<p>Next week we'll be taking D to see some schools on her college list. Please let me know if there are any "not-to-be-missed" attractions along the way:</p>
<p>Monday: Bucknell
Tuesday: Ithaca tour/Cornell drive-by
Wednesday: Hobart & William Smith
Thursday: Skidmore
Friday: Marist tour/Vassar drive by</p>
<p>From Poughkeepsie, we'll head to NYC for a couple nights. We'll see "How to Succeed in Business" on Friday evening. Then Saturday (July 2) is completely wide open. We are a healthy, active family of 4 (kids are 18 and 16). It would be great to hit some "hidden treasures" in the City. But, it's so hard to plan what's available on a holiday Saturday. </p>
<p>You could visit the intrepid museum, the memorial at ground zero, Chelsea piers I love it there it’s a great place for an active family with many activities from roller skating to rock climbing to boat rides. Generally if you go anywhere uptown (near ground zero) you can find hundreds of things to do.</p>
<p>Ground zero is downtown, NOT uptown, adjacent to the Financial district. It is not a particularly touristy location in NYC. However, if you stay in the basic area, you can shop (Century 21), walk near Battery Park City on the esplanade, go on the Staten lsland Ferry, take a boat trip to Statue of Liberty/ Ellis Island or go to South Street Seaport (on the east side of Manhattan downtown) to shop, dine or take a speedboat around Manhattan (The Beast).</p>
<p>I’ve checked Saratoga, and it doesn’t appear to be running while we’re there. For NYC, we’re staying in the theatre district, but will go anywhere. (Except Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. BTDT.)</p>
<p>The Boathouse restaurant in Central Park is quite lovely for brunch, lunch or dinner! It is a beautiful lake setting. Dressy casual attire. Look it up on-line. Very relaxing and inviting atmosphere, food good too! :)</p>
<p>depending on your interests, while in Ithaca there is Buttermilk Falls, which has a hike and/or swimming. Perhaps pick up picnic lunch and chill out there for a bit.</p>
<p>In nice weather, Manhattan’s High Line is lovely, and Section 2 just opened last week. It runs through the Chelsea neighborhood, and Section 1 stretches down to the trendy Meat Packing District. (The High Line is an old, elevated rail line converted into a park.) There are lots of restaurants near there for a nice meal tool. If you’re good walkers, you can hoof down to where the High Line begins at West 30th Street (just west of Tenth Avenue) from the Theater District. [The</a> High Line](<a href=“http://www.thehighline.org/]The”>http://www.thehighline.org/)</p>
<p>When coming from Poughkeepsie,you might want to grab a meal at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park…food is prepared by students,and served by them and is excellent…top notch…not sure if they do lunch,but you can check out the website…another option would be Blue Hill at Stone Barns…located on the scenic Rockefeller estate,food is made from locally grown produce,another top rated place, and you can walk the grounds,hundreds of acres,property abuts e Hudson River…i thi k they do lunch…from poughkeepsie,you cross,i believe,the Mid Hudson bridge…then you could head down to NYC after a great meal…</p>
<p>When our boys were little they used to love going to the Conservatory Water at 74th Street (East Side) in Central Park and rent a little radio powered sail boat.</p>
<p>My biggest advice for NYC is to try to do stuff that you can ONLY do there. So, for example, if your kids want to go shopping, don’t go to a big department store–go down to NoLita and look at little shops. We like walking around interesting areas like Chinatown, Soho, the East and West Village, St. Mark’s Place.</p>
<p>I agree that the High Line is really cool. One thing we did recently was visit a lot of the art galleries in the West Twenties (which fits in with the High Line). I think they are open on Saturday, and they are free (as opposed to most of the museums).</p>
<p>Buy a copy of Time Out New York for very good listings of things to do.</p>
<p>In the Ithaca area there are several parks with falls and great swimming holes, Buttermilk Falls being one of them as suggested above. (We camped there one year.) Nearby there’s an even better one: Robert Treman Park. In Ithaca itself, there’s a great “home made” ice cream place that I also can’t recall the name of. (Purity, maybe? I think there are several, actually, including Cornell’s Dairy Bar.) Cornell has a great little art museum, and it is perched on the edge of a gorge with a spectacular view across Ithaca and the lake.</p>
<p>Lots of great ideas have been thrown out there about NYC. There are of course all of the great museums: the Met, Natural History, MOMA, et al. If you are interested in art, but don’t want to commit to the time it takes to slog around one of the huge ones, I highly recommend the Frick. It’s housed in a mansion on 5th Avenue, and the collection is of incredible quality. (Vermeer, Whistler, Bellini, Gainsborough, Rembrandt, Watteau…) And includes decorated rooms as well. You can spend an hour or two there and see everything in detail, and not be overtaken by what a friend of mine calls “museum torpor.” It would be easy to combine that with a visit to Central Park.</p>
<p>Cross posted with mathmom. I agree with Hunt about doing things in NYC that you can’t do elsewhere.</p>
<p>Crap I wrote the wrong thing sorry. I started to write something about uptown and erased it cause I couldn’t remember the name of the place, Yes I know ground zero is downtown I go all the time xp</p>
<p>Saratoga: Check out downtown and walk around Congress park (bring some bread to feed the ducks). If you have extra time, visit Saratoga National Historic Park. The Battle of Saratoga, turning point of the American Revolution, happened there. It’s a beautiful park and has great trails for walking, biking, cross country skiing as well as a driving tour and visitors center.</p>
<p>While in Ithaca there are great little creeks with official swimming and picnic areas (They might even be state parks). There are a few with high diving boards where you can actually dive right under the water falls. It is a beautiful area and a nice relaxing afternoon of swimming in this unusual setting might be nice. Two you can check out on line are Tremen and Buttermilk Falls.</p>
<p>Well, not for everyone, but the Tenement Museum in NYC is my D’s favorite place, (next to Broadway). It’s on the lower east side, a very comprehensive view of immigrant life in the city…you do need to make reservations as they can only fit a few people at a time…but it’s a great place to visit if you’re interested in historical interpretations. </p>
<p>I don’t suppose you need this suggestion if you’re staying in the theater district, but the TKTS booth at 42nd st is great if you don’t have a particular show you’re dying to see-- you can get good tickets to shows you might not have considered, and non-musicals are particularly well-represented.</p>
It would be easy to combine that with a visit to Central Park.</p>