Staten Island, NY Part 2

We stayed five nights (June 9 -13) at the Great Kills Yacht Club on Staten Island and used that cost effective dockage as our base of operations for a NYC visit.  Our first full day was spent exploring Brooklyn because Lynn had never been there.  After studying and maneuvering the public transportation system we learned that it’s faster to go through Manhattan to get to Brooklyn even though that doesn’t make sense by “how the crow flies.” We explored the historic and lovely Brooklyn Heights neighborhood and the new (to both of us) DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges Overpass).  This was a cool area with a big and interesting flea market, lots of restaurants and pubs, and a great waterfront  park and amazing views of Manhattan. 

Our second day in the city was spent in Manhattan where we checked out the Museum of Natural History which was somewhat of a disappointment.  Many of the exhibits seem to not have changed since we were there as children, though there were a couple that were newer and worthwhile.  We made up for that disappointment by spending a couple of hours biking through Central Park.  It was a beautiful day and we were surprised to see so many people enjoying the park on a Monday.

That evening we met Robbie's daughter Chloe who works in NY and lives in Hoboken with her husband, JA. Her office just moved to the original Woolworth building which is an Art Deco masterpiece.  

We went down to West Village to meet JA for dinner.  But first we had to stop and quench our thirst at a beer joint.  Afterwards, we had a delicious Italian dinner at an intimate little restaurant there.

On Tuesday, we returned to Brooklyn to visit the exquisite Brooklyn Botanic Garden where we participated in a walking tour to more fully appreciate all this garden had to offer. We highly recommend a visit here.  It would be especially beautiful in the spring because of the extensive spring blooms but even though we were past the cherry blossoms, there’s a fantastic rose garden and lots of interesting and unique gardens. ( Shakespeare, herbs, Japanese, etc.).  We followed that with lunch in the Park Slope neighborhood.

On our final day, we treated ourselves with tickets for a Broadway show, Come From Away.  We went to the matinee performance and we totally loved the show.  It was heartwarming, funny, and sad and the music was wonderful.  Definitely one of our favorites.  After strolling through 

Times Square and Midtown we found an Anthony Bourdain endorsed Chinese restaurant where we had a very authentic and tasty meal.  So we satisfied our requirement to have great Italian food and Chinese food while in New York!

Our final trip back to the boat was the now familiar trek of walking, bus, subway, bus and more walking.  It took us about one and a half hours to get anywhere from our Staten Island dock but we felt it was worth it.  The Great Kills Yacht Club was the calmest spot in the metropolitan area, the docks were great, the facilities were convenient,  the people were friendly and the price was right!