So I'll be visiting New York City next month. What should I do? My primary goal is to visit a lot of street food vendors. My secondary goal is whatever else is fun and cheap (or free). I will likely have one evening, one full day, and then maybe one morning (only in Queens though).

Fuck Queens, come to the Bronx and I'll show you how we party in the Boogie Down.

You could go on a tour of the various places Scorsese shot Goodfellas.

Or you could spring for a subway token and visit Manhattan, see The Seussical Returns: Rosie O' Donnel's Revenge.

Definitely try to see the movie locations... you could be one of at least 20 million who has had the fortune to say "Guess what?! I saw where they filmed the establishing shots for some select episodes of Seinfeld!"

This is hilarious. Let me tell you why. My girlfriend recently visited a friend of hers in NYC who's in medical school. They went to the Seinfeld diner and she was so excited as they were on their way to the place. She called, texted, and generally couldn't stop telling me how awesome it was going to be. She was there for an entire weekend and I'm fairly certain she was more excited to visit the Seinfeld diner than anything else. Turns out the show only used those establishing shots of said diner and the inside was that of a completely different eating establishment.

As for NYC, it's a fun place in limited doses (a real New Yorker would probably want me castrated for that statement). Don't ever drive there, as it's a huge pain to get around and the parking is "Oh my fucking God" expensive.

I recommend visiting Madison Square Garden. You're a hoops fan, and that's the mecca of basketball. Just go walk around inside of it. It's pretty great. And it's free.

Also, Mark! How the hell are you, pal?

Pete(sicle)!

*worries that he'll read that as comparison to test(sicle)*
*worries that he'll read that as pop(sicle) and assume I'm back to my e-flirtations with homosexuality*
*hopes that he'll assume I'm back to my e-flirtations with homosexuality*
*goes to church*
*has demons cast out*

PETE! I'm doing well. Everything wrapped up/got extracted just fine and I'm recuperating to the best of my ability. A little sleepy here and there but that's normal, going to change.
How's tricks with thee?

---

Also: New York without Manhattan is an experience that I haven't yet had. I say, if you're unwilling to see the movie sights, you ought to do some Queens performance art. I know you've been itching to do a full one-man mime performance of Serenity and I support this.

Queens! Try and find some celebrities. Queens! Try and find yourself and realize you're in a dream and then try to fly or travel time*.

*only if you're in a lucid dream of Queens

I'll be flying in and using public transportation.

Or Taxi Driver.

Though it's apparently a lot less prostitutey now.

Good to hear! Both your timely recovery and your homosexual e-flirtations.

As for me, well, you know how it is. Or do you? You probably don't, so I'll explain:

There really isn't much to explain. The daily routine is as...daily as ever. We do have beg bugs in our apartment (which, to keep this vaguely on topic, is apparently a huge issue in NYC), so that sucks. We're forced to constantly clean (very thoroughly clean) and sleep on couches until an exterminator can get out to us. That won't be until May 9th. It's a pain in the ass, but I think we caught it early and have killed most of them by now. No one's been bitten in about a week, so that's a good sign.

So yeah, bed bugs, lots of playoff basketball, and few movies. Meh, it could be worse. I could have AIDS. Or be dead. Or think about voting for Donald Trump.

I hate to ask the obvious, but why not do the normal tourist-y stuff like Central Park and Times Square? Both are free after all.



Dude! Aren't you checking your PMs?

The Bronx zoo is free on Wednesdays.

Go to Newark. Seriously.

The Brazilian and Portuguese food in the Ironbound neighborhood is fantastic and you can walk there from Newark Penn Station. There's a great kosher deli called Hobby's in downtown Newark. I'd also recommend visiting Hoboken or Jersey City for a view of Manhattan that most New Yorkers don't even see because they think they're too good to step foot in Jersey.

I got a connecting flight in Newark a few weeks ago. I was glad to get out

Why would anyone willingly go to Jersey? Unless they were a masochist...

I'm guessing most people want to go because of what they saw on Jersey Shore, I can understand that, but I can't imagine ANYONE wanting to go to Camden for any reason.

Maybe suicide by proxy.

Your loss.

I just got back from NYC on Sunday. I will say this: I was very skeptical of NYC pizza going in. I figured it was just one of those things that big city people cling to as a reason to pound their chests in front of lowly midwesterners like myself.

But that changed in the moment that the first bite entered my mouth. My internal monologue went something like, "Okay, prepare to be disappointwhoa, this really is pretty fucking good."

Which place?

When I went south to visit relatives, they took me to Cici's pizza. I almost puked. Besides Chicago I can't think of a place in the U.S. that gets pizza right. Hell, even upstate New York has shitty pizza in comparison. Every time I travel I have to avoid eating pizza, lest I crave the real thing.

The pizza in NYC gets even better in the other boroughs. The Bronx and Brooklyn lay claims to the best pizza, especially in the Italian neighborhoods. The places that get fresh dough from Arthur Ave in Bronx Little Italy... omfg, so good.

There was a little hole in the wall place in Fordham, near the Grand Concourse. For years they got voted the best pizza in NYC. Unfortunately they closed

On a side note, the animosity between non-big city people and big city people is somewhat humorous.