Tag Archives: Central Park

New York City 2021 – Part 2

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For the first 4 nights we stayed at the Warwick Hotel just south of Central Park. The location is great. You can walk to a Broadway play in 12 minutes, or shop at Saks on 5th avenue. Also very close to Central Park itself of course. Great location for visiting (but it is slightly touristy, so not sure if it would be a good place to live).

The second day of the trip we took it pretty easy because of the night before. Started off brunch by going to this Italian Restaurant near our hotel:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2021/11/26/pazzo-notte/

After, we decided to see if we can get last minute tickets for the Book of Mormon. We tried first at the ticketing section at the bottom of Times Square. They did not have anything (and they said they usually don’t for that show). So we then showed up at the ticketing office at the Eugene O’Neill theater (where the show was at). Basically we showed up at 6pm, and they said they had 2 mezzanine tickets for $199 each (and that they could release them at 6:30pm once they were confirmed they would be cancelled). Fortunately for us, we got them at 6:30pm (below you can see how great our spot was). Will say the play was good, but might have been super hyped up. (Haha Salta Laka City, Ootah, Neutrogena).

After the show we headed to West Village to try our luck to try and see a show at the comedy cellar. We basically stood in the stand by line at 11pm, and they confirmed at 11:30pm if we got in or not (and yea, we got in). Before entering, they did require that we seal our phones and watched in a bag (so we don’t record anything). Also a 2 drink minimum was required (they stamp your receipt on exit). Overall, would go back there, but I did like the ambience of The Stand better. (By the way, we went to a local bar, Minetta Tavern, near by while waiting for 11pm, and gotta say, it’s definitely a student area, with great looking people). In general, the west village is better than the east village (see Part 3 post), but there was a lot of trash at the West Village the night we went.

New York City, first day

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Our hotel when we arrived in Manhattan was located in midtown, which is great since it is pretty central to everything (Time Square, Empire State, Central Park, etc). It was called the Royalton.

(FYI, we did arrive in New York, Long Island at 2am of this day and stayed at the La Quinta hotel, but nothing notable about it except the hotel had a horrible bed, and the towels were not soft… but it was cheap at only $100 a night).

We started off the day going to Korea town and eating at a place called Her Name is Han. At this restaurant, we met David Schwimmer!:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2018/11/19/her-name-is-han/

We then explored a bit in Korea Town, stopping by Food Gallery 32 (a Korean cafeteria with different vendors), and then got dessert at this place:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2018/11/19/grace-street-coffee-and-desserts/

After, we headed to Central Park, and walked around (started around 86th st and made our way down).

After Central Park, we briefly stopped by Times Square. We saw Bryan Cranston while we passed by the theater were he was doing show (he starts the play by barging from the outside).

After Time Square we went to the lower East Side, where met up with our friend Mike (whose lives in New York for 5 months), and checked out a couple of bars. The most notable one is this one:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2018/11/19/bar-goto/

Afterwards, we met up with some friends at Cooper’s Craft and Kitchen for drinks.

Then we attempted to go to Marquee, where Quinto was playing. It the tickets were $60, or $500 for bottle service. Since it was already 2:30am (and I’m they close at 4am), we thought it was not worth it. We then attempted Terminal 5 where San Holo was playing, it they closed early at 1am!

That’s its for day 1.