Museum Mile

While we generally favor the road not taken, that path does not always make sense. In terms of choosing how to spend your time and money among the museums of New York, it may make sense to join the biggest crowds. Devote as much time, and energy, as you can muster for the Met. There are always an endless number of fascinating treasures here, a true embarrassment of riches. The admission fee is not really a fee but a recommendation; you can actually get in for nothing if you can brave the nasty looks at the ticket counter. Most people pay the full $25, which is certainly worth it if you have the energy to focus for at least a couple hours. Try to have a plan to see the things that interest you most; it’s easy to just wonder aimlessly among this vast building. This place will remind you that our species, for all its flaws and foibles, has been doing beautiful, amazing things for a long time.

Skip the Guggenheim – yes, it’s a famous Frank Lloyd Writing building, but it has a tiny fraction of the art on display at the Met, yet it charges almost as much for admission, $22, and the fee is fixed. While you should always be able to find something of interest at the Met, if the current exhibition isn’t to your liking you may out of the Guggenheim in 20 minutes.

In planning museum visits remember that the main art attraction other than the Met, MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art, is in midtown, which is not along Museum mile. If you’re moving around the city, you’ll want to visit MOMA when you’re in midtown; Museum Mile is on the Upper East side, along central park. Don’t try to do MOMA and Museum Mile on the same day; it’s just too much, and too far apart.

Some specific New York hotel notes:

Palace Hotel (formerly the Helmsley Palace) – Great midtown location, but beware, it is undergoing huge renovations even while keeping the rooms open. However, the attraction of this hotel has always been the charming courtyard and the large lobby, a bastion for business types using the free lobby Wi-Fi. There is, at the moment, virtually no lobby, and no place to sit down. The rooms are large by New York standards, but dark and generic; the whole hotel has a somewhat creepy vibe, although rooms are clean. You can get a decent sized room at a fair price; otherwise, there’s no reason to stay here until the renovation is finished and the lobby and courtyard reopen. (If you’ve got the cash, the rooms in the tower section are quite large, but considerably more expensive.) Despite the fact that they have no lobby, they still have the chutzpah to charge $16 for Internet access in rooms the last time we were there. Service is very perfunctory and somewhat bored.

Waldorf Astoria – The grand dame of New York hotels, this one reeks of history and former grandeur. Now it’s just another place for the upwardly mobile mass tourist, trading on its past and owned by the Hilton hotel chain Still, it’s a great midtown location, basically across the street from the Palace. Rooms are nice, if small and often overpriced, sometimes wildly so depending on current midtown demand. Yet the masses keep coming. Service is good. Sit in the lobby and watch the parade of people. Not a lot of beautiful people, but what the parade lacks in quality it makes up for in volume. You can have a $9 beer in the lobby restaurant (Peacock Alley) and watch them stream by. Internet access is free in the lobby, but a ridiculous $18 in rooms – yes, per day. We’ve stayed in the Waldorf many times in the past and have a (slight) sentimental thing for it, almost entirely because of the lobby space and the great midtown location.

Franklin – A small 50 room hotel near Museum mile, but not quite near enough, as you still have to cross Lexington, Madison, and Park to get to 5th Avenue. Rooms are very small; in fact, I could barely fit my shoulders into the area over the sink. The only public room is a small reading room, but with a nice view onto the street. Located in a moderately interesting, not too touristy neighborhood, this is one of those hotels that will do for a night or two for a single person, or a couple that can negotiate really tight spaces. The hotel does have nice finishes, which makes the tiny rooms more bearable. Decent continental breakfast in the morning and free Wi-Fi in the rooms. This hotel could be okay, except at the very end they try to tack on a “service charge” of 6%, not shown on Expedia booking totals. This is one of those small but very sleazy and aggravating things that lower class hotels will try. If you object, and I did, they will remove it, but it substantially increases their profit margin for all those people who don’t object. Basically, it allows them, and other hotels who do this, to charge more then their advertised rates. It is absolutely gratuitous, and as a traveler you should object any time you see something like this. The same is true of “resort fees,” which is also an add on which may not be included in the price when you book. Hotels should be free to charge whatever they like, but all fees and total charges should be transparent before booking, not hidden and presented at check out.

Blue Moon – When people say this is not a cookie cutter hotel, they are so right. Small, with service that is more like you’d get at your local saloon, this hotel fits right in to it’s lower east side location. There are no room numbers, just names after musical legends; I was in the Duke Ellington. Rooms are nice sized, and kinda shabby chic, but clean. Mine had a shared balcony with one other room with an unusual view – looking right over the Williamsburg Bridge. If you can afford it, go for the luxury rooms higher in the building with big terraces and great views. Like most small hotels this one doesn’t have much of a lobby, but they do provide a free day pass to a nice gym across the street, as well as free Wi-Fi in the rooms. The best part of this hotel is that it’s located in one of the coolest parts of New York on Orchard Street. The immediate neighborhood is great, and all of Orchard is nice stroll. A few blocks away and you can walk across the Williamsburg Bridge into trendy Williamsburg. SoHo is a ten minute walk. You can get your laundry done for you at a neighborhood Laundromat for $6. The place is a little hard to find as it blends right into the neighborhood, but it’s right across the street from the Tenement Museum.