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New York with a young family
Robert Crampton had misgivings about taking his young family to New York, but the Big Apple suits everyone’s tastes
My children have wanted to go to America since they’ve been able to talk. In
fact, they’ve wanted to go since before they were able to talk, when they
still called the US “Amankwa” in some weird Zulu/Iroquois hybrid they
experimented with at 18 months.
My wife was keen, too. She used to go to New York for work, but hadn’t been
for years. I, however, had reservations, partly concerning the airport
hassle, the long(ish) flight, the jet lag, and the fact that spending a
whole week with Sam and Rachel in a city, any city, other than their own
(often including their own) can be enervating. There would be no other small
children available to take the strain, no car for
fall-asleep-in-the-passenger-seat mid-afternoon sorties, and no beach (Coney
Island in late
October, with the remnants of Katrina sweeping up the eastern seaboard,
doesn’t count).
But my biggest anxiety was (even) more selfish. I also go to New York for
work, roughly once a year, and it is (or was) one of the few remaining
places I do not associate with fatherhood (apart from frantic shopping at
Gap Kids before the taxi ride to the airport).
Rather, it’s a place I associate with irresponsibility. With staying up late.
With coming in from JFK already a quarter drunk from the plane and going
straight out again for a burger, a beer and a giggle with the photographer.
With watching new movies at 2am. With visiting galleries and museums with
far more alacrity than I do at home. With staying in hip hotels. With
freedom.
And part of me wanted to preserve that. Part of me didn’t want to stand in a
queue for the Empire State Building. I’d done that on my first visit to New
York, at 17, and hadn’t felt the need to since. (Back then, in 1981, I’d
thought the Manhattan skyline was just about the most exciting thing I’d
ever seen, despite its familiarity from the Kojak credits. I still do.)
And part of me didn’t want to shell out $40 for a 20-minute carriage ride in
the park, or worry about how many layers the children had on, or what time
they feed the penguins at the zoo, or discuss with my son how the
hand-towels in American lavatories operate differently from those in British
ones. Actually, I didn’t mind doing that. It was fascinating. “It’s the
little things, huh?” as one anonymous New Yorker said to me as he
eavesdropped on one of our debates.
But anyway, be all that as it may, life moves on; the chance came along to
make the trip, the discount was generous, we weren’t going to turn it down.
And besides, we had a secret weapon. My friend Michael, the children’s
godfather, moved to New York 18 months ago. Since he left, Sam and Rachel’s
desire to cross the Atlantic had reached new heights of desperation. I asked
them on the flight what they were most excited about doing in New York.
“Seeing Mikey!” they shouted in unison, high as kites on altitude and Oreos.
Whoever said it’s people not places, was right. And with this person in this
place, I was counting on quite a lot of babysitting. Michael met us at the
airport and rustled up a cab. Sam and Rachel sat either side of him as we
got on the LIE and headed into the city. I knew we’d done the right thing to
come.
For my son at least, guns ran Mikey a close second (for my daughter, 6, it was
“bagels as big as your head”). Since he was about four (he’s almost nine
now), whenever I’ve asked Sam in an idle moment what he wanted to talk
about, he has usually said “guns”.
I told him everything I knew about guns a long time ago (we’ve since moved on
to explosives) and the one thing I told him that stuck in his mind was that
they had an enormous quantity of firearms in America. (I’d told him this in
the context of it being A Very Bad Idea. He’s forgotten that part.) I’d
explained on the aeroplane that New York was not like the rest of America,
either in terms of fat people or weaponry. Sam had been disappointed, his
dreams of spending a week eating constantly while simultaneously shooting
things sadly shattered.
And then the first thing we saw in America, the very first thing, about 100
yards from the gangway out of the plane, was an immigration official, I’m
guessing he was 20 stone, with a huge automatic on his hip. Sam looked up at
me as if he’d arrived in paradise.
Naturally, we took the children out for a burger, suitably oversized, but by
7pm local time, midnight in Britain, despite a bucket of fat Coke each,
their heads were slumping towards the Formica. So we put them to bed and
then, feeling close to exhaustion myself, I underwent the unique experience
of going to sleep at 8pm.
When I woke up 11 hours later, I felt magnificent. I realised it was the first
time I’d been in New York for almost 25 years and not felt underslept, or
anxious about having to get somewhere, or hungover. Around about 2am I heard
my daughter wailing, “Why is the night so looooong?” to my wife, but I
rolled over and went back to sleep for another five hours. I’m not sure the
others did.
The next morning we established a pattern that served us pretty well all week.
Breakfast in the apartment (For city travel with children, I highly
recommend an apartment rather than a hotel, they’re good for downtime and
the Cartoon Network), long kerfuffle to get ready, hit the street
mid-morning for lots of chat with Sam about zig-zag fire escapes, yellow
postboxes, steaming manholes, water tanks on roofs and the like (besides
guns and bathroom fittings, he’s always been big on street furniture).
Then we’d amble around Midtown, wondering why anyone eats pretzels, both
children shouting Americanisms at random to irritate me, “Elevator!”,
“Sidewalk!”, “Diaper!”, etc. Manhattan is very walker-friendly. You can say
it’s only ten blocks and the kids can see it is and don’t moan too much. And
if you’re lying and you get a meltdown the cabs are absurdly cheap compared
with London.
Each day we’d do some big, flagship attraction like the Empire State
(“Everything’s massive in New York isn’t it, daddy?”), the lobby of the
Chrysler building (“Art gekko? What’s art gekko?”), Central Park Zoo (I
wrote in my notebook that a leopard-seal can eat 15 penguins in one go, can
that be true?), a harbour tour or Times Square.
If I never see the big wheel at Toys ‘R’ Us again, I won’t be too upset. The USS
Intrepid, an old aircraft-carrier moored in the Hudson, is worth a
trip, too, if you’re that way inclined. There’s a Concorde on show at the
next pier: the Americans even manage to admit they didn’t build it. And the
Museum of Natural History is superb for adults and children alike. The
sliver of a sequoia tree, 1,500 years old and 331ft tall when it was felled
by two men over 13 days in 1891 (I wrote that down, too) is exceptional.
After the visit, we’d buy some tat in whatever tourist shop was to hand and
get some lunch. New York is, of course, excellent for convenience food which
is also healthy if you want it to be, with 24-hour delis selling fruit and
veg by weight, and a new (to me, anyway) “creative salad” place called
Chop’t, which someone should start in Britain, if they haven’t already.
After lunch we’d head Downtown to meet up with Mikey so he could spoil them
with a movie, or a milkshake (or pancakes with half a jug of maple syrup, I
don’t want to know), and Nicola and I would get in a little light
shopping or a visit to the oyster bar underneath Grand Central. I’m not sure
shopping in New York is quite as advantageous as it used to be, even though
the dollar is weak, because British shops have got so much better. Still, my
wife seemed to cope.
As did I. By the end of the week, we even got the children into MoMA and the
Guggenheim in one afternoon. Not that they liked it (except Dalí, who seems
to appeal to eight-year-old boys, and Mondrian, who works for six-year-old
girls). They spent a lot of their time sneering at the Rothkos, Warhols and
Pollocks. Mind you, I do that, too. Clearly, we need to return as a family
as soon as possible and improve our level of cultural sophistication.
ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW
Getting there
Robert Crampton travelled with Trailfinders, flying direct to New York on
American Airlines (www.aa.com). Trailfinders offers seven-night New York
trips from £849pp at a range of three or four-star apartments, including the
Best Western Hospitality House, available as one, two and three bedrooms,
flying with American, BA, Virgin or United Airlines.
If you fancy something a little swankier, Eos, Maxjet and Silverjet are
business-class only airlines. Returns on Eos from £2,500, the slightly less
glitzy Maxjet starts at £854. Silverjet takes off in January 2007 with fares
from £799, including 30-minute check-in at Luton. If you’ve time to spare,
The Queen Mary 2 takes six nights to cross the Atlantic, with rooms
from £733pp including a one-way flight from New York through Thomas Cook
Signature (0870 4434453; www.tcsignature.com).
Staying there
If you prefer hotel-living to apartments, most New York hotels welcome kids
with open arms. The Four Seasons (www.fourseasons.com) offers children their
own bathrobes, toiletries and menus, and will lend out games, toys, cots and
prams. At Westin on Times Square (www.westinny.com), the location is topped
off by the fact kids under 12 eat free at weekends, and can watch one free
movie each day.
Or combine a city break with exploring New England on a self-drive tour,
taking in Connecticut and Massachusetts before flying home out of Boston. A
ten-night trip costs from £1,688 for a family of four through Travelbag
(0870 8146521; www.travelbag.co.uk).
