New York New York
Change of topic for todays post, I wanted to do a quick blog post about my recent trip to New York with Ellie. All photos in this post were taken by her, she is an amazing photographer as you’ll see!
In a word, New York was amazing. It certainly lived up to expectations and we managed to fit loads of stuff into the week we were there.
Where we stayed
Rather than opt for a hotel, we decided to stay in an apartment in Brooklyn. This turned out to be much better than a hotel and much better value for money. If anyone is looking at staying in New York for more than a few days, I’d certainly recommend taking a look at The Box House Hotel in Brooklyn. Its about a 10 minute walk from there to the nearby Subway station, from there it is one stop to Grand Central Terminal and three stops to Times Square – so it was dead easy to get into Manhattan.
As you can see from the picture, we had a lot more space than the average NYC hotel room. Plus this was the view from the apartment window which greeted us when we arrived -
What we did
It felt like we did loads (we did!) but at the end of the week we realised just how much we hadn’t done! New York has so much to do, we could have probably spent much more than a week there. There were a fair few highlights.
Helicopter Trip over Manhattan
I booked this as a surprise for Ellie on her birthday and used Liberty Helicopters (thanks to Richard Shove for the recommendation!) and it was a great trip. The flight lasted around 20 minutes and started with a trip over to Ellis island which took us pretty close to the Statue of Liberty -
Then we flew down the Hudson river which gave us some amazing views -
We also took in some views of Madison Square Garden and the new 9/11 Memorial site.
Central Park
I love how New York have an amazing park right in the middle of a busy, congested city. When you walk deeper into the park, it doesn’t feel like you are in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world. However I didn’t exactly fall in love with Central Park instantly if I’m honest, mainly because of much of it being taken over by the New York marathon on the first day we visited!
We went back a few times though and it is a great place, if I lived in New York I could imagine myself spending a lot of my free time in Central Park relaxing. I think what made it even nicer was the amazingly good weather combined with the autumn colours of the trees. I’ll let some of the pictures show things better than I can -
We ended up going to Central Park a few times but we barely scratched the surface really, the place is huge. The ice rink had also been setup which looked great but I wasn’t feeling brave enough to try it 
I think this is my favourite photo, it shows the combination of a stunning park, set again the skyscrapers of an amazing city -
Rockefeller Centre
On our second night we wanted to take advantage of the clear weather and went to the top of the Rockefeller Centre just before sunset so we could take in some views and watch the sun set over New York -
Another attraction of the Rockefeller was the plaza and the ice skating rink which had just been setup. We were a few weeks early for the famous Christmas tree unfortunately but it was still a very nice area -
Times Square
I really loved Times Square. I know that it is super busy, congested and full of people trying to sell you stuff, but I loved it. We ended up going there a few evenings and often found ourselves sitting on the red steps with a coffee. There was something nice about relaxing in the middle of such a busy area.
Times Square also gave us some of the best food and bars we had in New York. Famous Daves BBQ was amazing -
On the left is a huge beef burger which is topped with shredded BBQ pork, on the right is a 1/3 rack of ribs, brisket and a muffin (yes a muffin!). I don’t think either of us were able to finish our meals, they were definitely the best ribs I’ve ever tasted.
We also found a great Irish Bar (they are everywhere!) just off Times Square called O’Briens. What we loved about this bar was that despite being so close to the tourist area of Times Square, it was mainly used by the locals which made for a great atmosphere.
The Brooklyn Bridge
This was one of Ellie’s favourite parts of our trip. It was another stunning day so it made it even better when walking from Manhattan to Brooklyn -
Personally I was fascinated by the engineering side of the bridge, you can touch the suspension cables as you walk across and appreciate the workmanship that went into the creation of the bridge back in 1883.
There is probably more that I could include but I think thats it for now!
Overall, I loved New York and it had the added bonus of meeting the awesome Distilled New York team for dinner and lunch. Would love to hear your comments and experiences / questions of New York in the comments
Paddy Moogan
Paddy is an SEO Consultant working for Distilled in the London office.
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November 21st, 2011 at 11:10 am
I love New York for short city trips. Been there 3 times so far and already looking forward to our 4th visit. So much to see and do, time just seems to run away from you.
One thing I would highly recommend is the Ninja restaurant (ninjanewyork.com), one of those hard-to-find themed restaurants that usually only the locals know about. My wife heard about it from a girl who works at the UN and we decided to give it a try, and I must say it was by far the most unique dining experience we’ve ever had.
November 22nd, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Thanks for the comment Barry!
Agree about the time going so quickly. We thought that a week was more than enough but it flew by.
Good find with that restaurant. I’ve always found that the best recommendations, particularly restaurants, often come from locals. These are usually places that are away from the tourist areas too
November 27th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
I was in NYC for SES earlier in the year and a local client took us out to an awesome place called The Sea Grill that looks out onto the rink at Rockefeller – if you like seafood/sushi you should try it next time you’re there (it was expensive though, mind!).
Great pics anyway – we took a cycle tour of Central Park and I’m pretty sure the guy said Madonna had an apartment in the building with the double towers.
December 4th, 2011 at 4:07 pm
Thanks for the tip Ben! I really liked the area around the Rockefeller.
I also heard that Bono from U2 lived in those apartments next to Central Park. Don’t even want to think about what they cost.