First time
New York in four nights, and how to spend them
Four nights in New York is not enough, but then nothing would be. It is enough for the classic sights, a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, a ferry past the Statue of Liberty and an evening on Broadway, with time left over to simply walk, which is how the city is best understood.
By Walter Pellow2 November 20264 min read
New York is enormous, but its centre is surprisingly easy to manage. Manhattan, the long, narrow island at its heart, is laid out above its southern tip on a grid of numbered streets and avenues, and most of what a first-time visitor wants to see lies within it or a short subway ride from it. It is a city made for walking: the blocks are short, every street has something to look at, and the best way to get a sense of it is simply to set off on foot.
Four nights gives time for a sensible plan: a day downtown, a day midtown, a day in and around Central Park and the museums, and a day across the river in Brooklyn, with the evenings left for Broadway, a view from the top of a skyscraper and dinner somewhere loud.
Downtown
The southern tip of Manhattan is where the city began, as the Dutch trading post of New Amsterdam in the seventeenth century, and its streets still follow the old irregular pattern rather than the grid. Wall Street, named after the wooden wall the Dutch built to defend the settlement, is the home of the New York Stock Exchange. Nearby, the National September 11 Memorial fills the footprints of the twin towers with two great sunken pools, their walls inscribed with the names of those who died.
From Battery Park, at the very tip, ferries leave for the Statue of Liberty, the copper figure given by France in 1886 that once greeted ships full of immigrants arriving in the harbour, and for Ellis Island, where millions of them were processed between the 1890s and the 1950s. The free Staten Island ferry, which passes the statue, is a cheaper way to see it from the water.
Midtown
Midtown is the New York of the postcards. Times Square, where Broadway and Seventh Avenue cross, is a blaze of electric billboards at any hour, and around it lie the theatres of Broadway. The Empire State Building, completed in 1931 and for decades the tallest building in the world, still has one of the best views over the city from its observation decks. Fifth Avenue runs north past Rockefeller Center, St Patrick's Cathedral and a long parade of famous shops, Tiffany & Co among them.
Grand Central Terminal, with its vast concourse and its ceiling painted with the constellations, is one of the finest railway stations in the world, and worth a look even if you are not catching a train.
It is a city made for walking.
Central Park, the museums and Brooklyn
Central Park, laid out in the mid-nineteenth century by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, is the great green lung of Manhattan, more than two and a half miles long, with lakes, meadows, woods, bridges and paths. It is the place to rest your feet, people-watch and see the city's skyline rising above the trees.
Along its eastern side, on Fifth Avenue, runs Museum Mile, with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the largest and greatest museums in the world, and the Guggenheim, in Frank Lloyd Wright's spiral building. On the west side is the American Museum of Natural History, with its dinosaurs.
Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, completed in 1883 and for a time the longest suspension bridge in the world, is one of the great New York experiences, with views of the skyline and the harbour. On the other side, the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and the waterfront parks of DUMBO have some of the best views back to Manhattan, and Williamsburg, a former industrial district, is full of cafés, markets and shops.
The trips
Just You's New York City, four nights for solo travellers, covers the classic sights: Times Square, Wall Street, the Empire State Building, Broadway, Chinatown, Brooklyn and Williamsburg, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park and Fifth Avenue.
Just You's America's Historic Trail with New York Add-on, eleven nights, combines New York with Washington DC, Arlington, Old Town Alexandria, Charlottesville and Monticello, Richmond, Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, Lancaster County and Philadelphia. Travelsphere's America's Historic East with New York Extension, twelve nights, takes in Washington DC, Richmond, Jamestown, Charlottesville, Gettysburg and Philadelphia before New York.
New York is good in every season, with the most comfortable weather in spring and autumn. December brings the Christmas lights, the tree at Rockefeller Center and the shop windows on Fifth Avenue. Summer is hot and humid, and January and February can be bitterly cold, but the museums are warm.
By Walter Pellow, the name Atlas & Passage’s editorial team writes under. Prices and dates in the trips below come from the operators and can change.
