I was hoping to make the DO, but now I must be in Asia next week (and so I decided to extend the trip a bit and travel through SW China and Laos, the last country in SE Asia that I haven't been to).

Anyway, just a couple of random travel points since I think most folks are already quite familiar with the city.

Museums
The Museum of Modern Art's normal admission is $10. However, on Friday afternoons/evenings, it's pay what you wish. MoMA currently has a very nice exhibition on "Workspheres", van Gogh's Postman series (just five or six of some of his last work), and a display of an amazing all-terrain vehicle in the lobby. It basically looks like a lunar range rover.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (84th and Fifth Avenue, along Central Park East) also has a pay what you wish policy, but there is a suggested donation of about $8 or $9 (forget exactly). You could easily spend all day at both these museums, so you may want to avoid it.

On the West Side of the Park is the Museum of Natural History. Great place to visit if you have any kids. They just opened a new Science and Space Wing/Planetarium which is quite nice.

Subways
Definitely take advantage of the subway system. Everyone uses it. It is safe, fast, and for the most part clean. Even I am amazed some days at how nice some of the stations look.

The best transportation deal in town is probably the One-Day Fun Card (Metrocard) for $4, which allows unlimited rides on the subway and buses on any given day. Take three subway rides and the card pays for itself. You can buy these from the automated ticketing machinese at each station.

Note though that the subway system likes to do construction on tracks/platforms on weekends. In particular, the Broadway line (N or R trains -- the "Yellow" line), which is very convenient for connecting between major points down the spine of Manhattan (namely Central Park South, Carnegie Hall, Times Square, Herald Square, Union Square, Greenwich?East Village, SoHo, Chinatown, City Hall, and Wall Street/Battery Park) has been renovating the local stations between Canal Street (Chinatown) and 34th Street (Macy*s), so the train only runs express between Canal and 14th Street Union Square and 34th St going uptown (going downtown it's fine). You can still get to SoHo (Prince Street), Greenwich Village (8th Street) and Flatiron (23rd Street) via the downtown platforms but that can be a hassle sometimes. The other train lines should be running normally though. Actually, the N and R uptown local station platform work is ongoing for several more months I think and is 24X7 (but again, the downtown platforms are functioning as normal).

Other Transport
Rollerblades and Razors/Scooters are popular around the city. With the weather about to warm up, you can expect folks to be zipping around again. If you decide to rollerblade or jog the 3-mile or 8-mile loops around Central Park, you will have lots of company during the weekend. Likewise, the Hudson riverfront on the Lower West Side has a very nice 2-3 mile jogging/bike trail that you can rollerblade beginning at Battery Park.

Brooklyn Bridge
Note that Junior's is not that far away from the Brooklyn end of the Brooklyn Bridge, so perhaps you could schedule some dessert after your walk across the bridge. Peter Lugar's is closer to the Williamsburg Bridge (i.e., not that close to Junior's).

Web Based Guides
If you have a Palm or Handspring, I highly recommend downloading Vindigo New York guide before coming over.

Anyway, just some ideas/suggestions...


[This message has been edited by fallinasleep (edited 03-10-2001).]