A NYC Weekend with Teens: An artsy break for a non-artsy family
Afegirls (and boys) recently spent 24 hours in New York City and managed to pack it full of theater, art and good food. Read on to find out how to create your own memorable NYC weekend with teens.
The Play’s the Thing (unless it goes wrong)
So, a little background: about six weeks before this trip we went as a family to see the touring version of Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. For anyone not familiar with it, this amazing play is based on an equally amazing novel told entirely from the point of view of an autistic teen-aged boy. On its surface a mystery — what the heck happened to the poor dog? — it’s actually a story of a family’s struggles with a child’s autism. The “amazing” comes in as the author somehow provides the reader with a unique glimpse into the mind of the autistic narrator. Not since Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Man
Emma, Dan and I had all read the book (Link to buy: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Well, I couldn’t have that be his most recent theater impression — no kid of mine is going to feel negatively about THE THEATRE! The horror! Seriously, I did want to show him that going to a play doesn’t have to fill him with dread. It can actually be fun! The trick, of course, is choosing the right play.
With all this in the back of my mind, and knowing we had this 24-hour window in NYC, I happened to catch the NY Times review of The Play that Went Wrong. While the review was somewhat qualified (the reviewer had previously seen the play in London and it didn’t quite measure up to his memories — uh, you really can’t enjoy seeing slapstick more than once; your mind knows the jokes and you’ll never laugh quite as hard as you did when it was completely new), it sounded perfect to me.
Basically, you have a play within a play, and everything that can possibly go wrong does. As the reviewer noted, you should take a mental picture (or surreptitious iPhone shot) of the set as you’re waiting for the show to start. Everything you see will be destroyed by the time you’re standing for the curtain call. Watching it get destroyed, and the desperate measures the “cast” goes to “save” the show, are pure comic genius. More importantly, Jonny LOVED it! Dan, Emma and I as well. Laughed so hard we peed our pants. That sort of thing.
Ice Cream! Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.
So, no surprise, AG2 is pretty social media savvy. She somehow knew that Black Tap was THE place to get burgers and ice cream in NYC. They have a couple of locations, but, given our theater commitment, Midtown (55th between 6th and 7th) was the only one that would work for us. So, with an 8:00 curtain, we showed up at 5:30. Ha! The line was at least two hours to get in. Maybe we don’t want to be this hip!
Always opportunistic, we looked around, and saw, next to the huge Black Tap line, a restaurant called Osteria del Circo. After checking out the posted menu and what we could see of the décor, we decided, what the heck? We were short on time and a little desperate. Result? Total serendipity. A very cool restaurant with a retro European circus theme and very good Italian cuisine. We were thrilled with the food and the service.
Em had her heart set on ice cream at Black Tap though (Instagrammable ice cream!!), so we agreed to come back after the show. Uber made a ton of money off of us that night. When we arrived BACK at Black Tap a little before 11, the line was down to 30 minutes. Feeling indulgent, we agreed to wait. Our first time to eat ice cream while mostly asleep.
Street Art Tour
Having slept off the sugar coma, we woke up ready to get more cultured! Yee haw! We first had breakfast at Maison Kayser, a French boulangerie chain that we LOVE!!! (be sure to ask for your croissants and bread warmed though — while no one wants them cold, you still have to ask! #liveandlearn). We always go to the one by Bryant Park — can’t vouch for any others.
Full of French goodness, we headed downtown for the Street Art Tour offered by Free Tours by Foot in Greenwich Village and Soho. Honestly, street art isn’t something I knew a lot about. I knew about Banksy. (I live in NH, not the North Pole.) And I understood the whole street artist “manifesto” about the importance of creating art despite its inherent transience. But I had no idea how to actually FIND street art, or how to understand the messages being conveyed. Our tour guide helped with the first half of that.
Seriously, he showed us some great art that we would not have otherwise seen and shared some stories that we would not have otherwise heard. As a tour guide, he was about a 5 / 10. Just incredibly mediocre. And “Free Tours by Foot” is not actually free. They just don’t have a stated price. But the website is pretty clear that it expects you to pay the guide SOMETHING. We did some research and figured out that other companies were offering similar tours for $20 – $25 per person, so that’s what we paid. Just remember, there’s no such thing as a FREE TOUR!!
So, pros: we saw a part of the city we’re less familiar with and some really cool street art. Cons: the guide wasn’t great, but that didn’t really affect our enjoyment of a beautiful day wandering through lower Manhattan. I’ve become increasingly convinced that as long as the price is something you can live with, these small, short guided tours — particularly on niche subjects — can offer a really unique perspective on a subject or a location. Without this mediocre tour guide, we would have been wandering around, half lost, looking for street art installations that I happened to find via Google. While I know my family LOVES to listen to me read from Wikipedia, I think even the mediocre tour guide was a better alternative.
That’s a Wrap!
(Is it totally obvious that I was a theater geek in high school and college?)
With a little less than 24 hours to spend in the Big Apple before a mandatory family wedding, we managed to squeeze in a show, a street art walking tour, and three great meals (yes, I’m counting midnight ice cream as a meal!). I intended to also visit the Met’s seasonal rooftop exhibit before the theater, but the rain canceled those plans. The kids enjoyed themselves thoroughly, which was pretty much all we cared about, and we thought it was a perfect NYC weekend with teens!
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