Gotham’s sheer scale amazes all its guests, but to kids, the buildings are that much taller, the lights that much brighter, the noise that much louder. Plus, those everyday moments of city life that adults zip right by fill a child’s eyes with wonder. Drew gawked at the construction crews filling potholes as Sydney’s head spun like a swivel trying to keep up with the yellow blur of rushing taxis. Who needs “It’s a Small World’’ when there are Con Ed repairmen down a manhole on 38th and Lexington?
Parents can have plenty of fun with their pint-sized travelers as long as they adhere to a cardinal rule: Don’t over-program. It was a lesson we learned in typically blunt New York style on our first family trip there. Squeezing too much into our itinerary left our kids restless while our vagabond shoes were longing to stray.
Our mistake was a common one, says Meryl Pearlstein, author of “Fodor’s Family New York City with Kids.’’ “When you visit New York, you want to do it all, but you just have to realize that you need to scale back. Parents think kids can handle the same things as adults, but they can’t. They need down time and a chance to run around. Be realistic, and know that you’re going to come back another time.’’
Luckily, we got that second chance on a return trip last month. This time, we pledged to dial back the itinerary.
Our spacious one-bedroom suite at the Affinia Dumont was very family-friendly with a separate room for the kids to sleep in and a kitchen with a refrigerator and stove. Drew and Sydney - and Mommy and Daddy, too - were entranced by the view from our room on the 23d floor. They didn’t know whether to look down at the traffic and rooftop gardens or gaze up at the soaring Midtown skyline. What they did know was that they wanted to take the elevator down to the lobby, high-five the friendly doorman, and get swept up in the action of the concrete jungle.
