Winter might be the best time of year to visit the Statue of Liberty. Lines are shorter with less tourists and natives willing to bundle up against the cold winds blowing up river. But if you are a hardy soul and don’t mind the chill, then you can save yourself hours of time on line and have a great experience.
Most people choose to visit the great sculpture, which was a gift from the French people in the 1870s, via ferry boat from Battery Park in Lower Manhattan. But if you really want to beat any possibility of crowds you can sail over to Liberty Island from Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey. Same tour, shorter lines.
After a visit to the statue take the ferry over to Ellis Island and tour the Immigration Museum. It is a wonderfully told story of the people who sought the American Dream as they fled poverty, persecution, and violence in their homelands. There is no doubt you will come away inspired and thankful that the United State of America has been a safe haven for so many, and an opportunity for more.
There is no charge to visit the island, but unless you swim or have your own boat, you will have to pay $13 for the roundtrip ferry ticket. An audio tour of the museum is $8. For more information you can go to the website of the National Park Service, who administers the park and museum.
Only five minutes away from midtown Manhattan, visitors to New York may want to consider some of the new hotels that are popping up in Long Island City. For a fraction of what a guest would have to spend to stay at a centrally located hotel, visitors can enjoy a good night’s sleep and some well-appointed spaces only slightly off the beaten track.
Take the Ravel hotel as an example. This boutique hotel has a waterfront view of New York’s iconic skyline and offers a complimentary ride in their Mercedes shuttle to the nearby subway entrance. On the roof of this classy hotel is their Penthouse808 where socializing and excitement pervade the atmosphere. Surrounded by retractable glass, the eight thousand square foot space is a delight to guests.
Other perks offered by the Ravel are:
• Free Parking
• Room Service
• Dry cleaning and Laundry Service
• Gourmet Mini Bar
• Virtual Wine Bar
Treat yourself in style without breaking the bank.
Urban historians Justin Ferate and Peter Laskowich bring tourists on an adventure of discovery in the area surrounding Grand Central Station. This 90-minute award winning walking tour explores the secrets of the Whispering Gallery in Grand Central Terminal; the decorative hubcaps and roadsters on the wall of the Chrysler Building; the favorite meeting place in Midtown Manhattan of Greek Gods Mercury, Hercules and Minerva; and a collection of other wonderful idiosyncrasies of this iconic neighborhood.
You can join the tour every Friday all through the year. Meet at 12:30pm at the sculpture court at 120 Park Avenue on the southwest corner of East 42nd Street and Park Avenue directly opposite Grand Central Terminal. It is absolutely free and no reservations are needed.
Have you ever thought of visiting New York’s branch of the Federal Reserve Bank? It is completely free and well worth the effort of joining a guided tour in order to see the high-security vault. Behind that impregnable door lies over 10, 000 tons of gold reserves, safely stowed 80 feet underground. For those on the tour only a small percentage of that mass of precious metal will be on view. To book your free tour, which is the only way to get a glimpse of the vault, you will need to reserve about 6 weeks in advance of your planned visit. The tour can accommodate up to 25 visitors, takes about 45 minutes, and begins several times during the day between 11:15am and 3:00pm. A visit can be reserved as far as 90 days in advance.
New York Federal Reserve Bank Vault
Self-guided visits are also possible and also need to be booked ahead on-line, and do not include a visit to the vault, but does enable you to see the Museum of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which has an interesting display of the history of money. Self-guided tours are usually available with only one day’s notice.
The High Line is a public park located in an unusual place; atop an historic freight rail line high above the streets of Manhattan’s Lower West Side.
One hundred percent wheel chair accessible, the first section of the High Line opened in June, 2009, ten years after community residents founded the Friends of the High Line organization to preserve and develop the area into a useful public space.
The second section of the park opened in June, 2011; and there are plans to open a third, and last section of the park. All three sections are 30 feet above the streets of Manhattan, are accessible from nine points along its length, four with elevator service. The southernmost point of the High Line is located at Gansevoort and Washington Street, and the northernmost point is at West 30th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues.
Due to the havoc reeked on New York and New Jersey by Hurricane Sandy, combined with High Line’s location within location A, a mandatory evacuation area, High Line Park has been closed since October 28, and has not yet reopened as of this writing. As of November 1st it appears that the park has no electricity, and a minimal amount of damage appears to have been suffered by trees and other landscaping elements. A full assessment of the park’s condition will not be available for at least a few more days.
When life in New York gets back to normal, definitely visit the High Line Park and get a new perspective on New York City.
Low on bucks but big on curiosity? Try a fascinating and enlightening visit to the latest free attraction in Lower Manhattan: the African Burial Ground National Monument. Why haven’t you heard of this historical spot before? Well, it all began in 1991 when a burial ground for slaves was unearthed during the first stages of a new construction project. Over 400 wooden caskets were discovered only 16 to 28 feet below the street. Its development has been progressing over the past twenty years, and the site only recently became New York City’s newest National Monument.
From the end of the 17th century until 1794 about 15,000 men, women and children of African descent, both free and enslaved, were buried in this 6.6 – acre cemetery; denied the right to be buried in the nearby Trinity Church graveyard. At the time the burial ground was in use New York had more slaves than any North American city outside of Charleston, South Carolina.
In 1993 the site became a National Monument, and the first one dedicated to Africans of early New York and Americans of African descent. Visiting is free. The address is 290 Broadway between Duane and Elk Streets. For more information call 212-637-2019.
It’s August, and the people of New York are taking back their streets! That’s right, for the fifth consecutive summer pedestrians rule on three Saturdays in a row beginning on August 4th, from 7am until 1pm on almost 7 miles of New York’s beautiful streets.
From the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park and on Park Avenue, and on the connecting streets cars, busses, cabs and motorcycles will be banished to be replaced by bicycles, skateboards, roller skates, and just plain feet.
On 51st Street stop by and pick up a free bike helmet, and at Foley Square take to the skies on a real urban zip line. There will be a climbing wall, urban art and a Whole Foods Market on hand to round out the strolling experience.
Everything is free on August 4, 11 and 18- so come on down and experience New York in a whole new way.
Come and celebrate the 11th annual River to River Festival, the supreme, cost-free, summer arts festival which takes place in lower Manhattan, now until mid-July.
Stretching from the Hudson to the East River, and from Chambers Street to Battery Park, there will be at least 80 different events encompassing a wide variety of endeavors, including music, film, dance, theater, visual arts and play elements.
The River to River Festival is joining together with WNET/Thirteen as partnering sponsors. They will work together to promote communication about artistic, community and environmental issues that are connected to Manhattan’s urban waterfront landscapes, redevelopment, growth and transformation.
Tomorrow, Monday, July 2, visitors can enjoy three different events as part of the River to River Festival.
1. Inverted Sky: Kite Project: The well-known Mexican visual artist Erika Harrsch is teaming up with praised composer Julian Wachner to create a live kite/music exhibit called “Inverted Sky.” It is absolutely free since it is part of River to River, and will take place at Rockefeller Park at 29 River Terrace between Chambers and Barclay Streets, at 4pm.
2. Bridge to Broadway: Gretchen Parlato and Sachal Vasandani are Jazz singers who will get together with saxophonist Tia Fuller and guitarist Matt Munisteri to perform some of the most beloved, classic songs from Broadway musicals. Tony nominees Rebecca Luker and Marin Mazzie will also be there to perform songs not in the Broadway genre. Join them at 7pm at Rockefeller Park. See above for address.
3. The Runway: Movie Nights on the Elevated Acre join together with Tribeca Films to screen the film “The Runway.” The story involves a boy who needs a father, a father who wants a family and a town who will do anything for their hero. The film will be screened at the Elevated Acre at 55 Water Street between Coenties Slip and Old Slip, at 8pm. Since the seating is first-come first-served it is suggested that viewers come early. Seating begins at 6pm, and the show begins at sunset.
How about something really different? Every Friday at midnight you can check out “Karaoke Killed the Cat” at Union Hall, 702 Union Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The atmosphere is wild as a “karaoke dance party” ensues under the instigation of co-hosts Chris Goldteeth and Lord Easy. Those who dare get to choose from over 18,000 tunes to sing along with while the rest of the guests are enthralled by the antics of Goldteeth and Easy as they act as back-up singers, dancers, or even start water-gun fights while the music is playing.
Mr. Goldteeth explains that, “We do our best to rev the crowd up so everyone feels like a star.”
Join in the fun and feel like a star. There’s nothing to lose, since it’s absolutely free.
The Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art is celebrating its 5th anniversary this week by holding an extraordinary banquet with some of the world’s greatest women of the past three thousand years invited.
The celebratory banquet is wonderful installation artwork produced on a grand scale, created by Judy Chicago. The decorative sculpture, “The Dinner Party,” is a huge, triangular table set to host 39 special guests, 13 women from each of the past three millennia on each side. From legendary, primordial goddesses, to women from the Middle Ages and up until the 20th century, included are such luminaries as Queen Elizabeth I, Sacajawea and Emily Dickenson. An additional 999 names are inscribed in gold leaf on the tiled floor.
Curator of the Sackler Center, Catherine Morris explained why an additional fourth side to the table will be symbolically presented during the anniversary celebrations:
“The question I often get when giving tours of ‘The Dinner Party’ is ‘who would be there today, who would we add?'”
In response to this question 15 contemporary women will be honored on Wednesday at the center’s first-ever First Awards, all first in their specialties and fields.
The honorees are, in part, Sandra Day O’Conner, the first woman to serve on the US Supreme Court; Toni Morrison, the first African-American woman to be honored with the Nobel Prize for literature; the first woman chief of the Cherokee Nation Wilma Pearl Mankiller (who died in 2010); and Muriel Siebert, the first woman to have a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Sackler Center is largely the result of the efforts of its chief benefactor, Elizabeth Sackler. The 8,000-square-feet Center’s main aim is to raise awareness and appreciation of feminist art.
“There is a serious underrepresentation of women and feminist artists in museums and galleries globally,” said Sackler. Sackler donated Chicago’s “The Dinner Party” to the museum, where it makes its permanent home when it is not on tour.
“The center’s purpose is not to resolve the use of the word feminism,” Sackler said. “It is a place where people can come to have dialogues about the meaning of feminism, reminding us of women’s contributions in the past, marking women’s achievements in the present, and inspiring contributions in the future.”
