Places To visit

Written by manhatter on January 10, 2012 in Sightseeing - No comments

Top 5 Places to Visit In Manhattan

Central Park

Central Park Conservancy
830 5th Ave
New York, NY 10024

Central Park really need no review, it’s a beautiful oasis in the face paced hectic city of New York. I honestly think that New Yorkers would go insane or move away without having the chance of connecting to nature with this park. You can do anything here and the city does a fine job of keeping the park clean which is important. There seems to always be some type of activity or even going on in the park and even without one it would take you at least a dozen trip to see and experience most of the park.

I’ve rented a row boat here which was nice but I really wish you could rent a traditional sit-in kayak here, that would be my biggest criticism of the park.

No matter what activity you like here you can still aways find a quiet little nook to call your own and unwind which is key for a lot of people. The park really is a fantastic place to check out if you’ve never been but if you don’t live in the city I don’t think you’ll ever get the full appreciation of how important Central Park is.
Madame Tussauds New York

234 W 42nd St
(between 7th Ave & 8th Ave)
New York, NY 10036

Tussauds from my understanding is the best wax museum there is. I had never been to a wax museum before so I mind as well pop my cherry with Madame Tussauds. I would drop this place 1/2 star if I could for the expensive admission (like $29 or so I think). But I think its nearly impossible to be a tourist attraction in NYC in Times Square non the less and not charge an arm and a leg. You can find $5 coupons in many magazines and even people down the street, they also offer student discounts and AAA discounts to help the price (you can probably only use one of the 3 discounts at once).

Anyway this place is awesome, you can touch and go right up to any of the wax figures (feels more like hard plastic than anything) and take as many pictures with the figures as you want. At least 80% are amazingly realistic. They have wax figures for everyone from today’s hottest stars to political figures and figures from history. It’s awesome to see the real life size of a lot of the people you would have no idea how big or small they really are/were.

Because this isn’t a tour you can take as much or as little time with any portion of the museum which is cool. Make sure you check out the making of video clips of how they make the wax figures (I forget if it’s in the museum or in the gift shop but it was playing somewhere) it’s very interesting.
Frick Collection

1 E 70th St
(between 5th Ave & Madison Ave)
New York, NY 10021
Neighborhood: Upper East Side

The Frick Museum is one of the most beautiful museums I’ve ever been to and it’s still small enough to see everything in a short visit. The museum is actually the former home to Henry Clay Frick who had the gorgeous home built in 1914. He was a passionate art collector and knew he would have his home turned into a museum when he died. The home officially opened to the public in 1935 (Henry Frick died in 1919) after an addition to the house added a couple new gallery rooms and a beautiful indoor garden court (complete with plenty of seating and a fountain) where the driveway had been. The rooms are preserved as they were when Frick lived there so you don’t get the same museum feel as you would anywhere else. The artwork includes some of the best in the world (paintings I’ve personally seen in art history books during college) from painters like Vermeer (there are 3), Rembrandt (including his famous self portrait), Goya, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, and Gainsborough just to name a few. There’s also a great collection of furniture and sculptures as well.

There are few negatives to this place though. Photography is not allowed anywhere, you can’t walk around the grounds, the second floor is off limits, the admission is $18 (unless you go between 11am-1pm on Sundays when it’s suggested), and because this isn’t a traditional museum there aren’t plaques by the artwork telling you anything about the work. As long as you’re not deaf or a germaphobe you can take one of the free audio tour devices and many of the art pieces have numbers next to them which correspond to an audio description of the piece.

Overall If you love the old masters or history at all then you need to check this place out, it’s well worth the trip.
Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 5th Ave
New York, NY 10028

Amazing museum right on the gorgeous central park. The museum is suggested admission and I’ve been here enough times to finally realize that the cashiers don’t care or make you feel guilty if you give them any amount, they’re used to it. The one thing you need to know is that no matter how hard you try you can not see the entire museum in one visit like you can do with other museums like the Philadelphia Museum of Art. If you wanted to see everything without going slow or reading much it would take you 3-4 visits at 3-4hours per visit. So take note of this so you don’t go crazy trying to see the Met in one or two visits. This is an awesome museum, probably the best in the country so if you haven’t been come and check it out!
The Conservatory Garden

E 105th St and 5th Ave
New York, NY 10021

The Conservancy Garden in Central Park is one of my all time favorite places in the city. It’s been there since the 1930s and is the most beautiful thing you can see in NYC for free (it’s open daily from 8am to dusk). There are many entrances to the garden but the main entrance is at 105th street and 5th ave. This is the entrance with the Vanderbilt Gate. The gate was forged in 1894 in Paris for the Vanderbilt mansion where it stood until 1927. The gate is considered the finest example of wrought iron in the city. The 6 acre garden is broken up into 3 distinct areas. It’s not huge but at no point will you ever say to yourself “this is it?”. As much as I’d love to I won’t go into depth on any of the areas because it won’t give it justice. All I’ll say is that it’s very well laid out, manicured, amazingly beautiful, and utterly serene, and there are plenty of benches to sit and relax. It’s never that busy and is worth going well out of your way for.