Karen Moline – Cheapallonia to her friends – has budget-friendly, child-friendly, animal-friendly suggestions for visitors to NYC.
Sometimes you need to go a little animal when you’re visiting New York City. Especially with your own pint-sized beasts in tow.
On days when you don’t feel like shopping or seeing a show or star-gazing in the concrete jungle, Cheapallonia suggests you head for the zoo. Not only are the NYC zoos a respite from the skyscrapers and noise and relentless energy of New York, they’re usually as interesting (or gross-out, like 10,000 hissing cockroaches hanging out on a tree in the Madagascar exhibit at the Bronx Zoo) for adults as they are for kids. Plus your entrance fees and dollars spent at the exhibits, food courts, and gift shops all go to a good cause-the zoos are run by the Wildlife Conservation Society (www.wcs.org).
One of my favorite secret tidbits for travelers is that four of the five zoos plus the Aquarium are open 365 days a year; the sole exception is the Staten Island Zoo, which is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. Someone’s got to feed the critters, after all, so the zoos are fully staffed. Let me tell ya, there’s nothing more delicious than hanging out at a deserted zoo to toast the new year, enjoying the animals and celebrating the good things to come.
The zoos can get pricey for large families, so if you’re planning to visit more than one, I suggest you join the Wildlife Conservation Society on a family membership, which allows unlimited access to all the zoos for an entire zoo, for three adults and up to five children (and it’s tax-deductible). You can sign up online at the WCS website, which has tons of information about current exhibits, or at the zoos, too.
Bronx Zoo
Welcome to the largest zoo in North America-and trust me, when you’re walking around all the exhibits on a hot summer’s day, your aching legs will let you know it in a hurry. It is more than a little amazing to have such a wonderland of animals in the middle of such an urban habitat. The contrast between the urban jungle and the wildlife jungle is particularly amazing if you take the subway to the zoo, as it runs outdoors on elevated tracks once you hit the Bronx.
The Zoo is so vast and such a tourist destination (translation: it can get very crowded, with long lines for popular attractions) that I recommend you get there right at opening time, at 10 a.m. If you take the subway, you’ll enter at the Asia Gate, which is perfect, as you should head right for the Wild Asia Monorail and you’ll skip the horrendous lines later in the day. Then you can take the Skyfari cable cars across the park to the Bug Carousel, the Butterfly Garden, the Reptile House, the Mouse House (where I have been known to scream), the biggest gift shop, and the food court where you can sit and recuperate for a while. After that, don’t miss the new Madagascar exhibit (hissing cockroaches notwithstanding), Congo Gorilla Forest, Tiger Mountain, and the Children’s Zoo, which has animals for petting and a fun trail for little feet to follow.
Many of the attractions are closed in cold weather, such as the African Plains, as the animals can’t handle the winter conditions, so I do recommend you plan your Bronx Zoo trip in the summer months. But if you’re in the city for the Christmas holiday, it’s worth a trip to see the holiday lights, where brilliant displays are lit up and the zoo stays open late. It is quite amazing to see the nocturnal creatures on the move and then sit outside to eat roasted marshmallows and sip steaming cups of hot chocolate.
The Bronx Zoo is on Fordham Road at the Bronx River Parkway.
Subway: #2 or #5 to East Tremont Ave/West Farms Square. At street level, walk straight ahead (follow train uptown) on Boston Road 21?2 blocks to the Zoo’s Asia gate entrance (Gate A).
You can also take the BxM11 express bus, which stops along Madison Avenue, between 26th and 99th Streets, then goes directly to the Bronx River entrance (Gate B).
Central Park Zoo
The Central Park Zoo is a small jewel, with a neurotic polar bear, hyperactive penguins, show-off sea lions, and some crazy monkeys. Sounds a lot like NYC inhabitants, right?
Try to time your visit around the sea lion and penguin feedings. It’s like opening day at the Barney’s New York warehouse sale.
If you’re visiting Manhattan in winter and can’t take one more day of frigid temperatures, head for the Central Park Zoo’s rainforest exhibit, which is steamy hot and loaded with snakes, poison frogs, leafcutter ants, bats, birds, and other creatures to make you watch your back.
The Tisch Children’s Zoo is a short walk from the main zoo, and it’s a delight, with lots of goats, sheep, and llamas that greedily scarf down the food pellets you can buy, along with a couple of pigs, ducks, and two scary little caimans. It’s just the right size for toddlers.
The Central Park Zoo is located at 64th Street and Fifth Avenue.
Subway: N or R to Fifth Ave., or #6 to 68th St.
Prospect Park Zoo (Brooklyn)
Open only since 1993, this zoo is especially hands-on and visitor-friendly. There’s an outdoor walk in the World of Animals where you chance upon a wide range of animals, from a skunk to a wallaby, and kids can pop their heads in the prairie dog habitat for a priceless snapshot. Then sit down and watch the antics of the baboons in the Animal Lifestyles building. Follow up with a barnyard in the Animals in Our Lives section, where there are often puppet shows and storytelling sessions.
As this is a small zoo, it’s easily manageable for small children. They can unwind afterward at the old-fashioned Prospect Park Carousel just down the street, and then have a picnic with you in the splendid Botanical Gardens across the street.
The Prospect Park Zoo is at 450 Flatbush Avenue.
Subway: Q train to Prospect Park Station
Queens Zoo
The Queens Zoo is seemingly the poor relative to its better-known cousins, but it’s still worth a trip if only for the bone-jarring journey with stupendous views of the city on the elevated #7 subway line.
Because it’s more intimate, the Queens Zoo has been designed to resemble a petite national park, with exhibits set up as wild habitats. Then marvel at the aviary, which you may remember as the Buckminster Fuller-designed geodesic dome from the 1964 World’s Fair
An ideal day trip would be to combine a morning jaunt to the zoo with an afternoon visit to one of Cheapallonia’s favorite places to take the kids-the New York Hall of Science. This is a shrine to science with the kind of please-touch, hands-on exhibits that engage any child. It’s brilliantly designed and a hoot for parents too. If you go in the summer, there’s an amazing water park in the Science Playground outside, so don’t forget your bathing suits.
The Queens Zoo is located at 53-51 111th St. in Flushing Meadows Park, near the Queens Hall of Science, which is at 47-10 111th St.
Subway: #7 to 111th Street.
Staten Island Zoo
If you like snakes, reptiles, and other slithering kind of creatures, then the Staten Island Zoo is the place for you. Best known for its brilliant new Reptile House, in you’ll find over 100 different creatures to gross you out, even if the “Fear Zone” attempts to explain away common misperceptions about these animals.
Then head for the Kids’ Korral where you can get up close and personal with the alpacas, followed by a pony ride.
As taking the free Staten Island ferry is a must-do on any visitor’s agenda, spending some time on the island with the animals will make the voyage even more fun.
The Staten Island Zoo is at 614 Broadway, Staten Island.
Subway: #1 to South Ferry, R or W to Whitehall Street.
Take the Staten Island Ferry from the South Ferry terminal. Once on Staten Island, take the S-48 bus to Forest Ave./Broadway, turn left, and walk three and a half blocks.
New York Aquarium
Coney Island is one of the best-known attractions in New York, even though it’s still seedy and pretty decrepit (and threatened with the big tear-down to be gentrified), little kids won’t care when they’re on the kiddie amusement park rides, big kids won’t care when they’re screaming on the infamous Cyclone roller coaster, and parents won’t care when they’re lazing on the beach.
But tucked up the boardwalk from the Wonder Wheel is the NY Aquarium, a haven from the loony behavior of the locals. There, you can get kissed by a sea lion (sit in the front row during the summer shows), marvel at the sharks and the octopus, get creeped out by the jellyfish in the Alien Stingers exhibit, or, my favorite, stand under the wave machine in the Explore the Shore section, where 400 gallons of rushing water will spill over your head (luckily, you won’t get wet). Then you can stroke a horseshoe crab before heading for the gift shop that sells the most adorable stuffed aquatic creatures imaginable.
The Aquarium is also open 365 days a year, and it’s a fun expedition when the winter winds are howling, as most of the exhibits are indoors. In the summer, we like to arrive when it opens, at 10 a.m., visit the animals, get splashed by the sea lion show, have fish and chips for lunch in the café (yes, it’s perverse, but it sure is tasty), then go hit the rides at Coney Island, which opens at noon. That way, you avoid the craziness that descends later in the day, when the amusement park gets very crowded and noisy – which can scare little kids more than the Haunted House.
The NY Aquarium is located at Surf Avenue and W. 8th Street in Brooklyn.
Subways: D, F, N, or Q to Coney Island Stillwell Avenue (and walk north along the boardwalk), or F or Q to West 8th St., New York Aquarium
