Amorous Manhattan: Escape to the city that never sleeps
NEW YORK -- TV's libidinous Sex and the City raised Manhattan's profile as a couples' playground.
Indeed, a rendezvous spot beckons around most every corner, even for those lacking Carrie's $600 Manolo stilettos or Mr. Big's bucks. Low- or no-cost experiences are plentiful — from riding the Staten Island Ferry (free, no longer a nickel), to watching hand-holding skaters on rinks at Rockefeller Center, Bryant Park and The Standard hotel, to nibbling on a $2.95 Belgian chocolate bar at the three-level Dylan's Candy Bar store on Third Avenue.
While waiting for my beau to arrive in town, I climb the stairs to the High Line, converted rail tracks and one of the city's newer lovers' lanes. On the elevated walking trail in the now-trendy West Side Meatpacking District, I encounter New Yorkers Alison Dambach, 27, and David Gordon, 26. They're marking their third anniversary of togetherness with a stroll on the walkway before heading to a celebratory dinner at Greenwich Village's The Meatball Shop, where orbs of chicken, pork or beef slip down easily in $3 sliders.
Barry and I will be bound for a more traditional evening: a Broadway show and after-theater supper.
We avoid waiting in line in the cold at one of the city's three half-price TKTS booths by ordering tickets online instead ( broadwaybox.com or other discount sites offer them). Center-rear mezzanine seats at popular, long-running Chicago cost $62 each, plus about $9 each in service charges — vs. the usual $99-and-fee tickets.
Après-theater, the dimly lit, brick-walled Joe Allen Restaurant on West 46th Street serves a satisfying $13.50 burger with fries, hearty $18 meat loaf and possible star sightings. None on this night, though.
Looking for a room to love
Sadly, our hotel room is a dud in the romance department.
The new Hotel LOLA on East 29th Street looked great at first blush: marketed as a hip boutique lodging with elevator walls bearing black-and-white images of a vintage vamp puffing a cigarette and a lobby bar serving "aphrodisiac" cocktails. I had scored a room at the great-for-Manhattan rate of $140 a night ($136 less than the 2011 city average), including full American breakfast and free Wi-Fi.
But we find the check-in process disorganized and the modern minimalist room, with gray carpeting and no pictures on the wall, stark and sterile. And our tiny bathroom is unheated. Though others say nice things on TripAdvisor, for us, it's no love nest. We vow to check out next morning — especially after an unasked-for 7:52 a.m. wake-up call: "Are you the guys who asked for an iron?" We hadn't.
I dial Ink48, a Kimpton boutique hotel in a renovated printing plant on 11th Avenue I'd toured before its opening and whose website is touting specials. Our standard room comes with a partial view of the Hudson River and inviting furnishings that include a settee in front of large windows. Bathrobes in animal prints help set a playful mood. The rate is higher, but so is Ink's rank on our romance scale. And the $231 "Cheers" package includes two cocktails of our choice in the inviting lobby bar.
Wielding one of Ink's free-to-use orange umbrellas, we splurge on Rockefeller Center's Top of the Rock Observation Deck (from $38 for two adults at topoftherocknyc.com, more at the on-site box office). We find the views from the open-air deck on the 70th floor, with its 360-degree view of the city, better than those from the Empire State Building.
Central Park is spread out below like a giant blanket. On the other side of the deck, as couples speaking various languages nuzzle, we snap the requisite cellphone photo of ourselves in front of the spire of the Empire State Building.
Top of the Rock is a popular wedding spot, Gino Filippone of Ultimate USA Weddings told me before our trip. He'll marry couples of either sex there and at other iconic locales such as the Brooklyn Bridge for prices starting at less than $2,000, including venue fees, service and "New York Moment" photograph. Filippone married the city's honorary 50 millionth visitors in 2011 — a couple from Britain — here in December. "New York is one of the most romantic cities in the world," Filippone tells me. "There's so much energy," and couples want to partake of it.
The urge to splurge
After an inexpensive sushi lunch in the building's bowels, we pass up a $50-for-20-minutes Central Park carriage ride for a less-clichéd experience at the Museum of Sex on Fifth Avenue near the Empire State Building.
The displays — from historic gynecological instruments to modern-day celebrity sex tapes — are either titillating or tawdry, depending on your point of view. Whichever, the place is full of gawking duos a little embarrassed to be standing next to strangers watching Paris Hilton's One Night in Paris capers or old stag films.
After the sun sets, we decide to sample New York's Champagne life on a Pilsener budget. Dinner with wine at the often-booked-solid Le Bernardin restaurant, tops for food and popularity in the Zagat New York City Restaurants 2012 guide, can easily run $400 and up for two. But the newly renovated and expanded lounge welcomes walk-ins and serves plates costing less than $20, including the renowned The Egg ($12). It's a chocolate pot de crème with caramel foam and a dash of maple syrup topped with a grain of salt, served in a ceramic brown egg.
We settle into a sleek sand-colored leather corner banquette, prepared to order a $19 lobster-and-truffle brioche and $18 salmon with mustard sauce appetizer. Then our attentive waiter offers menus from the dining room.
A $125 four-course menu later — from delectable slivers of yellowfin tuna with foie gras, to decadent butter-poached lobster tail, to delicately cooked, crusted red snapper, to The Egg — and our budget is maxed out. Tomorrow we may have to nosh on street-vendor hot dogs and nix cabs.
On this nippy January night, while our wallets may be emptier than expected, our love affair with New York is in full bloom.
For information on New York City deals, visit nycgo.com.