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New York offers plenty of offbeat adventures that you may want to experience. Here's the flipside: things, events, and places to avoid. Take note: Some of the experiences listed here are often featured prominently in guidebooks as must-do experiences. You may, in fact, have a lifelong dream of ringing in the New Year in Times Square. You might wish to reconsider, but it's left to you to ultimately decide.
New Year's Eve in Times Square
You see the event on television every year, and now you're here. This is your chance to be one of the hundreds of thousands of revelers packed tightly together in the frigid cold to watch the ball drop. Don't do it! Find a nice warm restaurant or bar to celebrate in. Or better yet, have room service deliver a delicious meal and some bubbly for you and your loved one, and don't go out at all. Despite the happy faces that you see on television, the whole thing is a miserable experience and not worth the forced elation of blowing on a noisemaker at midnight with half a million others. (You won't find too many New Yorkers here . . . it's very much an out-of-towners' event.)
Chain restaurants
Olive Garden, Applebee's, Red Lobster, Domino's . . . did you come to New York to eat exactly what you can eat in every town in this country? Or did you come here to experience what makes New York so unique? And that includes the amazing variety of unchained restaurants, from the coffee shops and diners where real New Yorkers eat to the bargain-priced ethnic cuisine and higher-end dining experiences. Bypass the old standards and try something homey, glamorous, or new. You won't regret it.
Waiting on lines for breakfast
(And please note, New Yorkers wait on line, not in line.) Sometimes New Yorkers can be masochistic. They hear about a restaurant that serves a great breakfast, and they begin lining up on weekend mornings and wait for over an hour, standing outside, winter or summer, just to order the same omelets other diners are serving at much less cost and without more than a minute's wait. Now what would you do?
The St. Patrick's Day Parade
On March 17, packs of suburban teenagers (with cases of beer between them) begin arriving early via the New Jersey trains. By the time the parade kicks off, they — along with a few off-duty policemen — are sloshed. And even before the parade ends, the fights begin and the vomit flows as freely as the beer did earlier. The pubs are packed, and the already-high price of drinks gets even higher.
Electronics stores
You may notice a wealth of "electronics stores"in and around Times Square and Fifth Avenue or wherever gullible tourists frequent. Many of the stores post banners advertising a GOING OUT OF BUSINESS sale. These guys have been going out of business since the Stone Age. That's the bait and switch; pretty soon you've spent too much money for not enough stereos or cameras or MP3 players. The people who work at these stores are a special breed of shark; they work you hard to take their "deal." Don't even get close enough to let them sink their fangs into you.
Driving in the city
If you want a world of aggravation, rent a car, tolerate the traffic, maneuver amongst the yellow cabs, and try to find a parking place. And when you do, make sure the parking place is a legal one (read the fine print on the street signs). Or put the car in a garage and watch your vacation budget fritter away. (If you must drive your car to get here, consider staying in a hotel that offers free or discounted parking.) With subways, buses, and your feet, New York has the best and fastest public transportation. A car is a luxury you want no part of.
The Feast of San Gennaro
At one time this was a distinct and genuine Italian feast (see the films Godfather II and Mean Streets). Its decline pretty much has coincided with the decline of Little Italy, a neighborhood that's a small shell of what it once was. Now, the Feast is just an overblown and overcrowded street fair with bad food, cheap red wine, and games of chance you have no chance of winning. Most of the original Little Italy residents have left, but the ones who are still there make sure to clear out during the Feast.
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