Epic East Coast Trip 2025

It had been over 10 years since I’d last been to NY and nearly 30 for my husband, so it felt high time for a visit! But why just stop at NY? We also decided to work in a visit with friends in NJ and drive to Boston (for my first visit), hitting up the Storm King Art Center and the FDR Presidential Library in the Hudson Valley along the way.

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7/28 Day 1 – Times Square, Midtown

We got into town about mid-afternoon—temps were in the high 90s, with what felt like 1000% humidity, oof. 🥵 We were ready for a walk, though, after 7 or so hours of sitting on planes and buses, so we ventured out to the area around our hotel, which just happened to be Times Square. As you can imagine, it was tourist central. Neither of us had been to NY during the high summer tourist season, so we were unprepared for the sheer press of humanity and the heat.

We made our way south toward Manhattan’s Ktown, which had really expanded even since my last visit in 2014. There was even an H Mart (where I got a couple of really sad peaches)! But the real reason we wanted to go there was to check out the place below, for obvious reasons 😄:

I’d stumbled upon this restaurant on Google Maps; turns out it’s a pretty trendy new place. We had dinner here a couple of days later, so more to come.

A somber note: an alert about the Midtown shooting popped up on my Google Maps while we were walking around—I’d never seen that kind of alert before, but it came in handy. We were well away from the danger, but it was still alarming.

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7/29 Day 2 – West Side, Lower Manhattan, East Village

We had big plans for day 2: walk the entirety of the High Line, stop at Little Island along the way, visit the newly relocated Whitney Museum, stop at Chelsea Market, chill out at Battery Park (one of my old fave spots), stop by the 9/11 Memorial, and finally dip into the East Village to check out some bars and restaurants. Not everything went according to plan, but it certainly was a full day—I think we ended up walking nearly 10 miles.

So our plan to visit The Whitney was thwarted when we found out that they were closed on Tuesdays. 😑 We decided to save it for Thursday, after the Met.

After ducking into Chelsea Market for a quick snack and look-see, we ambled around Lower Manhattan. We stopped by the 9/11 Memorial, which unfortunately didn’t have its water feature running at the time. Still impressive, though.

Then we went by Battery Park, which used to be one of my fave hangouts, but it was undergoing renovations and there was all this fencing blocking its iconic views, so we didn’t linger. Womp, womp.

After the long walk, we were ready for some libations and a a break from the crowds. We’re fans of dive bars, and found the East Village to be fertile ground. Our first stop was at The Clockwork Bar, a tiny no-frills watering hole festooned with graffiti and stickers, with punk music on heavy rotation—perfect.

After the bar stops we were starting to get hungry for some real food. There were a couple of spots we wanted to hit up in the area, the first being The Dumpling Man, a rec from some friends.

Then a zig over to one of two tiki bars this evening:

After that a zag to our second food stop: Panna II, another rec from friends. A small, wacky Indian restaurant with LOTS of lights and tchotchkes everywhere. Pretty good food, though.

Then the final stop of the evening—another tiki bar: Otto’s Shrunken Head. The atmosphere wasn’t as elaborate as Paradise Lost, but the drinks were good.

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7/30 Day 3 – Brooklyn, Union Square, Gramercy Park, Theater District

When I was going to school in NY in the late 90s, Brooklyn wasn’t yet the thing that it is now, so I wanted to spend some time there. First thing was to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, which is something neither of us had done before.

We decided to check out DeKalb Market Hall, but since we weren’t very hungry all we did was stop by the Trader Joe’s and take some pics:

We had to save stomach space for one of the restaurants I’d bookmarked in Brooklyn, a vegan Nigerian fast food joint called Akara House. I’d read about them in the New Yorker and was intrigued. We took a bus to a decidedly unglamorous part of Brooklyn, but we found the food to be very tasty and worth the trip.

After lunch we found ourselves at loose ends; we were kind of tired from the day before so didn’t really want to go to the botanical garden or the art museum, and we were certainly too full for more immediate food, so we decided to head back to Manhattan and check out the Union Square/Gramercy Park area.

The main reason I wanted to go to Union Square was to make a pilgrimage to the ground zero of the Taco Bell Drawing Club. This is the Taco Bell where the artist Jason Polan started the drawing club back in 2005. He died of cancer in 2020 at the age of 37, but his legacy lives on in the Long Beach Taco Bell Drawing Club!

After the hustle and bustle of Union square it was nice to walk around the quiet leafy streets of Gramercy Park.

Had to stop by my old student housing building at 23 Lexington Ave—the George Washington—which is now a swanky boutique hotel called Freehand.

And down by the old laundry/mailbox area was this painting, which I’d never seen before! Maybe it had been on display during the original hotel’s heyday and got stuffed into some storage closet once it became derelict?

I then thought it’d be fun to go by the Flatiron building on the way back uptown, and on the way we saw this:

Ack, the Flatiron building was also undergoing renovations and was shrouded like a Victorian widow!

We then headed back to our hotel to get cleaned up for our dinner at Her Name is Han. I’d mentioned that it was a popular place—the only reservations available were for 5 and 9pm, so we chose 5pm. 😆 Not a ton of options for vegetarians, but there was enough to make a decent meal.

We’d gotten discount tickets to a Drunk Shakespeare performance of Romeo and Juliet through a friend and had some time to kill, so decided to check out the Spyglass rooftop bar near the theater.

Of course a thunderstorm broke out while we were at the bar, so we had to hightail it to the theater, which was around the block. We got pretty wet, but at least the temps finally cooled off. Drunk Shakespeare was a raucous good time; definitely not for purists.

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7/31 Day 4 – Roosevelt Island, Upper East Side, Chinatown, SOHO

Roosevelt Island was first on the agenda for the day. Neither of us had been—I happened to see it on the map and thought it looked interesting. We saw that there was a tram to the island in the movie Problemista and wanted to try it. 😆

We didn’t have a ton of time so decided to just hit up the park at the southern end, appropriately called South Point Park.

We randomly discovered that there was a cat sanctuary on the island! This was the second time this trip that we’ve stumbled upon a significant cat-related place (The Meow Parlour was the other one, as you may recall). This cat sanctuary got its start when a population of feral cats took over an abandoned smallpox hospital on the island (for real). The cats were eventually moved out of the hospital into a new area and are now cared for by the Wildlife Freedom Foundation.

Past the smallpox hospital at was the FDR Four Freedoms State park, which turned out to be very cool.

A thunderstorm was rolling in and we still had much to do, so back over on the tram we went to hit up The Met, where the “Sargent & Paris” exhibit was going on.

Holy crap, we were not prepared for the crowds. Luckily one of our friends was able to give us a staff pass so we were able to bypass this line. However, the Sargent exhibit was a still a total zoo.

We just zoomed through and got the hell out of there, which was a shame, but so it goes.

It was raining pretty good when we got out and we were hungry so we stopped into the first place we saw—a place called Patsy’s Pizzeria. The food was good but the service was very slow for some unfathomable reason, as it wasn’t crowded.

Luckily the rain had abated by the time we were done with lunch—on to the Whitney!

So the Whitney was supposed to be open on Thursdays, but when we got there…

Another somber note: We found out a few days later that the museum closed suddenly because a guy had jumped off the building the day before. 😬

With the Whitney derailed, we found a bar nearby in which to plan our next move.

On to Chinatown/Little Italy/SOHO it was! First stop was the Macao Trading Company, near my old work.

Then it was a dollar slice ($1.50, actually) at a random place near Chinatown. Just one of a billion cheap pizza joints all over NY.

We stumbled upon a farmers market and I couldn’t resist picking up some rambutan.

Welcome to Llittle Italy! The home of a surprising amount of pro-Trump crap in the souvenir shops—gross! 😤 It certainly didn’t make us want to linger here.

We happened upon an eatery called LuAnne’s Wild Ginger All-Asian Vegan, which turned out to be pretty good!

Afterwards we walked around SOHO, which was pretty meh. It was already played out as a cool neighborhood back in the 90s, and that hasn’t seemed to have changed.

Finally, a nightcap at a dive bar around the corner from our hotel—a place called Blue Ruin. We liked the atmosphere, but their sound system kept cutting out. 😑

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8/1 Day 5 – NY to NJ, South Mountain Reservation

It was our last morning in NY and I still hadn’t had a bagel! 🥯 A native New Yorker friend recommended Liberty Bagels, which had a location nearby, so I went over there to get a last-minute bagel fix. It turned out to be a very popular place.

After my bagel breakfast stop, it was on to the car rental place to make our escape from New York to our friend’s place in Short Hills, NJ!

The South Mountain Reservation was near our friend’s house, so we decided to go for an afternoon walk. It was so green and lush!

I’ve been friends with Lillian since 1997, when she gave me a work-study job at The Asian American Arts Alliance, where she was the executive director. So great that we’ve been able to keep in touch all these years!

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8/2 Day 6 – Still in Jersey

Another former Arts Alliance connection made his way to Lil’s house to put together a gourmet summer dinner party! But first, we all went to a special screening of BTS Army: Forever We Are Young, a fascinating documentary about the diehard fandom of the K-pop band BTS.

Norman and I didn’t know much about BTS (except that one of its members, Jin, filmed his first solo video in our neighborhood in Long Beach 😁), but we came away with an appreciation for how beneficial finding your “tribe” can be in so many ways.

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8/3 Day 7 – Storm King Art Center

After a couple of restorative days in Jersey it was time to hit the road again! We set out early for Hyde Park, stopping at the incredible Storm King Art Center along the way. Storm King Art Center is an outdoor art museum, set on some 500 beautiful green acres. We saw a lot of really amazing works and walked A LOT.

All told, we were there for a good 6 hours, and still didn’t get to everything. Oh well, just means we!ll have to go back! We continued north toward Hyde Park, crossing the Mid Hudson Bridge.

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8/4 Day 8 – FDR Presidential Library, Boston – North End

Ever since we visited the Carter Center in Atlanta back in 2019 and got Presidential Library passports from the gift shop, we’ve been on a mission to visit them all and get our stamps (yes, we are super nerds.) Hence our stop in Hyde Park to visit the FDR Presidential Library. We’ve been to 5 others so far: Jimmy Carter, LBJ, George W Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon. Had to hold my nose for the last three 🤢.

They happened to be offering free admissions and tours to the FDR House that day so we checked that out first.

Overall, a surprisingly modest home for someone of his status. Nary a gaudy gold filigree in sight, which I’m sure a certain current president would prefer. 🙄 On to the Presidential Library and Museum!

The exhibits were surprisingly modern—they must have re-done it pretty recently. It was interesting and informative, everything a museum should be.

Then it was back in the car for a four hour drive to Boston! We briefly thought about stopping at the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library in Northampton. MA, but we were meeting friends in Boston that night so decided to shelve it for another time.

We stayed at the modern, artsy, and fun citizen M hotel in the West End area of Boston, conveniently located right next to a train station and within walking distance to many notable sights. Up till now we’ve been staying at various serviceable but not very interesting hotels, so this was a nice change.

The rooms were small but functional, with many witty touches. It was also very modern—maybe a bit too modern—with app-controlled lights, shades, etc.

The common areas were great for lounging and working (if one so chose).

That evening we met up with our friends Sam and Jane, who came down from Maine to hang out with us. Things started off innocuously enough—dinner and drinks.

Then we went to a bar that one of their kids recommended (!), and things started to get a little fuzzy.

That bar closed at 11, so we went across the street to this place:

Not sure if it really was the greatest Boston bar, but we certainly had a good time. Turned out to be a late night. Let’s just say I don’t remember taking this photo:

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8/5 Day 9 – Freedom Trail, Boston Common

We managed to get it together by 11 for some brunch and a walk around town. The server at the brunch place asked if I was related to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. I should’ve said yes! 🤣

Made it to Boston Common, in front of the new MLK and Coretta Scott King Memorial called “The Embrace”. which has generated some controversy.

We ended up walking quite a bit more than planned, and by the afternoon we were feeling like this:

We bid adieu to Sam and Jane and returned to the hotel for a nap and a chill evening. There would be more walking the next day.

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8/6 Day 10 – JFK Presidential Library, South Boston

If you thought we were stopping at just one Presidential Library this trip, you were so wrong! It was time hit up the JFK Presidential Library—our 7th!

We then stumbled upon a Hemingway exhibit. I didn’t realize that the JFK Library was the foremost institution for Hemingway scholars.

But really, the star attraction was this exhibit:

We grabbed a snack at the JFK Cafe and decided to take the UMass Harbor Walk to South Boston.

Then up a hill to Dorchester Heights Monument.

We stopped for some libations at the Harpoon Brewery.

I hadn’t had a lobster roll yet and a friend had had a good experience at Yankee Lobster, which was nearby, so off we went.

It had been another full day, so we retired early to the hotel. Later on that night there was an unexpected fireworks show that we could see from our window. It was a nice way to cap off our last night in Boston.

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8/7 Day 11 – Museum of Fine Arts Boston

This was it, the last day! Our flight wasn’t until 6pm so we visited the Museum of Fine Arts.

Their Japanese art section was great.

They had some newer stuff too:

Don’t forget to exit through the gift shop:

Then it was time to say sayonara.

One final cup of chowda at the Legal Sea Foods at Logan airport closed out our epic 11-day journey! Peace out. 🙂✌️