Another trip to NYC? My oldest just graduated from high school and what she wanted more than anything for a graduation present was a trip to NYC. She has an excel spreadsheet of things she wants to see and do in NYC so we made a plan to tackle as much as we could in three days.
We flew to La Guardia free by sitting standby. It was an early, but direct flight. We even got upgraded to business class where we could drink our coffee out of real mugs. After landing, we got a Lyft to our hotel, which was close to the airport, got settled and then headed to the east end of the Brooklyn Bridge. After getting coffee and breakfast at Bluestone Lane (Australian coffee place – fantastic!). We walked across the bridge, taking our time to take pictures and admire the skyline. Even though it’s not permitted, we saw the love locks all over the bridge.
We then walked through Oculus, which is an indoor mall but the building is shaped like a whale. We bought tickets to go to the top of One World Trade and killed our waiting time by window shopping. The views from One World Trade were spectacular. It was a clear day so you could see for miles and miles. It was just a little hard to pick out anything in upper Manhattan. We saw a sign pointing out St. Paul’s Chapel while we were at the top and decided to go visit it before we moved on from the area.
St. Paul’s Chapel is the oldest building in Manhattan still used for its original purpose. It was around during the Revolutionary War and was intact after Sept. 11, 2001, so it was used as a base for emergency personnel for months. I’m so glad we stopped by and went inside to see it.
We took a Lyft to Cornelia Street next so my daughter could find Taylor Swift’s old apartment. It’s the fanciest one on the street. We then leisurely walked toward Pier 57, stopping in stores along the way. We had cheesecake at Magnolia Bakery and ended up walking by a Tesla store where we saw a cybertruck for the first time. Little Island is right next to Pier 57, so we stopped there and then went to get food and eat on the rooftop of Pier 57. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was so calm.
Our last stop for the day before heading to Penn station and taking the train back to Long Island was to see Hudson Yard. We didn’t go up it because we were tired by that point, but it was neat to see. We both fell asleep really quickly that first night.