Full disclosure: I’m typing this from a Super8 motel next to a highway having just made packet noodles using a combination of a bathroom sink and the most disgusting communal microwave I’ve ever seen.

That might help put these photos in context! We don’t often stay in fancy places.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Andrew and I drove up to NYC to meet my father and stepmother for a week in the city followed by a short road trip to Boston. We met them at JFK airport, left our car in a super dodgy parking lot and got a taxi into Manhattan.

My dad booked the New York Athletic Club for four nights. The NYAC is a members only social and sports club founded in 1868. The club has two locations, one at Travers Island in Westchester County and the Manhattan City House right on Central Park. Dad is a member at a club in Australia that has reciprocal rights at the NYAC, which is how we were able to stay there.

The two things I loved most about the club were its location; if you were to spit out the window it would land right in Central Park (gross but true) and this view:

Looking towards the Upper West Side. I am in love.

From wiki: ‘the 24-floor facility includes two restaurants, a cocktail lounge, library, ballroom, billiard room, meeting rooms, rooftop solarium(?!) and eight floors of guest rooms for members and club guests. The athletic training floors include a swimming pool, basketball courts, boxing rings, a fencing and wrestling room, judo floor, and squash courts.’

Here are some snaps from inside:

The lobby

Robyn & Phil, my stepmother and father

The lobby again

The NYAC has a dress code, you can’t wear jeans or tshirts or flip flops. Pretty much all of the stuff we had been wearing for 6 months straight through South and Central America!

If you want to wear that stuff and leave the building you have to use the ‘athletics entrance’ through the back. If you want to leave your room to go down to the gym in your ‘active wear’ you have to take the athletics elevator!

The members dining room

The view towards Times Square from one of the ballroom balconies

The club has an impressive hall of fame.

Thanks dad for chopping off our feet!

But again, the best thing was waking up to this view:

And having a coffee on the window ledge

And being able to stroll across the street and be here:

I’ve been to NYC in winter and summer, but I think spring is my new favourite:

The weather was spectacular. It was like a switch had flicked from winter to spring a few days before we arrived and all New Yorkers were outside basking in the sun. And telling us how lucky we were!

❤

I love Central Park

The subway sign in front of the Natural History Museum, right across from the park

Pink sunset

On the floor at the entrance to the club

Looking towards the club from Central Park

We had an incredible stay at the NYAC. Thanks!

We did so many incredible things over our week in NYC, I’m not really sure how to curate it all into blog posts?! But I’ll try. I love New York.