Tween Town, Not Just for Girls

I got a flood of questions about where to take boys. The boys probably won’t want to do a lot of the same kind of shopping, going to tea or doing their makeup before the show, but most of the suggestions were great for all tweens.

Here are a few more ideas. Madame Toussaud’s is a lot of fun and even with a pricey entry it is freaky and fun. (there are tourist pass tickets that give you discounts at lots of places, like the Empire State Building and if you are doing a lot of the regular touristic things they may be worth it) The Top of the Rock, at Rockefeller Center is supposed to be great for a view of the city if you don’t want to go all the way to 34th St. If your guests are coming from a smaller city, run them inside a couple of Buildings that are amazing spaces that you won’t see anywhere else. In Grand Central (there are good building tours, although you need to know your kid if they would enjoy it or not) there is a spot in front of the Oyster Bar where you can stand in one corner facing the corner and whisper and if someone stands facing the opposite corner they can hear you. Also the food court downstairs is pretty good if you need a snack), and the Reading Room at the Public Library makes a good stop to have a quiet moment if you have sensory overload in Times Square.

I love roaming around the tip of Manhattan. I would wait in line for Ellis Island, and that is saying something. The museum is great and if you have any information on the year that your family member entered the country, it is the biggest thrill to find their signature on the ship’s Leger. You can spend the whole day below Chambers St. I don’t spend much time at South Street Seaport unless it is to pick up tickets at TKTS (shorter lines than uptown) The National Museum of the American Indian (because it is part of the Smithsonian, it is free, your federal tax dollars at work) in the Customs House is great. They opened a beautiful museum on the Mall in DC, but 95% of the collection remains in NY. Spend a lot of time enjoying Hudson River Park, your guests will want to move to NYC. Don’t miss the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Irish Famine Memorial (this is a particularly lovely and unusual little park north of the World Financial Center, really, it is worth looking for) Walk the whole length of Hudson River Park, it is beautifully and unusually landscaped with wonderful playgrounds for young kids and games and sports equipment at the ranger’s station for older children. When you get to the north end you can walk over the Stuyvesant pedestrian bridge and find a nice bistro in Tribeca for a bite or if you haven’t had enough walking you can completely wear out the soles of their shoes and head due east to City Hall and over The Bridge.

Once you are in Brooklyn, the Transit Museum is small and good (really great for young kids, especially on rainy days) I think that the Carousel in Prospect Park beats all others. The adorable Prospect Park Zoo (check out the Pigeon exhibit) and the southern entrance to the Botanical Garden are right across the street (Flatbush, that is). Bring your stale bagels! Maybe it sounds too low impact when there is so much to see in NY, but sitting in the Japanese Garden and feeding the giant Koi fish and turtles can be a big high-light when the kids are otherwise on overload. It is also very, very beautiful. If you are visiting the Brooklyn Museum (great kids programs and First Saturdays) have brunch at Tom’s Restaurant a couple blocks north on Washington Ave. (not open on Sundays) This neighborhood institution is very kid friendly and if you are waiting they pass out cookies. It helps your guests understand that New York is a city of neighborhoods that are really like the best small towns.

Finally the NY Times had a good article about backstage tours last weekend. I can guarantee that the backstage tour at the Met Opera is impressive, but I am interested in the Yankee Stadium tour which sounds awesome, whether you are a fan or not.

How I Learned to Love Camping; Stop Packing.

I used to dread camping because it took forever to pack. The trick is to have a prepacked kitchen box and some equipment ready to just get in the car and go. Years ago I got an LLBean credit card with benefits. After you have collected enough points you get a $10 credit on LLBean stuff as well as free shipping (and monogramming if you are into that) That is how I got all our camping stuff (that I didn’t get at stoop sales). I just read a post that someone sent back their 8 year old tent for repair, for free. We had the experience that if they couldn’t repair something they gave us a new one. I like them.

This is what we always take:

Tent, a plastic sheet for under (tuck the edges under the tent so the water doesn’t wick under) a couple of big tarps with grommets for a rain cover over the tents (the tent waterproofing and rain flaps will probably work well, but the thought of keeping all rain off the top of the tent makes the rain sound cozy instead of ominous)

Sleeping Bags and roll up foam pads

A shelter for the picnic table with zippered net sides

The big ball of twine

A Swiss army knife

A little shovel

A whisk broom

A large flat round grill for the fire ring

A hammock

A couple of battery operated lanterns and flashlights for everyone

A net bag or toy bucket to carry your shampoo etc. to the showers

The kitchen box:

I got the shmancy one from Bean with my coupons, but really you could just have a big plastic box from Target with a lid that you keep packed with:

A set of plastic dishes (one set for each of you)

A big plastic bowl

A couple of mugs and utensils

A couple of stoop sale pots and a pan

Paper towels with the tube taken out (better for squashing)

Some folded tin foil, and a bunch of different sized zip lock bags (they come in handy for everything including storing food that is floating around in the melted ice of the cooler)

Salt, pepper, sugar, tea, ground coffee

Plastic french press coffee maker

Some stoop sale column candles and something pretty to put wildflowers in

A pretty vinyl table cloth (these things sound excessive, but when I am smelly and dirty and sleeping on the ground, nothing makes me feel better than having a good cup of coffee at my pretty table in the woods)

A bag of fire starters (those lighter soaked sawdust sticks that can start fires with the wettest wood)

Bic Barbecue lighter (some matches too)

Some long handled barbecue tools and skewers for shishkabab (the most delicious and easiest meal)

A large cooler with a tap to drain melted ice

A couple of collapsible camping buckets for water and dish washing

A small container of dishsoap

Batteries of all types

My most treasured item: The pie iron…

Butter two pieces of bread, put them in the cast iron sides, pour in some raw scrambled eggs and cheese, or some banana slices and peanut butter, or apple slices and cinnamon sugar, you are only limited by your own imagination. Close it, clamp it and put it in the fire for a couple of minutes. Repeat while a huge line of children forms behind you. On second thought take two pie irons. Being cast iron, they stay very hot for a long time, only experienced older children should be allowed to use them.

A word on food. I marinate meat for a couple of meals (cubes for shishkabab, etc.) and freeze them rock hard in a couple of quart Chinese soup containers. They thaw slowly in an icy cooler and keep everything else cold as well. I don't take those frozen plastic blue cold packs they are just dead weight after they thaw.

I am sure that I have forgotten something, but when you have a prepacked kitchen box it is less likely that you need to buy it at the horribly over priced camp store.

Tween Town

This is what I like to do with out of town tween girls in NYC. Here is the secret to being a great tour guide. Keep them fed at frequent intervals. Don't walk them like a regular New Yorkers; they will turn zombie on you. Jump in a cab FAST when you see it coming on. Keep the destinations varied; educational, silly, glamorous. It is hard not to make a tween trip all about the shopping, but if you sprinkle a little interesting and inexpensive shopping in between the museums, they may stay alert.
Upper East Side: If you are doing a museum (and you are taking your life in your hands to do two in a day) head further east and take a ride on the Roosevelt Island tram. Pack a deli sandwich to eat on Roosevelt Island, take a breath and look at Manhattan, stop in at Serendipity if there is no line (ha!) for a frozen hot chocolate, and top it off with a little shopping at Dylan's Candy Bar. Even though I am tired of it, Dylan's may just be the highlight of their trip.

Midtown: You could stop in at the Toys R Us to wait in line for the Ferris Wheel, but we like to ride the elevators in the Marriott Marquis for free (did I mention that they are glass elevators?). Get an "outside" elevator, one sort of in the center, ride all the way to the top floor and try for an uninterrupted trip to the ground floor. Repeat until you stop squealing. Then head across the street to the Edison Hotel restaurant for matzah ball soup, blintzes and egg creams. We also like to use the bathrooms at the Paramount or whatever fancy new boutique hotel has just been renovated. Undoubtedly, they have a Sephora at the mall at home, but you want to be glamorous when you go to Broadway. We go for makeovers before the show and put on the most fabulously outrageous peacock colored eyeshadow imaginable. It doesn't fly back home, but heh, you are having a madcap Manhattan weekend. The best lunch or dinner spot ever is the Burger Bar in the Parker Meridian in midtown. You go into this sleek, grand lobby, look for the small neon burger sign and enter another world; cardboard signs, grease stained paper bags of french fries and the occasional celebrity. The burgers aren't only great, they are the best bargain in town. You can't miss.

High tea is fun for tweens. Although I like to wear a big flowered hat, they usually don't allow it. It is great to stop for a fancy version at the Palace or some other institution, and contrast it with Tea and Sympathy in the village. There are some pretty good walking tours in the village as well. It is interesting for them to see a real speakeasy at Chumley's (even if it is only from the outside), the skinniest house, see the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire (which they study about in school) and the bodies buried under Washington Square Park when it was considered way out of town. You have to go to The Forbes Museum on lower 5th Ave. It is free and it is the perfect tween collection of Faberge' Eggs and Toys, beautifully displayed (I think that it closes at around 4 so don't leave it to the end of the day).

I like Sundays downtown. Dim sum at some huge Chinatown dumpling palace will blow their minds. Shopping at Pearl River, and a scoop of red bean or green tea at the Ice Cream Factory is always a hit. Then a tour at the Tenement Museum and a pickle on the lower east side. As long as you are downtown, walk across The Bridge and have some cheese cake at Juniors. Sit at the counter for the most colorful waiters.

I don't like waiting in line for things; it wastes time and drains energy. For me the Staten Island Ferry is a great view of the Statue of Liberty. The Empire State Building is open until midnight, so if you go early evening your wait isn't horrible (if you go at 11pm, it is even quieter, but there are lots of people kissing)

The best tour for out of town relatives that I ever heard was mentioned on WNYC. You get each visitor to write a country name on a slip of paper. You proceed to eat at a restaurant from each of those countries during their stay. You wake your guests at midnight, hop in a car and drive to Time Square to demonstrate that this is in fact, the city that never sleeps.