What should I avoid in New York?

Times Square is worth exactly 10 minutes of any New York visit. Walk through at dusk, look up at the neon and LED screens stacked 20 stories high, keep moving north. The sit-down restaurants lining Broadway between 42nd and 47th charge $26 for a burger you could get for $15 at J.G. Melon on the Upper East Side. Costumed characters, Elmo and Spider-Man and a half-dozen Statues of Liberty, pose for photos near 45th Street and then demand $10-20 per person. The painted performers in the same pedestrian plazas work the same routine for $15-25. That said, the TKTS booth at 47th and Broadway sells same-day Broadway tickets at 20-50% off. The afternoon line wraps around the block, but weekday evenings after 5pm tend to move in about 15 minutes.

The CD hustlers on 34th Street and in Washington Square Park hand you a disc, ask you to write your name on it, then demand $10-20 because 'you wrote on it, you bought it.' Keep your hands in your pockets around Herald Square. The fake monks in saffron robes near the Brooklyn Bridge press a gold bracelet into your hand and won't release it without $20. Three-card monte still runs on Canal Street and in the blocks around Port Authority on 42nd, rigged with confederates who 'win' big to draw you in. Pedicab drivers along Central Park South quote no price upfront, then charge $40-75 for a 10-minute ride. New York City law requires a visible rate card, but many drivers cover theirs. Agree on a fare in writing before you sit down, or walk the southern loop of Central Park instead, about 1.7 miles in 30 minutes.

Skip any restaurant within two blocks of the Empire State Building that has a host on the sidewalk waving you in. That host costs money, and you're paying for it in a $22 plate of overcooked penne. Little Italy on Mulberry Street is now about 3 blocks long and mostly a stage set for tourists. The red-sauce spots with checkered tablecloths charge $32 for chicken parm that tastes like it came off a steam table two hours ago. Walk 10 minutes east to Chinatown instead. Joe's Shanghai on Pell Street serves soup dumplings for $12, and the 20-minute wait in a fluorescent-lit hallway is worth it. For pizza, avoid the $1 slice spots on 6th Avenue, where the cheese pools orange grease on warm cardboard. Prince Street Pizza in Nolita runs a line for its pepperoni square, but 25 minutes and $6.50 gets you one of the better slices below 14th Street.

Never take a taxi from JFK that isn't in the official taxi line outside your arrival terminal. The flat fare to Manhattan is $70 plus tolls and tip. Anyone approaching you inside the terminal and saying 'car service' will charge $100-150 for the same trip. The AirTrain to Jamaica Station plus the LIRR to Penn Station costs about $18 total and takes around 50 minutes. For getting around Manhattan, avoid the buses unless you enjoy sitting in traffic on 5th Avenue for 30 minutes to move 12 blocks. The subway costs $2.90 per ride with an OMNY tap, runs 24 hours, and moves faster than any car below 60th Street. Worth noting, New York's subway platforms in August trap enough heat to soak through your shirt, thick with the smell of steel dust and recycled air.

New York's mid-September temperatures currently hover around 22°C with 88% humidity, pushing the felt temperature to about 24°C. July and August are the difficult months, when afternoons hit 35°C and the concrete radiates heat from every direction. You'll feel it most crossing the Brooklyn Bridge at 2pm, with no shade for 1.1 miles of sun-baked wooden planks underfoot. January brings the opposite problem. Wind tunnels between Midtown's avenues drop the wind chill to -15°C, and a 10-block walk north on 7th Avenue from Madison Square Garden will numb your face in 5 minutes without a proper scarf. Hurricane season runs through November, and remnant storms have flooded the subway system before, including during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 and when Hurricane Ida's remnants hit in September 2021.