1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (44 page)

Though the business of New York is business, Times Square still does a brisk trade in musical theater. Today there are some three dozen theaters between West 42nd and West 53rd streets, their marquees lit up with a mix of revivals, new contenders, modern classics like
Chicago,
and seemingly everlasting troupers like
Phantom of the Opera.
Ticket prices tend toward the stratospheric (with orchestra seats usually around $100), but if you wait in line you can get same-day half-price orchestra seats at the TKTS booth on Duffy Square, the central traffic island at West 47th Street. Boards list available shows, but don’t count on being able to scoop tickets for the big hits.

Pre- or post-theater, area restaurants range from classics to themed tourist traps. On West 46th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues—a stretch known as Restaurant Row—Joe Allen has been busy since 1965, serving diners drawn to its legendary hamburgers, butcher paper tablecloths, and exposed brick walls full of signed theater memorabilia. A few blocks east, Virgil’s Real Barbecue is on the themey side with its two-story roadhouse interior and good ole boy knickknacks, but it has surprisingly authentic, delicious meat—Texas beef brisket, pulled Carolina pork, and Memphis pork ribs. If that’s just not NYC enough for you, walk up to the Carnegie Deli, an only-inNew-York kosher deli whose air is redolent of pastrami and Henny Youngman jokes. Tables are set elbow to elbow, and the seasoned waiters like to chide wide-eyed tourists as part of their shtick, but when they tell you that you won’t be hungry till next week after eating one of their mile-high sandwiches, they aren’t kidding. The Algonquin Hotel on West 44th Street is where through the 1920s leading wits and tastemakers like writer Dorothy Parker, comedian Harpo Marx, and playwright George S. Kaufman met daily for lunch, creating the legend of the Algonquin Round Table. You can eat in the restored Round Table Room, but a cabaret performance and dinner at the Oak Room are the reason to come here. Stop by for a drink at the elegant Blue Bar, decorated with artwork by Al Hirschfeld of
The New York Times
fame.

And then there’s New Year’s Eve, when Times Square is the world’s party central. Upward of a half million people brave crowds, cold, and amped-up security for that moment when the ball drops, a ton of confetti is released, and fireworks are set off simultaneously in Times Square and Central Park.
The New York Times
got the tradition rolling here in 1904 when it held a fireworks display to celebrate the official opening of its new headquarters. The
Times
has since moved to larger digs nearby, but the Waterford crystal ball still drops from a post atop the old Times Tower, which these days serves entirely as a home for advertising signage—another tradition that started when the famous
Times
news “zipper” was unveiled in 1928, informing pedestrians of breaking news in suitably flashy style.

T
IMES
S
QUARE:
between 42nd and 48th Sts. along Broadway and 7th Ave.
Visitor info:
www.nycvisit.com
.
TKTS
:
www.tdf.org/tkts
.
Cost:
generally half the price of orchestra seats.
J
OE
A
LLEN:
Tel 212-581-6464;
www.joeallenrestaurant.com
.
Cost:
dinner $30.
V
IRGIL’S:
Tel 212-921-9494;
www.virgilsbbq.com
.
Cost:
dinner $30.
C
ARNEGIE
D
ELI:
Tel 800-334-5606 or 212-757-2245;
www.carnegiedeli.com
.
Cost:
sandwiches from $13.
A
LGONQUIN:
Tel 888-304-2047 or 212-840-6800;
www.algonquinhotel.com
.
Cost:
dinner at Round Table, $48; music and prix fixe dinner at Oak Room, $120.
B
EST TIME
: New Year’s Eve, come early.

A Place of Memory and Dreams

New York, New York

It’s difficult for first-time visitors to New York to understand just how tall the twin towers of the World Trade Center stood before they were felled on that terrible September morning in 2001—almost as difficult as it is for New Yorkers to
believe that, after all the years of bureaucratic wrangling that have followed the attacks, anything will ever really be built on this site again. For now, the WTC site, aka Ground Zero, is stuck between past and future yet buzzing with the ceaseless activity that, maybe more than anything else, defines New York.

Political battles have delayed construction of architect Daniel Libeskind’s design for five office buildings arranged in an ascending spiral, leading to the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, whose curved design was intended to mirror the upraised arm of the Statue of Liberty across the harbor. The site was also designed so that the sunlight of September’s autumnal equinox would illuminate the footprints of the original towers. Similarly, the planned September 11 Memorial—
Reflecting Absence,
a design by architect Michael Arad centered around two waterfall-fed pools 30 feet belowground, in the footprints of the Twin Towers—has been mired in controversy, and its final form is still in doubt. In a sense, though, whatever is built here will always be secondary to the memory of what happened on September 11.

Just across the street from the WTC site, and so close it is hard to believe it survived undamaged, is St. Paul’s Chapel, New York’s only remaining pre-Revolutionary church. George Washington worshipped here after his inauguration as president in 1789, and following September 11 it became a 24-hour relief center for recovery workers. In the days and months after the attacks, the church’s iron fence was festooned with missing-persons posters, notes, firemen’s hats, banners, and other items dedicated to the 2,749 victims of the attack. The impromptu memorial has been archived, and today hundreds of the objects fill three sides of the church’s interior. Around the corner, at the home of the New York Fire Department’s Engine and Ladder Company 10, is the first large-scale September 11 monument to be unveiled. The 56-foot street-level bronze bas-relief depicts the morning from the firefighter’s perspective, with the burning towers and the NYFD’s rescue efforts as the centerpiece—and the names of all 343 firefighters who died, including six from Company 10 itself. A few doors away, the Tribute Center—an interim memorial intended to fill in until the real thing is finished—tracks the history of the WTC from its construction through September 11 and beyond. Its gallery displays hundreds of photos and personal mementos of those whose lives were lost.

W
HERE
: the Financial District in southern Manhattan.
www.wtc.com
.
S
T
. P
AUL’S
C
HAPEL:
Tel 212-602-0800;
www.saintpaulschapel.org
.
T
RIBUTE
C
ENTER:
Tel 212-422-3520;
www.tributenyc.org
.
B
EST TIME
: September 11 for annual memorial tributes, including a reading of victims’ names and powerful banks of searchlights projected straight up into the sky from dusk till dawn, simulating the Twin Towers.

Urban Jungle and Garden of Eden

Bronx, New York

The 265-acre Bronx Zoo was opened in 1899 and has grown to be one of the greatest metropolitan zoos in the world, its 4,000 animals representing both endangered species like gorillas, snow leopards, and mandrills and
crowd favorites like penguins and sea lions. From the beginning, the zoo’s mission has been as much about protection and conservation as it’s been about exhibiting animals for our entertainment. The zoo’s parent organization, the Wildlife Conservation Society, works worldwide to address new and ongoing threats to animals and their habitats.

At JungleWorld, a 37,000-square-foot recreation of an Asian rain forest, you can watch 780 animals, including silvered leaf monkeys, black leopards, and Malayan tapirs, going about their business in a landscape that includes a mangrove swamp and a plethora of Asian plants. The 6.5-acre Congo Gorilla Forest offers central Africa, its five major outdoor and 26 interior habitats home to 400 animals from 55 species, including red river hogs, African rock pythons, and one of the largest breeding groups of lowland gorillas in North America.

At the 3-acre Tiger Mountain exhibit, visitors can go nose-to-nose (through glass partitions) with beautiful Siberian tigers. Three times daily, trainers engage the 300-pound cats in training and play sessions designed to encourage their natural instincts and behaviors. Meanwhile, at the indoor World of Darkness display, visitors can see bats, boa constrictors, naked mole rats, and flying foxes—once your eyes get used to the dark.

With miniature replicas of historic buildings, the Botanical Garden’s Holiday Train Show delights children and adults alike.

Just north of the zoo, the New York Botanical Garden is a 250-acre oasis of another sort, home to some 50 individual gardens and plant collections. Founded in 1891 after a visit by Columbia University botanist Nathaniel Lord Britton to London’s Kew Gardens, the institution has grown into one of the world’s great centers for plant collection, research, and education. The landmark Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, erected between 1899 and 1902, is the largest Victorian glasshouse in America—New York’s own Crystal Palace. Inside, you’ll find towering palms, tropical rain forest and desert environments, plus seasonal displays including the annual Orchid Show and the Holiday Train Show, in which little trains and trolleys wend their way past more than 120 replicas of New York landmarks, all made from plant materials like twigs, bark, moss, and pinecones.

The 3-acre Rock Garden is a dramatic sanctuary populated by tiny alpine flowers and woodland plants sprouting among stone outcroppings. Nearby, the Native Plant Garden offers native woodland wildflowers and shrubs under a canopy of tall trees. The surrounding 50-acre forest is the largest remaining expanse of the woodlands that once covered all New York City, and offers walking paths, abundant birdlife, and a seasonally changing patina of color. For kids there’s the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, where they can learn how food is grown, and also the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden, where nature can be explored through microscopes and other hands-on activities.

B
RONX
Z
OO:
Bronx River Parkway at Fordham Rd. Tel 718-367-1010;
www.bronxzoo.com
.
B
OTANICAL
G
ARDEN:
200th St. and Kazimiroff Blvd. Tel 718-817-8700;
www.nybg.org
.
When:
Rock Garden and Family Garden closed Nov–Mar.
B
EST TIMES
: at the Botanical Garden, late Feb–early Apr for the Orchid Show; late Apr–late May for the tulips and cherry trees; June for the Rose Garden; Dec for the holiday decorations and the Train Show. The zoo also offers a holiday display with lights, reindeer, and a nativity scene with real animals.

The House That Ruth Built

Bronx, New York

Love ’em or hate ’em, the New York Yankees have always been central to the great mythology that is American baseball—just as visiting Yankee Stadium is central to the ultimate New York experience. If you can score
tickets to a game, arrange to meet your friends at “the bat,” a 120-foot boiler stack in front of Gate 4, painted with the Louisville Slugger logo and Babe Ruth’s signature. Arrive early and go down to Monument Park (at field level) to see the plaques honoring Yankee greats like Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, and Mickey Mantle—and still have time to buy a hot dog and an ice-cold beer and find your seats.