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Why a “NonGuidebook Version” of What to Do (and Not Do) in NYC ?

Since so many of you have asked:  This started with friends from California who were coming to visit NYC for the very first time. They are intrepid Asian and Australian travelers, and wanted what they described as the “nonGuidebook version” of what to do in NYC.

So what began first as an email exchange turned into a longer list. They gave it some friends of theirs who emailed thanking me for the advice, and after a while, other people started emailing in around.

Thinking other out-of-towner might appreciate this — it is definitely NOT Fodors material –  I polished it up, and posted it. It was so well received last year, that I decided to turn it into an annual posting

Hence, 21 Ways to Make Your Stay in NYC More Enjoyable.

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Its that time of year: New York City is flooded with tourists. With the American Peso still relatively weak, the place is just thick with ‘em.

There are lots of standard guides you might find helpful to use (i.e., NYC Guide for Tourists), but they are primarily designed for that gullible visitor, the double-decker riding, Hawaiian shirt wearing, one born every minute visitor — the Rube.

That’s not you. You are much hipper than that. You want to be in the know, plugged in, well connected. Well, kid, ya came to the right place. I’m going to give you the straight dope, the inside info that the guidebooks don’t tell you about. This is real insider trading, “Blue Horse Shoe Loves Anacot Steel” type stuff that people go to jail for. Not you or me, but people. Some people. Mostly tourists.

Anyway, instead of relying on a Fodors or Let’s Go NYC, consider these suggestions from a born and bred Nu Yawkah (Eyes gaht deh aksent dat gos wit da place). A Brooklyn born guy who works in finance, and has worked in NYC most of his Adult life, this guy knows a thing or two about Gotham.

These suggestions will help make your stay in the city enjoyable and safe. It well help you get the most out of your visit here. As an added bonus, I get to keep all of you birkenstocked, rucksack wearing, slow walking, camera snapping touristas out from underfoot of us locals.

Enjoy.

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A New Yorker’s Guide for Tourists: 20 Ways to Make Your Stay in New York City More Enjoyable

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1. For God’s sake, DO NOT ALL DRESS ALIKE. This is especially true if  you are part of a big group. (Note: This does not refer to school trips of 50 fourth graders)

This is not just for your safety, it is for the benefit of the typical New Yorker’s highly refined aesthetic sense. At all costs, avoid wearing identical matching outfits. Worse than looking like buncha hicks from the sticks, you look like a group of out-of-towners begging to be mugged.

I don’t mean literally mugged by a criminal element, though that is certainly possible in these uncertain economic times. Rather, you are telegraphing your lack of savvy, thus leaving you financially vulnerable to unscrupulous taxi cab drivers and retail merchants alike. They will spot you as the rube you are, and be all too happy to roll you — i.e.,  considerably lighten your wallet.

You might as well carry a sign that says “Rob Me!” — and they will.

1.B  Enough with the NY themed garb! The corollary to this is to avoid festooning every item of clothing you have on with “New York, NYC, or Yankees” logos — No one is THAT big of a fan — for the same reasons as above.

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2.  BATHROOMS:  Here’s the thing: There just aren’t many public bathrooms in NYC.

Why? Its a long story, which I don’t have time to go into, but there just aren’t that many. Make plans accordingly.

Your best bets are as follows:

Department stores
Starbucks
Barnes & Noble/Borders Bookstores
Restaurants
Hotels

The nicest public toilet in the city is Bryant Park at 42nd Street between 5/6th avenues. Sometimes there is a wait.

For those of you who have serious, um, reallygottagonow issues, its best that you plan ahead. Get a copy of Where to Go: A Guide to Manhattan’s Toilets. Thats right, the NYC toilet situation is so absurd that someone wrote a book about it.

On the plus side, the Rainbow Room and the Grand Havana Club have some of the nicest bathrooms I’ve ever been in — floor to ceiling windows, right next to the urinals! Pee while delighting to the splendor of the skyline, only in NY!

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3. iPod walking guides

There are lots of really cool guides to various Manhattan neighborhoods. I haven’t done all of these, but I’ve done a few — most of these come highly recommended.

-Soundwalk – www.soundwalk.com – lets listeners walk in the shoes of locals for an uninterrupted hour. They have a 15-tour library includes many New York neighborhoods (Manhattan Chinatown, Little Italy, Lower East Side, Meatpacking District, Times Square, Wall Street, Williamsburg, Bronx hiphop/graffiti, Yankees, Brooklyn Dumbo) $12 to $25.

- Essex House the Central Park Walking Tours

- Soundwalk.com/Manhattan

- Soundsforsights

- Big Onion Walking Tours

- Google Mashup Walking Tour

- Turn Your iPod into a Travel Guide

- Art Mobs – mod.blogs.com/art_mobs – compiles the work of Marymount Manhattan College students as they look at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in
critical, cynical, and comical lights. Free (go to “browse audio guides.”)

- National Geographic Society Traveler Index

- Must See NY Guided Tours

Also worth knowing about:

Book: Manhattan on Film 1: Walking Tours of Hollywood’s Fabled Front Lot

Subway Map for your iPod

Note that Apple’s iTunes Music Store and Audible.com also offer a wide catalog of audio tours for purchase and many are for no charge.

Lastly, wear comfortable walking shoes or sneakers!

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4. See a LIVE TV Show: This is a must do, lots of fun event. Just like Broadway, only free.

It requires some advanced planning, usually 6 months to a year ahead of time. I suggest Late Show with David Letterman, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and Saturday Night Live (email SNL TIckets). (If you read our advice last year, you would have ordered the tickets a long time ago).

If you did not plan in advance for this year, no worries: Just diary this for next December or January to order tickets for Summer 2010.

Imagine where the US Dollar will be then — we’ll practically be paying you to come here!

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I am becoming terribly enamored of the charts Ron Griess highlights each week form The Chart Store. Now that earnings season is all but over, Ron looks at a few charts that are revealing of the extent of the damage done to corporate profitability. It is, in a word, breathtaking:

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How Cheap Are Stocks?

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How Much Have Profits Fallen?

Barrons.com’s Bob O’Brien discusses the week’s action in a dull market that was influenced by bank stess tests and corporate earnings reports.

5/15/2009

US: Two companies go public and more U.S. retailers release quarterly earnings in the week of May 18. Other items of note: Geithner on the Hill, housing starts and more. Stacey Delo reports.

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The Week Ahead in Asia

Computer makers see a decline in sales, and Asia waits to see if the Bank of Japan has any more liquidity measures in place. MarketWatch’s Andria Cheng reports.

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Week Ahead un Europe: Airlines, Vodafone earnings in focus

European earnings are winding down but airlines and telecoms sectors will be in focus with results from Vodafone Group, the world’s largest mobile phone operator, Air France-KLM and British Airways

What a refreshing change! A band that has figured out how to use the internet to promote itself by giving away a random live recording. Nice work:

click for free download

Nice, clean revamping of the formerly way too busy Marketwatch site. And, they cleaned up their insufferably long URLs, also.

This change seems to bring them closer into the Dow Jones family’s look and feel. DJ had acquired MKWT years before Murdoch’s purchase.

I’ve been kicking around the enw site for the past week or so, and I have yet to come across any major user interface issue, or annoying design problems.

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Nicely done . . .

The NYT has a local section of the Sunday paper — its different for Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut, New Jersey etc.

If you weren’t looking closely you may have missed the multi-regional approach:

My delivered Sunday NYT local section has the headline: “Long Island Foreclosures Rise, With No End in Sight.”  There are similar but unique discussions for Connecticut, Westchester and New Jersey. All 4 articles were co-written by Janet Roberts. (A few excerpts follow).

Jump online, and there is an interactive map (below) showing the change from 2005* 08 in foreclosure activity in the region.

Long Island:

“Over all, Long Island’s foreclosure rate is 3.7 percent, with at least 31,000 homes in some stage of foreclosure from 2005 through August 2008, according to the data, from The Long Island Real Estate Report. That is slightly higher than the 3.3 percent rate for the region, covering New York City, western Connecticut, Long Island and New Jersey.

What worries housing counselors and policymakers is that Long Island’s housing problems appear to be worsening. Recent bank data on mortgage delinquencies show that at least 6 percent of mortgages held by Long Island homeowners were 90 days or more past due, compared with 3.5 percent during the same period last year.”

Westchester:

“Still, the foreclosure wallop has affected even vintage Westchester neighborhoods like the Rochelle Heights and Rochelle Park enclaves in New Rochelle, where the Tudors and colonials were built a century ago when the country’s first bedroom communities were laid out and where homes not so long ago fetched a million dollars and more. Seven houses on Hamilton Avenue in those two neighborhoods are in various stages of being taken over or managed by banks, as are more than a dozen other of the enclaves’ 350 homes, according to the analysis by The Times.

Westchester’s painful toll tells much about how widespread this decade’s home-buying frenzy was. In too many cases, families took out mortgages or refinanced on payment terms that gave them only the thinnest margin for error and left no cushion for a plunging housing market.

Nevertheless, The Times analysis shows that foreclosure has touched Westchester more lightly than other parts of the region. The foreclosure rate of 2.3 percent of all properties for the 32-month period analyzed is lower than the overall regional rate of 2.9 percent during that same period. Not surprisingly, higher-income communities experienced the lowest rates of foreclosures, and about one-third of Westchester ZIP codes, with median incomes of $100,000 or more in the 2000 census, fell into that category.”

Connecticut:

“More than 27,000 homes in Fairfield, Hartford, Litchfield and New Haven Counties were in some stage of foreclosure between January 2005 and August 2008, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from the Warren Group. These counties have fared better than other parts of the New York metropolitan area. Their 3.3 percent average foreclosure rate falls below New York City’s rate of 4.6 percent and Long Island’s 3.7 percent rate.

However, there are indications that the foreclosure crisis could be worsening in Connecticut, based on statewide data on mortgage delinquencies showing that in March, 4.8 percent of the mortgages held by Connecticut homeowners were at least 90 days past due. That is up from 2.7 percent a year earlier.

This gives Connecticut the 13th-highest delinquency rate among the 50 states, according to First American CoreLogic, which collects data on about 85 percent of the nation’s residential mortgages. Connecticut’s rate is about the same as New York State’s and below New Jersey’s and far below the rate in Florida, where more than one in five homeowners are behind.”

New Jersey:

“At least 6 percent of Essex County homes — more than 10,000 in all — have been in foreclosure since 2005, the highest rate of any county in New Jersey, New York City, Long Island or the Connecticut suburbs, according to an analysis by The Times of more than 182,000 homes in foreclosure around the region from 2005 through August 2008.

More than 82,000 of those homes are in New Jersey. Plot them on a map, and it becomes clear that no corner of the state has escaped the economic downturn. Nor has the picture improved since last summer. Delinquency rates in 13 of New Jersey’s 21 counties are now among the highest in the region.”

The Times also noted that the highest rates of foreclosure in most of the region were in neighborhoods with mostly black and Hispanic residents. Many of these mortgages were subprime, and there is good reason to believe an unhealthy percentage of them involved predatory lending . . .

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Mapping Foreclosures in the New York Region
click for interactive map

Chart courtesy of NYT

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Source:
Long Island Foreclosures Rise, With No End in Sight
DERRICK HENRY and JANET ROBERTS
NYT, May 13, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/nyregion/long-island/17mortli.html

Foreclosure Crisis in Westchester Crosses Economic Boundaries
JOSEPH BERGER and JANET ROBERTS
NYT May 13, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/nyregion/westchester/17mortwe.html

Connecticut Foreclosure Crisis Appears to Be Worsening
CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY and JANET ROBERTS
NYT, May 15, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/nyregion/connecticut/17forect.html

In New Jersey, Dreams of a Better Life Dashed by Foreclosure Crisis
KAREEM FAHIM and JANET ROBERTS
NYT, May 14, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/nyregion/new-jersey/17mortnj.html

Minorities Affected Most as New York Foreclosures Rise
MICHAEL POWELL and JANET ROBERTS
NYT, May 15, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/nyregion/16foreclose.html?ref=connecticut

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Terrific BBC2 series on the history of Blue Notes Reords, one of the legendary jazz labels, hosted by Jamie Cullum.

This is the final segment –  I’d like to check the whole series . . .

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Great article on the AIG mess in the Times of London: Joseph Cassano: the man with the trillion-dollar price on his head.

I am not referring to the fact he quotes me, but rather some of the other detail that you never see in the US media.

Excerpt:

“Until now, the economic crisis has been seen as a giant intellectual error, and AIG’s multimillionaire employees in England were simply the people who made the biggest mistakes. The first to own up to misjudgment was Gordon Brown’s friend Alan Greenspan — once so revered in his role as America’s central banker that to be photographed with him was as flattering as being seen now with President Obama. “I have found a flaw,” said Greenspan, referring to his free-market philosophy, after the banks started falling over. “I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact.”

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Source:
Joseph Cassano: the man with the trillion-dollar price on his head
Tim Rayment
The Times of London, May 17, 2009

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article6281953.ece

With earnings season coming to an end, I wanted to find a way to depict the severity of the financial meltdown into the context of profits.

This Stock of the Day chart does so, showing  just how unprecedented the profit destruction has been:

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Chart of the Day:

“While the stock market is up sharply since early March, the economy as well as corporate earnings continue to suffer. Today’s chart helps provide some perspective as to the magnitude of the current economic decline. Today’s chart illustrates that 12-month, as-reported S&P 500 earnings have declined over 90% over the past 20 months (with over 90% of S&P 500 companies having reported for Q1 2009), making this by far the largest decline on record (the data goes back to 1936). In fact, real earnings have dropped to a record low and if current estimates hold, Q3 2009 will see the first 12-month period during which S&P 500 earnings are negative.”

Via Chart of the Day