It can be an OK city to visit in moderation. If you've not been yet, the American Museum of Natural History and Hayden Planetarium require a full day, and even that's rushing through. I also enjoyed the Cradle of Aviation Museum. They don't have the Spirit of St Louis there anylonger, but should still have a neat sampling of WWI & WWII aircraft as well as a real lunar module and some modern-ish jets. You can also tour the Intrepid.

The food in Chinatown in amazing.

The drive to the Hamptons is interesting as you see how Long Island is so dramatically different from the city.

The drive to Niagra Falls is boring but the falls are awe inspiring.

Or just have a Papaya in Central Park.

I've been to the Guggenheim, the Met, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and the Museum of Natural History (which was a big let-down, after reading all of the Pendergast novels. Not a single creature of the darkness attacked me.) Toured the major libraries (no ghosts), bummed around Columbia, rode the ferry to Staten Island, re-visited the WTC site for the first time since I was working up on the 110th floor of 1 WTC on 9-09-01, and in general walked a hell of a lot of neighborhoods.

The Intrepid is on my list for this trip, more because of the Growler than anything else. I've never been on-board a boomer. Not really excited about much else in the way of Aerospace, as I've spent three days in total at Wright Patterson AFB, and compared to that, even the Smithsonian Air / Space museum is a joke. Wright-Patt has got absolutely everything. The Bockscar (the plane that nuked Nagasaki), Have Blue (the F-117 prototype), an SR-71, some B-17s including the Memphis Belle, a bunch of Presidential aircraft that you can walk through, ICBMs, nukes and satellites up the wazoo, Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft, a Predator and a Global Hawk UAV, a Bird of Prey, SAMs and other AA equipment, a few MIGs, and quite literally hundreds of others. It's really the only aerospace museum you need to visit, period.


I visited Niagra back in '00, as I was in Buffalo for four months doing a project for Entercom (WGR, WBEN, WKBW, etc). It's amazing the contrast as you transition from the American side to the Canadian side. To the south, it's basically one large industrial accident. As soon as you cross over the Rainbow Bridge however, it's like Dorothy stepping out into Oz for the first time.

i like living in cities, but I hate being a car guy in a city. kinda miss having a garage in DC though. that was kinda nice.

It's kind of like when college tells you "no cars on campus for freshmen" when you're a car guy. It's kind of what I imagine hell to be like.

not where I went. where savington goes. I've worked on my car in the dorm parking lot before.

Not where I went, either, actually- it was a selection criteria that I used. But plenty of my friends went to "no cars on campus for freshmen" places and it sucked.

joe funny you should say that about public transportation. my father who worked the rail system on the east coast for 30 years now runs a line from san jose to san fran says the same. West west coast has no idea what they're doing. :giggle:

nyc can be cool but i'm not big on cities, i can find almost everything except for concerts and sporting events in the burbs without getting mugged, rear ended, harassed by the homeless...

It was interesting at UF. We were allowed to have cars, but the spots where freshmen / sophomores were allowed to park were *waaaaay* the hell on the outskirts of campus. On foot, it was about a 20 minute hike to get from the Fletcher dorm (on the extreme north end) to the nearest "Red 3" parking garage which was on the southern end of campus. Making the return trip, lugging groceries uphill in the rain, was no fun. And as the University was oft to remind students, holding a parking pass was no guarantee of being able to find a spot. The number of passes issued vastly exceeded the number of available parking spaces.

As an upperclassman, things weren't much better. You could get either a "Red 1" (junior / senior living on-campus) or a "Commuter" (graduate / professional) pass and thus were able to access closer lots, but finding a space to park after 7:00am was an exercise in futility. After I moved off campus, I never drove a car onto it again until the day of the graduation ceremony.

Now motorcycles, on the other hand, were a whole different animal. There were small M/C lots arranged all over the place throughout the entire campus, and everybody was eligible for a M/C decal regardless of class rank. When I was there ('95-'99) spaces were always available, and the typical bike was something like a CB250 or an old Virago. When I went back last year, holy hell have things changed. Seems like every third student has a 50cc scooter nowadays, and most of 'em are those cheap-ass Chinese ones that cost $800. Which I don't understand, frankly, since for the same money you can buy a 5 year old Nighthawk and be able to actually ride on the main roads without fear of being run over by a diesel Rabbit.

Actually yeah, it was strange walking around and only seeing like 1 or 2 other people on each block. Looked like downtown Birmingham, not NYC. Made it easy to get good pictures though. It was mid summer too, so maybe that made it more empty.

They're only $800 if you don't know where to look. Scooters and mopeds are frequently available for free, although typically in non-running condition- I've come upon many through the years. The parts to fix them are on the low side of cheap, and often they just need the carb jet cleaned out.

Older real bike > Most any scooter

Yes and no. The advantage of a <50cc scooter in many states is that it counts as a bicycle. Therefore, you don't have to register/insure it, and in campus environments, you get to park it at bike racks rather than in actual parking spots. While most campuses have motorcycle parking that's not full, the bicycle parking is generally much more convenient, and you can bet your ass that if you tried to park a motorcycle at a bike rack or anywhere else that isn't a parking spot, the campus security dickwads would confiscate it until the end of days.

Well maybe in those aspects, everything else Bike>Scooter. That and I couldn't bring myself to ride a scooter.

While I do typically bike, I have ridden scooters plenty. I figure that I drive a Miata, so it's par for the course.

I guess it depends on where you are. Around here riding a scooter you would get some pretty weird looks, or at least the occasional "FAG!". We aren't a crowded old city with narrow roads.

Sir I salute you. You are obviously a man of great culture and education.

I would also add Sagmore Hill to your itinerary if possible.

And of course, scooters are totally gay. Viragos, Nitehawks, and Ninjas were abundant when I went to school.

if you haven't you gotta go to grays papya....best hotdogs in the city. period. 2 dogs and a drink for $2.22 also has the best deal in the city lol.

Gray's Papaya = win. It's just a couple blocks walk to Central Park.

But I also love Nathan's. :) My grandparents used to take me there when I was a kid.

Yeah, I know- I paid $200 for my first moped (a Tomos bullet), in well-used but running condition.

My empirical observation, however, suggests that the typical college student these days appears to be more inclined to buy a brand new Chinese step-through from a local dealer in the good part of town for $800-$1,000 than to spend time and effort tracking down and fixing an older ride.


In FL, a 50cc (even a moped) needs to be titled and registered, though you don't need a M/C endorsement on your license. Insurance is not required for any motorcycle, regardless of displacement, so long as you wear a helmet. (Yes, we have strange M/C laws.)


At UF (when I was there, anyway) scooters were not permitted in the bicycle racks. Mopeds seemed to be tolerated so long as they had a M/C sticker on them, but I don't think this was official policy, just saying that I got away with it.

On the other hand, at UF there are so freaking many M/C lots (some of them nothing more than a demarcated part of a sidewalk, for instance) and they are so well distributed, that in most cases there was very little advantage to not parking in one. (Other than the embarrasement of hopping off of your 50cc Tomos just as some dude is saddling up on an old GSX)

On the other hand, there were some paths across campus (especially in the north-central area where the majority of undergrad classes are located) where riding a motorcycle to get from A to B would be slower than walking, due to the arrangement of the roads and the zero-tolerance policy for riding M/Cs on pedestrian walkways (sidewalks, green spaces, etc.) However, with the exception of riding the wrong way on a one-way street (which I actually got ticketed for my first week as a freshman), the use of bicycles is very nearly unrestricted. You can even ride 'em up and down stairs and through covered corridors without catching any flak from the campus cops.

Technically you could have ridden a moped in pedal-only mode, but in all honestly, have any of you ever actually ridden a moped any serious distance with the engine off, particularly on grass or up a hill? It'd be faster and less tiring to ride a pogo stick.

For the two years that I commuted via M/C, I always kept a bicycle chained up near the M/C lot next to Weimer hall. In the morning I'd park my M/C and then use the bicycle to get around campus all day, returning to the M/C for the evening ride home.

IOW, they're a great way to get to/from campus (as an alternative to cars). Not so much ideal for moving around the core section of the campus itself.

my dad lives in the city about 2-3 blocks from grays so when i go to visit I'll pop in. I've been there sooo many times, and have never been disappointed.

I'm from queens/nassau county (across the street from the belmont race track.) after living there for 15yrs, I can safely say, that i don't ever wanna move back. I love going up to visit my dad (Manhattan) and my brother (Long Island) but being a car guy with a heavy clutch. Traffic can suck my left nut.

Central Jersey is awesome. I'm 1hr from NYC. 1hr from Philly. 25min from the beach. 25min from 6flags (not that i go anymore). i have busy roads and parkways(no trucks for cali guys) and at the same time i take 2 turns and i'm on twisty ass backroads.