My NYC Diary: Weeks 9+10

Towards the end of Week 8, my mom had come to visit me, and we were exhausted. But that didn’t stop us. We got up Saturday morning and headed to brunch in Gramercy. We went to Citizens of Gramercy, which was a cute little spot with fast seating. I ordered their Chicken Sandwich with Frose. Afterwords we headed to my favorite (and potentially the most iconic) building in the city: The Empire State Building. 

I’ve been wanting to go to the Empire State Building for so long, and it was really cool. The first part of your ”tour” is a museum. It goes over how it was built and shows and movies that it was featured in. From there you go to the 86th floor observatory. This is the classic observatory that makes me think of the scene from Sleepless in Seattle. We had reserved the tickets to also take us to the 102nd floor observatory. 

That afternoon we went to the 9/11 Museum. Having gone the weekend before with Lauren, it was nice to focus in on certain details and think deeper about some of the stories since I had consumed so much of the information the week before. We stayed until closing and went to Little Italy for dinner after. We went to a restaurant called Umberto’s Clam House and had some amazing lobster ravioli. 

Sunday morning we had brunch at Jasper’s in Hell’s Kitchen. I enjoyed some pineapple mimosas with my Chicken Santa Fe sandwich. After that we walked to Central Park where we saw Strawberry Fields, Bethesda Terrace and the Alice in Wonderland statue. 

From there we visited the Friends Experience. It was so cool to see so many of the props used in the show and the sets recreated. Previously we have visited the Central Perk set in L.A. but it was cool to see the other apartments. After that we went back to Little Italy for pizza. We ended up going to Marcellino, and it was delicious.  

On Monday, we walked the High Line and Ayada in Chelsea Market for lunch. That evening we went to the rooftop bar A.R.T. NoMad for drinks before heading to (our favorite) Pasta Lover’s for dinner. This time I had the clam linguine, and it was very good. 

The next day I went back to my internship. Unfortunately we had a little bit of a covid-scare so we couldn’t go in for the rest of the week. (Rest assured, everything and everyone is fine and healthy!) 

On Friday, Anna came to town! She got here early so we started off the morning with rainbow bagels from Liberty Bagel, and then headed to the Vessel in Hudson Yards. I had never been to the Vessel and it was so many more stairs than I was expecting. It a nice place to work out your legs though. 

After that we walked across the High Line and finished our bagels from earlier, and headed to lunch at Chelsea Market. We ate at Friedman’s where I had the Grilled Chicken sandwich. It was pretty good. After we headed to the Staten Island Ferry for views of the Statue of Liberty and Dairy Queen. Both the views and the Dairy Queen were enjoyed. That evening we went to Mickey Spillane’s for a pizza dinner. 

On Saturday, we went to The Mean Fiddler for brunch. We got to try their variety of cocktails (including the Prosecco Popsicle!). Anna got their M&M pancakes and I had their chicken quesadilla, which was amazing. After brunch we stopped at Chick-fil-a for some fries and got on the subway to go to Coney Island. We went to Luna Park at Coney Island but I would not recommend doing a bottomless brunch before going to an amusement park. That night we walked picked up Shake Shack for dinner and watched a movie because we were exhausted. 

Sunday was another busy day, that started with a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. I did not realized how long the Bridge was but it was a nice walk. Afterwords we walked around Dumbo a bit. We went to the iconic photo spot, and got cookies and lemonade from One Girl Cookies.

That afternoon we went to an escape room at the Escape Game New York. We did the prison break room with another group of girls, and we successfully escaped! I had never done an escape room before but it was so much fun. 10/10 would do it again. That night we got dressed up and walked around Times Square a little bit. We stopped at Ben & Jerry\’s before heading back to the hotel. 

On Monday we went to the Museum of Ice Cream, which I have been dying to go to. It’s such a cool interactive art installation kind of place, and you do get free ice cream. Since we were both so tired after all we had done during the weekend, we picked up Starbucks and just relaxed before Anna left. That evening they were shooting the Sex and the City Reboot nearby so I waited around there to see if I saw anything cool. I got to see some of the extras and costume pieces, which was really cool. 

Tuesday and Thursday I went back to my internship. There was a lot going on, but it was otherwise a pretty chill couple of days. Friday, I also went into the office briefly because we had a last minute fitting the needed some of the dresses and I was the only one available to go in and deliver them. 

Between having two visitors with me in the city, I was exhausted. Ultimately, it was so cool getting to experience all of those things and making memories with my mom and Anna. 

Much Love, 

Jacquelyn