Travel Features
Visiting New York with a child
By Christoph Driessen
Jun 27, 2006, 19:00 GMT

New York - There are many destinations around the globe considered suitable for young families to visit but most people would not count the metropolis of New York among them.

Admitting you have just come back from a trip to Manhattan with your child is likely to be met with disbelief and a few questions.

New York is a great place to take children who like riding elevators, but what else does the city have to offer?

The Big Apple has plenty to amuse young children such as vast toy stores and exotic animals in the zoo. Yet there is no escape from the fact that visiting the Museum of Modern Art with a bored toddler is most parents\' idea of a nightmare.

One way to take the stress out of a trip to the museum is to plan the visit when your child is tired and is taking a midday nap in the buggy.

Parents will also discover the advantages of reducing the site- seeing schedule and taking a flexible attitude to the day\'s planning.

That can help parents who feel guilty about not packing enough into their trip whenever they drink cocoa with their child instead of visiting the sights.

Slow down the journey a little by sitting on a park bench and watch New York go by. This brings New York down to size and makes the experience of visiting the city special.

Parents who take this attitude should prepare themselves for questions from other visitors who mistake them for local people. Anyone pushing a pram here is automatically taken for a native New Yorker.

But what does New York have in store for kids? The answer is basically what was shown in the movie \'Home Alone 2: Lost in New York\'.

Parts of the city could be in a fairytale. Castles in the sky made of glass, towers of steel so high their tops disappear into the clouds when the weather is bad, and glisten like gold when the sun sets on a fair day.

Another mysterious feature of the city are the clouds of white steam that rise from the ground through broken pipes in New York\'s heating system. They make New York appear as if it were built on a volcano.

On the fourth Thursday in November, house-high figures float down the city\'s concrete canyons during the Thanks Giving Parade.

And for the animal mass held on the first Sunday in October in St. John the Divine\'s cathedral, everything from a grasshopper to an elephant is blessed with holy water. Lots of children have seen something similar at home but not on such a big scale.

New York is also the city where limousines with as many as 16 doors can be seen gliding down the city\'s streets.

It\'s also the place where building cranes reach as high as the 50th floor, where dog-walkers are dragged along by as many as 12 animals, where crabs clamber from baskets in China Town and where lights illuminate the night in Times Square. All that and more awaits to delight visitors of all ages.

An insider\'s tip for five-year-olds is Evolution store (120 Spring Street) in Soho, which is packed full of bones, ribs and stuffed animals.

A genuine 100 million-year-old dinosaur tooth costs as little as 20 dollars (about 16 euros) and a tarantula less than 40 dollars. In short, Evolution is the ideal place to find the right item to decorate a child\'s bedroom.

The same goes for Abracadabra, probably the most original Halloween shop to be found anywhere in the US.

Older children will enjoy walking among the store\'s masks, costumes, puppets and animal figures. The light here is dark, drops of water fall from the ceiling and it smells a little musty, but for horror fans it\'s wonderland.

About 80,000 items are stored here ranging from a nearly three metre high Yeti to test tubes for brewing poison.

Another New York highlight is Toys \'R\' Us on Times Square (1514 Broadway), which, with its 18 metre high Ferris wheel, is the worlds\' biggest toyshop, according to the store\'s owners.

Dinosaur Hill (306 East 9. Street) has hundreds of puppets, figures and gift ideas from just 2 dollars. Dylan\'s Candy Bar (1011 Third Avenue) has two floors of sweets.

The toy store FAO Schwarz (767 Fifth Avenue) has a huge selection on offer to please every pocket including the deepest.

But you don\'t have to spend anything here; half the fun is just visiting the Great Hall which resembles the Serengeti Plane in Africa.

From giraffes to the spring mouse, everything African fauna has to offer can be found here in life-size, cuddly toy format.

If your child has to answer the call of nature, the best thing to do is pay a visit to one of the large department stores. Toilets in fast food restaurants and pizzerias are also easily accessible to any parent who has to change a nappy in a hurry.

A good piece of advice, however, is to avoid public toilets, if you can find one, that is.

The filmmaker Greg Allen has created a list of all the men\'s public toilets in the city that have a nappy-changing table and put it online at www.daddytypes.com.

More useful tips for parents can be found in the bimonthly issue of Time Out New York Kids.

Depending on the degree to which your child is interested in seeing a life-size whale, the jawbone of a T-Rex or the diversity of species of the scorpion, then a visit to the American Museum of Natural History on Central Park might be in order.

Take the subway to the museum as a trip in one of the noisy carriages can be more exciting than a ride on a ghost train.

Or stroll right through Central Park and pause to have a break at one of the playgrounds. In the southeast corner is the Central Park Zoo, made famous in the cartoon film Madagascar, where children can see polar bears and other animals.

If you have a little more time on your hands, try a visit to the Bronx Zoo on the other side of the East River. The animals\' cages were torn down years ago and replaced by armoured glass so there is little to obstruct the view.

The zoo\'s residents live in an artificial jungle and huge open-air enclosures. The visit alone to the 43-million-dollar gorilla enclosure, with its artificial mist, trees, vines and waterfalls, could take an entire afternoon.

The aim of the zoo is to teach the 22 gorillas who live there to survive as best they can without the aid of humans.

And by the way, forget any antiquated thoughts about the dangers of the Bronx. New York, which has provided the backdrop to countless thrillers, and is not even in the top 20 list of America\'s most dangerous cities.

In contrast to London where signs saying \'Children not Welcome\' sometimes hang outside restaurants, the staff in New York\'s establishments are very happy to have young children as their guests.

Another advantage of New York is that most restaurants are quite full in the afternoon, so families don\'t have to wait until late evening to have a meal in the company of other people as they often have to do in Spain or Italy.

Two restaurants that enjoy a good reputation with New York\'s young families are John\'s Pizza (78 Bleecker Street) and Katz\'s Delicatessen (205 East Houston Street). The best bagel shop in the city is H&H Bagels (2239 Broadway).

The only thing left to decide upon is the hotel of residence during your stay. The Washington Square Hotel (103 Waverly Place) in the heart of Greenwich Village is unbeatable and was once the residence of choice for Bob Dylan when he was in town.

A double room costs 200 dollars per night. If you can, reserve room 902, the hotel\'s biggest room with a fantastic view over the trees of Washington Square.

All of the rooms are decorated in the art deco style. The only problem with the hotel is that it is very famous and is often booked out.

Perhaps the most family-friendly hotel in Manhattan is the Doubletree Guest Suites (1568 Broadway) with two floors of rooms that cater for the needs of young children.

There are plastic cups in the cupboards and the furniture does not have sharp edges that could injure a young child. Every room can sleep four people.

Other low-priced alternatives are the Hotel Beacon, The Lucerne, Mayflower, Excelsior Hotel, Milburn Hotel, Gracie Inn, Travel Inn and the Gershwin Hotel.

INFO BOX: New York

DESTINATION: New York is the biggest city in the US and is situated on a group of islands in the estuary of the Hudson River on the Atlantic Ocean.

HOW TO GET THERE AND OTHER FORMALITIES: Flights depart from numerous cities in Europe. Passports issued after October 26, 2005 must contain the holder\'s biometric data. Passengers will be photographed after they land in New York and their fingerprint taken.

CLIMATE AND THE BEST TIME TO GO: New York is cold in winter, has a short spring, a hot summer and a pleasant autumn. The best months to travel are May/June and September/October. In July and August, the weather is hot and humid. But bring a pullover with you as almost all hotel rooms are air-conditioned. January and February can have snowstorms.

CURRENCY: One US dollar costs about 0.78 euro cents (June 2006).

LANGUAGE: English.