a “budget trip,” we booked airfare through Travelocity and rooms at HI-New York. Landing at LaGuardia Airport, we got in line for a Yellow Cab. A dispatcher gives you a printed form with fares to various destinations; if you are overcharged, you report the driver to the transit authorities. Our taxi ride, a whirlwind of weaving and honking in and out of traffic to Brooklyn, cost $30.00, within the suggested price range of $24.00-32.00.

My mother and I spent several hours with Orli at my nephew’s apartment. We played with her, ate supper, and read her the cardboard and “pop up” books we brought as gifts. When it was time to go, we hired a cab service. We felt like CIA agents in the black Lincoln Towne Car with tinted windows. Carlos, our driver from Ecuador, got us safely to the hostel at 103rd and Amsterdam Sts for $35

We checked into our spacious co-ed hostel room for four ($35/person/weekdays and $40/person/weekends). Mom got the lower bunk (as requested in our reservation) in our corner room on the fourth floor overlooking a children’s playground. We had a room-mate for 3 out of the 4 nights whom we rarely saw. The room was sparsely, but adequately furnished with a nifty reading light for each bed. Bathrooms with private shower stalls were three doors down the hall. Key-swipe access was convenient.

Vowing to save on transportation costs, we bought all day metro passes for $7 each and picked up free subway and bus maps at the hostel information desk. We took the subway to Cheryl’s, a neighborhood coffee shop with excellent pastries, soups, and sandwiches. Meeting Orli and her mother, we headed to nearby Prospect Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Bypassing the Brooklyn Botanical Garden because of high winds, we went to the Brooklyn Museum of Art. This Beaux Arts Building has a new glass and steel entrance making it look like an ornate spaceship which landed in a wide plaza. We took in the American Painting and Sculpture Exhibit. However, the most fascinating exhibits are the climate controlled vaults displaying the stored (not on display) treasures. A complete showstopper is the 1894 upright piano which unfolds into a double bed!

Orli headed home for a nap as mother and I took the subway to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the Upper East Side. We warmed up with hot chocolate at the Met Café overlooking the Grand Hall. We took in the European Painting Exhibit and the Rembrandt Special Exhibit. It is amazing to see Rembrandt age in the series of self-portraits that the Met owns, 300 years before the invention of photography. No visit to New York is complete without seeing Central Park, so we walked across it at 86th St. in search of a restaurant. 

The nice thing about New York City restaurants is that you can view the menus posted in the windows. We chose the “Saigon Café” and were not disappointed. Full of good food, we caught a bus back to the hostel.

Saturday morning dawned cold and windy. Grabbing a quick breakfast for under $5 each (orange juice, yogurt, banana, pastry, and coffee), we went uptown 10 blocks to Morningside Heights and the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine. Begun in 1892 and still not completed, this Episcopal Church is the world’s largest Cathedral. The rose window, stone sculptures, and peace fountain are all noteworthy as are the seven chapels surrounding the main altar dedicated to seven immigrant groups settling New York in the last century.

We took the #1 subway to its downtown end and were shuttled by bus because of weekend construction. We passed outdoor sculptures, including the famous Wall Street Bull, Isamu Noguchi’s gravity-defying “Red Cube,” and “The Immigrants” (in Battery Park). We viewed the new transportation terminal for the free Staten Island Ferry and then stood in line to buy ferry tickets to Liberty Island. A couple gave us their ferry and monument tickets! We bought hot dogs and hot pretzels from a sidewalk vendor. We spent the next several hours riding the ferry, taking pictures of the Statue of Liberty, touring her grounds and monument museum with U.S. Park Service Rangers, and going up into the 89’ pedestal of the “Queen of Exiles”. We rode the ferry again, but didn’t disembark like 14 million immigrants did at Ellis Island, instead going back to Battery Park.

U.S. Park Service ranger explaining the history of Lady Liberty, Liberty Island, N.Y.

We watched a street troupe of tumblers, walked through the Financial District up Trinity Place, and stumbled onto the World Trade Center, Twin Towers Site. The foundation is being dug for the Freedom Tower and construction goes on day and night. There are pictures of rescue personnel killed in 2001 and signs to honor this space as sacred. 

A new subway/bus terminal connects to New Jersey. We passed several restaurants and settled for dinner at Edwards, 136 W. Broadway, 212-233-6436. This family-friendly restaurant has lots of mirrors, booths, good food and good prices.

We walked past the Woolworth Building and City Hall Park, where George Washington read the Declaration of Independence to his troops in July, 1776. We caught the #1 subway again to Canal St. Canal is the border between SoHo (South of Houston) and TriBeCa (triangle below Canal) and lined with multi-national merchants selling everything from knock-off Rolexes to tee shirts and designer handbags. Mom shopped while I admired the numerous buildings with cast-iron fronts. Our destination was Roulette, 20 Greene St, (www.roulette.org), a music performance space. We heard an electro-acoustic concert by Anna Clyne with computer graphics by Joshue Ott, my nephew and Orli’s father. 

We boarded the #1 subway and met a young couple we had seen earlier at the Cathedral of St John the Divine. They were musicians from Chicago and Boston, vacationing in New York, and staying near Columbia University, two stops north of the hostel. It is indeed a small world when you run into the same couple in a city of 8 million persons!

Sunday morning we slept in and then headed for Rockefeller Center. We passed by the Today Show and NBC studios. We admired the Prometheus Statue which presides over the ice skating rink. Holiday decorations were in place including giant Toy Soldiers and Angels blowing trumpets. St Patrick’s Cathedral was our next stop. 

After Mass, we walked up 5th Avenue and window-shopped at Bergdorf Goodman (separate department stores, one for men and the other for women), Cartier, H&M, Tiffany’s, and the boutique shops of Trump Tower. We stopped at Henri Brendel’s Chocolate Bar for hot cocoa. We shopped in the gift shop of the Museum of Modern Art and then paid admission to the American Folk Art Museum. (The contents of this museum heavily influenced Bob and Gail Cassilly in the creation of City Museum here.) 

One of the few shows not affected by the Writers’ Guild strike, “75 Years of the Rockettes”, was just letting out as we walked by. We took the subway uptown to 110th St and ate a slice of New York pizza until we could find a more substantial place to eat. We investigated many restaurants and settled on Mitesse, a French Bistro. We had drinks and a wonderful dinner of French country cooking. My Salad Nicoise was every bit as tasty as the one I had in Lyon, France three years ago! Returning to the hostel, we were soon fast asleep.

We asked for late check-out the next morning, and then headed off to several bakeries in the neighborhood for breakfast. The Silver Moon was by far the best bakery and I was able to finish the Sunday New York Times. We checked out of the hostel and hopped a Broadway bus to Midtown. We saw the “Lights of Broadway,” the Times Square News Ticker, NASDAQ Headquarters, and MTV Studio. There were striking workers with picket signs in front of most of the Broadway Theaters we passed. 

We disembarked at the New York Public Library and ducked into the closet-sized Soup Man Restaurant, 4 E. 42nd St, 212-599-5900. The original Al Yeganeh soup kitchen was made famous by the Jerry Seinfeld episode in 1996 with the “soup Nazi.” Now a franchise, the soup is still excellent! Afterwards we went shopping in the Christmas Boutique shops at Bryant Park, and ended our visit there sipping hot chocolate and watching the ice skaters.

We boarded the #7 subway to Queens, New York City’s most international borough where 120 different languages are spoken. We caught a bus at Jackson Square and soon arrived at LaGuardia Airport only to learn that our flight was delayed because of low cloud cover. We finally got to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport five minutes AFTER our connecting flight to St Louis had left. Dense fog at O’Hare had cancelled many flights out of O’Hare and our Wyndham Hotel was full of stranded passengers. 

We boarded a flight next morning to St Louis and mother was able to make her Southwest flight back to Omaha as scheduled. Because of weather, an extra night was tacked onto our itinerary. However, we saw seven out of ten of New York City’s top attractions, ate at some excellent restaurants, saw some first class art, and played with Mom’s great-granddaughter — all in all, a trip worth remembering!