Ah, the lovely holiday season in New York City is upon us. It means bright, colorful lights, enchanting holiday windows, the Rockefeller Center tree, the smell of pine in front of your corner deli…and gridlock. We’re talking vehicle gridlock and people gridlock.
That’s exactly what happens in New York as Thanksgiving rounds into the crazed, shopper-stomping weeks of December. One can love the holiday season and winter, as I do, but deplore the crowded, over-the-top feel of New York at this time, especially Midtown Manhattan. Picture 30 people carrying massive shopping bags and jostling to move through the same 12 square feet on the corner of West 46th Street and Seventh Avenue, or Fifth Avenue and 49th Street, on a dark, cold, rainy evening. Just a few are cranky.
This New Yorker always greets the time between Thanksgiving and December 24, consumerism’s high holidays of shopping, with a mixture of excitement – I love winter, snow, Macy’s and Lord & Taylor’s windows, Greenwich Village streets with white twinkle lights, etc. – and loathing. So, how does one not only stay sane but enjoy New York in these weeks?
For those of like mind, here are seven things to do to get peaceful and keep merry during the pre-holiday rush in New York. These are places of tranquility and fresh air, activities, and small tricks when the crowdedness and mania feel like too much. In a year of economic turmoil and no matter which holiday you mark – Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa – it’s good to remind ourselves about what is free or at least nearly free.
Walk downtown. While Midtown, the Upper East Side, the West Village, and SoHo are often crowded, take a break and walk many of those crooked, angular 17th– and 18th– century-feeling streets in the Financial District. This far downtown can feel very open, and it’s made more so by winter’s brisk wind blowing across the slender part of Manhattan. (At times it feels like being in the middle of Mark Helprin’s novel Winter’s Tale.) Especially walk along Stone Street, Bridge Street, and South William Street in that area, but many places will do.
Go to the Hudson River and see the sunset. Sure, New York is crowded, but its rivers, harbor, and oceanfront literally give the compact, congested physical space breathing room. These are the times of shortest daylight of the year, but the sunsets are a treat of light. As a West Sider, I love watching the sunsets over the Hudson River. Try a walk or park bench seat on the Battery Park City Esplanade, the piers and esplanade of the Hudson River Park, or Riverside Park. It’s good to bundle up, feel the wind off the river, and watch the sun slip behind the New Jersey hillsides. The sky goes from azure to midnight blue, with mixed-in pinkish, violet, and golden clouds, as the first stars twinkle and the silhouettes deepen.
Head to the boardwalk or beach of the Brighton Beach neighborhood and look at the ocean. Or, take the LIRR train to Long Beach and walk its boardwalk and beach, one of my favorites. What could be better to ease the holiday mania in the city than hearing very little but the waves, watching them break over the sand, and gazing at the horizon?
Look up above the crowds at the clouds and sky. When pressed in by a horde of shoppers or holiday enthusiasts (and I may be among them), just lift up your eyes, take a deep breath, and notice how what you see can bring you back to yourself. (I also spend lots of my life looking at buildings and their details, but that’s another story.) Seeing billowy clouds above and behind the building tops is exhilarating. In fact, some people spend their lives enjoying and appreciating clouds, an activity known as cloudspotting. Check out Gavin Pretor-Pinney’s fine book, The Cloudspotter’s Guide.
Do a museum trip off the Fifth Avenue track by exploring the Panorama of the City of New York at the Queens Museum of Art. This experience may either make you feel bigger than New York City or tiny within its massiveness as you see a scale model of the entire city. It’s sure to leave you in wonder. The Panorama is an amazing, masterful scale model of New York, of 9,335 square feet, that shows every building constructed before 1992 in the city’s five boroughs (a total of 895,000 miniscule structures), plus New York’s streets, bridges, and parks.
Robert Moses conceived the panorama, and a team of people working for Raymond Lester Associates built it for the opening of the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. I’ve been mesmerized for hours here by standing on the walkway around the panorama and discovering the delight of tiny models, knowing that my discoveries simply led to more questions – and more love for the city.
Smell the pines and restore yourself at the Pinetum in Central Park. This is nature’s continuing show for the holidays. Walk slowly around the circular paths of the Arthur Ross Pinetum, an experience like having your own private garden in New York. (Then again, we do have to share it!) The Pinetum has more than 400 trees and 15 different species of pines, including Swiss Mountain, white, and Himalayan, as well as winter jasmine and coralberry, according to the Central Park Conservancy. It’s a place of contemplation, color, and peace.
Do something holidayish, but do it in the very early morning or later at night. For years, I’ve found that one of the best times to take in the Rock Center tree is around 11 p.m. or midnight. The shoppers have gone, and it’s left to the happy, appreciative people taking in the wonder of the tree and the ice skaters. At both ends of the day, one can find the relatively less-crowded moments to take in the windows, lights, the holiday trees, and lots of the things that do make New York special at this time of year.
If you have a way or activity that works for you in this season, share it below.
Do a little research ahead of time, go on the off hours, get off the beaten track, escape, head out in nature, pace it all, slow down, savor…these are ways I’ve found to turn my inner Scrooge’s “Bah! Humbug!” to “Ah, how wonderful.”
Nice ideas. Through the end of Nov, just after sunset, look up in the western sky and see Jupiter and Venus. No binoculars needed! Other than the moon, Venus is the brightest object in the sky. The bright object above it (it is at 11:00 from Venus, but will approach 12:00 as the days pass) is planet Jupiter, which is huge, but appears smaller because it’s sooooo far away!
Great, thank you for that tip and the excellent description. You are right — such a glorious sight in the evening sky just after sunset. I’ve been enchanted by seeing these two planets near each other at twilight.
It’s counterintuitive to think of Jupiter appearing smaller than Venus until one thinks — as you pointed out — that it is so very far away.
Jupiter and Venus, as of Thanksgiving evening, will be moving closer until by Sunday and Monday (Nov. 30 and Dec. 1), they become closest to each other in the sky at just two degrees apart, as the AP notes. On Saturday evening, a crescent moon will shine in the evening sky to the lower-right of Jupiter and Venus, and on Sunday and Monday evenings it’ll appear near the two planets, according to Sky and Telescope magazine, which provides an excellent illustration of it online. This is quite unusual. A celestial wow!
Thanks again for your great addition to the gazing-up ideas for this season.