I am pretty sure my oldest daughter has inherited my love; when she was 3 she proclaimed that she wanted to live in Copenhagen and when 3 1/2 she was melting into London as if she had always lived there. I was therefore so exited to return to NYC - this time with my family in tow. My last trip to NYC consisted of Bloomingdales, Nieman Marcus, cute shops in The Village, Saks, soaking in the city life and food in between. Obviously, this was to be a very different trip; children (and husband) have limited patience for mama trying on shoes and my shopping budget is a tad bit smaller than it was before kids. This trip was all about making NYC fun and interesting for both kids and adults.
There are so many great things to see in New York and there are awesome things to do for kids of all ages. I am writing about our particular trip and stuff we saw and did. Therefore, you should by no means take this blogpost as the all-important must do list for kids in New York, but simply as a sample menu of the grand buffet that is the Big Apple.
Hotel
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| The fabulous view from our room |
9/11 Memorial
We started our first day in NYC with something not so child friendly; the 9/11 Memorial. I booked tickets on their website www.911memorial.org and we went there first thing in the morning which meant the queues to get in were not too horrid and moving fairly quickly.
The Memorial is beautifully made, very somber and a place for reflection - and not necessarily the best place to bring two young children (note a lack of bathrooms). We decided to go however because of the loss we as a family have experienced in direct relation to 9/11 (we have lost several close friends in the wars) and it was particularly very important to my husband. It was a tough job explaining to my 4 year old what this place was and even tougher when tears started rolling down my cheeks! I explained that some very mean men flew their airplanes into two big towers, the two towers fell down and a lot of people died. I then explained that the memorial was there for us all to remember the people who died but also to remember to be good human beings and never be mean like the men who did this (very simplified, I know). All in all I am happy we went; it was a very moving experience and I ended up having a pretty deep conversation with my oldest daughter about good and evil - but if you go be prepared for the tough questions!
From the 9/11 Memorial we walked down to Battery Park for a little relaxation and to spot Lady Liberty. If we had had more time in NYC we would definitely have taken the ferry out to Ellis Island, but that will have to wait until the next time.
Next stop was Tribeca and The Village on the prowl for some lunch. We were astounded how child friendly these neighborhoods were; families everywhere, stroller parking outside the restaurants etc. We ended up eating at Cerde Rouge where I had a very delish lobster sandwich and a glass of Pinot. The kids had delicious, real food and to our great surprise; there was a guy in the back making balloons for the kids!
Times Square & Central ParkAs the weather was beautiful, we decided to spend as much time outside as possible (especially as they promised rain the next day). We took the subway to Times Square where we wandered through the crowds and performers. We had our two-year old in the MacLaren and our 4 year old on Daddy's shoulders - not a place I would recommend having small children walking by themselves.
By latish afternoon we finally ended up in Central Park, had some Gelato from Grom Gelato (yum!) and strolled over to a playground in the park. The kids ran ferrel for a bit and we enjoyed the beautiful spring weather. We ended our Central Park adventure with an early evening carriage ride through the park, something I knew the kids would absolutely love and a very neat way to see the park - worth the $$ if you ask me (look them up on the internet www.centralpark.com for prices). And before I get heckled by animal lovers in defense of the poor horses: A lot has happened in NYC when it comes to carriage rides in later years. I am a life-time equestrian and believe me: 1) Nothing is more important to me than the welfare of horses and 2) I know my stuff and can recognize neglect of a horse very easily. Nowadays, there are regulations as to how long a horse can work, what temperature a horse can work under, how many feed & water breaks they need etc. The horses we saw were well taken care off, good physical condition, well shoed and clean. We chose a horse named Teddy. The driver was very nice and informative about the park and it was obvious he had a great relationship with Teddy; giving him a break half way through our trip and giving our children carrots to feed to Teddy.We were a little unprepared for dinner and ended up walking around a bit to find a restaurant: not really recommended - especially if you want good food! research your restaurants and reserve a table. We had lady luck with us though and ended up at a quaint little italian place called Via Quadronno. Excellent italian food and wine and despite our childrens' fairly good behaviour they were very good at recognizing that we had two tired little girls and they expedited our food for us (they probably wanted to avoid a melt down - and they did!). They didnt have any high chair for us though - I never found out whether it was because they were all taken or whether they just didnt have any.
American Museum of Natural HistoryIf you come to NYC with kids, in my view this is a must! It provides floor after floor of amazingness and it is such a visual and physical way for children to learn about history, evolution and of course the awesomeness of dinosaurs. My oldest is a huge dinosaur fan and we have read loads of dinosaur books where they explain how big they were by comparing them to busses etc, but I dont think she truly understood how enormous dinosaurs really were until she stood next to the skeletons.
We had lunch in a nearby restaurant called Isabella's; great food and despite its posh, crisp look was actually very child friendly with crayons for the kids (and way better food than at the museum). After lunch we walked back to the museum and finished up.
Tickets for the Natural History Museum starts at $19.00 for adults and $10.50 for children. You can then add access to special exhibitions or an IMAX show on top of that. We added a butterfly exhibit and an Animals that glow in the Dark exhibit on our tickets and it was well worth it. We did not do the IMAX film, firstly because we felt our children were a little too young, but also because there were already so much to see and absorb, we didn't feel the need to add a movie on top of that.
FAO Schwartz
No child's visit to NYC is complete without a trip to FAO Schwartz. Such a magical toy store and I have to admit: I was very positively surprised that they didnt really sell a load of what I like to refer to as "Plastic Fantastic" toys (also known as cheap crap from China). You can see that they are clearly very selective about what they sell in their stores; they had a lot of Schleich animals, Melissa & Doug toys, creative toys and of course their wonderful selection of stuffed animals. Beware of the candy section on the ground floor though - very big and very tempting...The kids had a turn on the famous piano of course and got to sit down and draw and color at the coloring table and read stories in the book section - all great fun!
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| Frozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity; A must for the sweet tooth |
A Bucket of Love
Although very tempting, we ended up not going to Dillon's Candy Bar; Our kids dont really eat a lot of candy and we figured it would cause more problems than it was worth. Besides, we had other sweet plans: Serendipity III!!! World famous for their frozen hot chocolate and let me tell you; it is well deserved! We had a bucket size cup of pure love and it was 100% worth the sugar high kids. yum yum and more yum!
We ended the day at Katz's Delicatessen where we (of course) had giant, delicious sandwiches for dinner (As you have probably gathered by now: food was a giant part of this trip).
Empire State Building
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| On top of Empire State Building |
To top off our awesome city break, I managed to sneak off to a vintage shop and bought a beautiful dress :D
Getting Around
We did a lot of walking in NYC, not just because the weather was great but also because its just the best way to really get a feel for the city. If you have young children, definitely bring a stroller/ Ergo. We also used the subway quite a bit; its easy, quick and I think you can really feel the energy of a city in a subway and I therefore quite enjoy them.
We did take a cab to the airport and had therefore brought blow-up booster seats for the kids and it worked really well. We did take one cap from the National History Museum to FAO Schwartz because it started to rain. And yes, we had a bad parent moment as the kids had no booster seats, but we all survived and the cab driver didn't blink an eye.
My biggest surprise about New York City was how child friendly it was. We didnt get any dirty looks because we brought kids into nice restaurants, in fact most were very accommodating of families (most nice restaurants though do expect your child to eat real food - not chicken nuggets). It was easy to find a family hotel room and there are just tons and tons of fun stuff for kids to do.
Kids Books on New York:
Kathy Jacobsen: My New York
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