New York, New York

Edited version of Cheapskates Guide to New York.
First in a series of travel Cheapskates Guides.

Sunday Herald Sun, Edition 7 - Escape
SUN 18 OCT 2009, Page 012
Budget New York
Apple essence

Claire Heaney finds you don't have to spend a fortune to enjoy the Big Apple
YOU'VE snared a bargain flight to the US. But that doesn't mean you have money to burn.
And anyone who has visited the Big Apple knows that's exactly what you can do very quickly. But here are some canny suggestions to make your greenbacks go further.

THE American Museum of Natural History, opposite Central Park, provides for admission by donation. It's hard to know how much to give but some New Yorkers suggested $US10 an adult. The foyer, with its huge dinosaur skeleton, features in the first Night At the Museum movie. The subway goes straight to the front door.

Central Park
The park takes up 6per cent of Manhattan so it's wise to build plenty of time into your itinerary. You can spend a whole day there and you might only cover half of it. There are plenty of playgrounds for the littlies, the literary walk, Belvedere Castle, the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir to walk or jog around (prams and strollers are not allowed). Then there's the Imagine memorial to the late Beatle John Lennon.
If you want to spend money there are horse and cart rides, bike hire, remote control yacht hire, the zoo and so on. In summer the pool is free.
www.centralpark.com

Bronx Zoo
THE zoo, an easy subway ride, provides entrance by donation, or pay-what-you-wish, on a Wednesday. It means that you are not shelling out the full admission price ($US27 for adults and $US21 for kids). Because it is mid-week it tends to be a lot quieter. But once you get in, other rides, such as the Lady Bug, have to be paid for.
Like many other attractions that rely on corporate donations it is feeling the pinch. The day after our visit the New York Post ran a story saying that to cut costs they had to ``sack'' some of the animals. The World of Darkness, a nocturnal display my seven-year-old couldn't stop talking about, is among the first to go. Bear that in mind when you are coming up with your donation. www.bronxzoo.com

The subway
WE entered the New York Subway with some trepidation, fearing it might not be safe. But once we negotiated the purchase of tickets (the monosyllabic replies and looks to our inquiries from the station attendant left us thinking we must have been the dumbest tourists ever to set foot in the country) the subway is a bargain. We bought a seven-day Metro card for $US25 each. We did not find the subway very stroller friendly and one occasion we had to help a woman using a walking frame. For the able-bodied it's the best ticket in town.
www.mta.info

Staten Island Ferry
YOU can't beat the free Staten Island Ferry for a no-frills Manhattan cruise with million-dollar views.
On the day we headed down to Battery Park to do our Statue of Liberty trip we arrived so late we decided to opt for the freebie trip, leaving the tour of Liberty and Ellis islands to a day we could get there early enough to beat the crowds.
The free ferry leaves on the half hour and provides a lovely introduction to the grand old lady. Once at Staten Island you must get off and return on a later ferry. You can spend time checking out the few attractions or if it is a nice day have a picnic.

Statue of Liberty
ENTRY to the Statue of Liberty and nearby Ellis Island, which was a migration checkpoint, is free.
You have to buy a ferry ticket which costs $US12.
Given that you can spend hours exploring Liberty and Ellis islands it's a bargain.

City Pass
CITY Passes, which package up attractions in more than 10 major US cities, are a great buy. The New York offering has all the sights you want to see and when you have a City Pass voucher you are treated as an A-lister, jumping many of the queues. The booklets generally provide a 40 per cent reduction on individual entry prices. They can be bought online or at attractions.
www.citypass.com

Take a walk
SLIP on your comfy shoes. Walking around New York is one of the best ways to take it all in. Yes, the subway is great to get from A to B but there is so much to see in between. The day we headed down from Times Square to Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty we got off at a station we thought was the best option. When I asked a local if I was going the right way she said I really needed to get on another train because it was too far. But the walk was short and we saw so many things. For instance, the Woolworths tower which at one time in the 1920s was the tallest building in Manhattan. It is suggested that Frank Woolworth built the tower because he wanted to outdo a rival bank tower because the manager had refused him a loan. A visit to Ground Zero, now a construction site, is illuminating for first-time visitors to New York. Along Broadway there is a Trinity Church where first President George Washington worshipped, along a side street is financial district Wall Street and across the road at Federal Hall where Washington was sworn in as president. Further along at Battery Park there are monuments but one of the most poignant is the misshapen world sculpture that once stood in front of the World Trade Centre. It has an eternal flame burning next to it.

Terrific toy shops
TOYS R Us, in Times Square, has its very own ferris wheel. That costs $US4 to have a ride but there are plenty of other free things to do. There is a terrific Jurassic Park dinosaur, a huge Barbie display and massive Lego displays such as King Kong climbing the Empire State Building.
At FAO Schwarz, at the corner of 49th St and 5th Ave, there is a Barbie corner in which you can design your own Barbie on a computer screen, the famous huge keyboard you can run along, larger-than-life Lego Harry Potter statues, a fantastic little bookroom offering storytime activities and a craft area offering hands-on fun.

Brooklyn Bridge
TAKE a free stroll along the Brooklyn Bridge. Leave the subway at the City Hall station, metres from the entrance. Once across the bridge, having taken in its great views and ambience, there are a few lovely parks near the Fulton Ferry Landing in which to picnic.

Broadway shows
YOU'RE in Broadway so you want to see a show. Right? But, depending on our exchange rate, theatre tickets can be a killer. It is worth checking out the TKTS Ticket Booths around Times Square. Tickets for Broadway and Off Broadway are up to 50 per cent off the going rate. But, before you get your hopes up, it is near-impossible to snare cheapies to the hit productions because they don't get discounted. You can buy tickets from about 3pm but the queue starts forming much earlier.
www.tdf.org/TKTS

Feed yourself
Self-catering, where possible, is the best way to keep your costs down in the Big Apple. Sure, you only live once, but eating out can see you paying off the holiday for a long time ahead. There are plenty of great supermarkets offering quality food and we noted that shopping at a supermarket in the Bronx for a Bronx Zoo picnic was heaps cheaper than Downtown.
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Caption: LIGHT UP: Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan.
Broadway theatre.
Illus: Photo
IllusBy: Peter Morgan, Reuters; and traffic on Broadway, Tina Fineberg, AP
Column: Escape
Section: ESCAPE

The sleepover ... as it appeared in the Herald Sun

Teens must face up to pillow talk
THE other night at tennis, as we watched the kids hit the ball from end to end, we thrashed out some big questions.
Just how much should government schools levy for voluntary fees?

And was the new healthy school lunch sending the wrong message by selling

bottled water when the kids should be drinking tap water?

Then Tom's mum changed tack. She had taken a phone call from her sister, who was both perplexed and amused.

The previous weekend Tom's cousin, 19, had emerged from his room. It was late because, as any mum of a teenager will tell you, they do love to sleep in.

He made breakfast, went back into his room and then re-emerged.

His mum was about to put some clothes away in his room.

He intercepted her, insisting he would put them away. That was when she knew

something was up.

Then he 'fessed up. There was a girl in his bedroom and she was too embarrassed to leave while his parents were there.

Could they just nick out for a little while so she could escape? They complied and she beat a hasty retreat. They weren't sure what to make of the episode and last I heard they were nutting outa policy.

All of us, with children hurtling towards puberty, laughed nervously.

What would we do once the sleepovers turned from same-sex Hannah Montana dance fests and Harry Potter movie marathons to feature the opposite sex? There were so many moral and practical issues.

One of us said there was no way she would allow it. Another hoped her children would be in share houses by then and what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

Another theory was that if they were in an established relationship then the partner was welcome. No one-night stands allowed.

Yet another mate took the view that she was happy for somebody, anybody, to be enjoying sex under her roof.

That night there were only mums doing the tennis run, but it would have been interesting to hear the views of fathers.

Would anyone have been good enough for their girls? And if it was a son, would they be pleased he was sowing his wild oats?

So when I ran into a bloke I know, I asked him what the policy was at his house.

"They are going to get up to hanky-panky so I would prefer they did it at home rather than in some park," he suggested.

With four successful children in their late 20s and early 30s, another friend related the story of walking to the tram stop one morning with her 19-year-old's boyfriend.

"A few years earlier, if anyone had told me I'd be walking to the tram stop with my daughter's boyfriend, after he had stayed the night, I would not have believed them," she said.

"But I figured she had got through high school and was settled into uni so it wasn't the worst thing that could happen to her."

It's probably preferable that they are tucked up in bed rather than having their heads kicked in at a fast-food outlet or out of their treeon drugs.

I've decided when and if my kids ask for grown-up sleepovers, I'll tell them to ask their father.

Baysidemama: A return from the wilderness

Baysidemama: A return from the wilderness