The Best NYC iPhone Apps

Since I’ll be visiting the Big Apple again this year, I’ve been scouring the web for iPhone apps that will help me. I am particularly interested in apps that list restaurants, have transit maps, contain transit map schedules, and list free attractions in the city. Oh, have I hit the jackpot this week. Here are best apps I’ve found so far.

Note: I have the iPhone so I am especially interested in iPhone apps– but realize that many of these app creators have made compatible apps on other phones, such as Android and Blackberry. Therefore, I link to the main app website where possible so you can check out the full app no matter what phone you use.

NYC Way
NYC Way is my new favorite app. Wow! The description says, “Get the app that is endorsed by the Mayor of New York City!” Yeah, no kidding. I could probably write a shorter review of what this app does NOT do…

Here’s a very brief breakdown of all the things this app has:

Locate restaurants by neighborhood, cuisine, GPS location, menus, and more.
Locate coffee shops the same way.
Find nearby Banks and ATMs.
View the list of nearby attractions.
View lists of free attractions.
Find restrooms.
Check out local deals and offers by stores.
Find museums, hotels, places kids like, and more!

What I like about the app is the ability to find things either by browsing or by viewing that’s nearby by GPS. This is definitely a must-have app. And it’s free!

HopStop

HopStop is a city transit directory. While i have many NYC transit directories on my phone, I always go back to HopStop. It’s so easy to use, it’s so versatile, and I can save my future trips so easily, too! Believe me, the last thing you want to do when you climb out of Penn Station is try to locate a subway station while masses of humanity swirl about you.

HopStop doesn’t just cover the subway– it will check the MTS bus schedules, taxi routes, bicycle trails, and pedestrian paths. It’s an excellent app. Again– free!

NYC Mate

The NYCMate shows all the subway routes in one easy map. I LOVE that I can pinch the screen to zoom in close on the map.

The app also has a NYC street map with icons showing stations for transit. While this app is not for scheduling routes like HopStop is, it’s great for viewing the subway routes and getting an idea of where you are.

MyBus

MyBus is kind of like HopStop for the city bus. Technically, the subway is the fastest way to travel Manhattan’s busy streets, but the bus is much more enjoyable because you see more of the city this way (albeit, through tinted windows). The bus and subway fare, according to this writing, remain the same charge so it’s not any cheaper to ride the subway. When I have a long way to travel, I take the subway. When I only need to travel a few blocks, I take the bus. This app helps you find the best bus to get to where you need to go!

iPhone Compass

The Compass app comes preloaded with the iPhone. I include it here because it can be very, very helpful when you need to find your way around the city. For example, your HopStop instruction may say, “Get out at Penn Station. Walk 1.2 blocks southwest.” Ummm…. where the heck is southwest?! It’s very easy to get discombobulated when you come up from a subway station– it’s like walking into a human tornado. Cars, buses, people, lights– all swirling around you! The compass helps you get an idea of where you are and where you need to go.

Onavo

Onavo isn’t a travel app, not exactly. It’s a wireless-bill saving app. Onavo compresses wireless data, saving you bucks on your wireless plan. When visiting New York City, you will no doubt be using up a lot of data just to get around. Onavo helps condense the data and thus the bill. I have been using Onavo for about a year now, and I never go over my data plan anymore. I think it works great.

Thus completes my “best of the best” New York City apps. I have loved these apps and they work well for me. What apps have you found useful for travel? Please share!

Blenheim-Gilboa Hydroelectric Station Visitor’s Center

The Blenheim-Gilboa Hydroelectric Power Station is a scenic half hour drive south from the small city of Cobleskill, New York, in Schoharie County. The area is absolutely beautiful, and the power station and visitor’s center are well nestled in the rural setting. The visitor’s center is in a remodeled 19th century dairy barn (red!) on a small hill, between Brown Mountain and Schoharie Creek. It overlooks the hydroelectric power station.

The visitor’s center is very modern inside, with dozens of hands-on displays for curious schoolchildren and adults. We perused the labyrinth of hallways, stopping to flip switches, push buttons and learn about hydroelectricity. Read more

Trinity Church, New York, NY: Part 1

If walls could talk. Located in lower Manhattan near “Ground Zero” from September 11, 2001, Trinity Church has seen a lot of action.

Built in 1698 when Manhattan Island was still a rural countryside just beginning to burgeon into a small town, Trinity Church received its charter from King William III of England in 1697.

Trinity rented the land upon which it was built, in a contract supposedly from the descendants of a Dutch widow who had removed to Albany in Upstate New York after the death of her husband. The land has a history of contention. I own an old newspaper clipping from 1935 in which litigants sued Trinity Church for ownership of the land. According to what I have read (and there seem to be many versions out there, depending on who you ask!), the plot of farm land originally belonged to Anneke Jans, a wealthy widow who had emigrated to Manhattan Island from the Netherlands. When she died, she bequeathed the property to her children and grandchildren, who leased the land to Trinity. After a few centuries and numerous owners, Trinity Church considered the land theirs. Jans’ descendants sued Trinity several times over the years to acquire the rights to their property. Every time, New York courts sided with Trinity Church. I think the final lawsuit was the suit in that 1935 newspaper clipping. Imagine if the litigants had won– the land is worth millions!

Anyway, the first Trinity Church was a small, barn-shaped building. Legend has it that infamous pirate and church member Captain Billy Kidd loaned the builders his equipment to build the church. The building burned during the American Revolution, when fire raged through New York City.

After the war, a second church was built. President George Washington attended the inauguration service at nearby St. Paul’s Chapel (post and photos coming soon!) while the building was under construction. Unfortunately, the building was razed in 1839 when it became damaged by heavy snow. The current building — the third Trinity Church built here — was completed in 1846. At the time, Trinity was the highest point in New York. Today, the building is far overshadowed by the massive cityscape.

The church is a wonder. It’s open to visitors, but is still an active church with services held regularly. The grounds are lovely. People snacked on their midday meals under canopies or enormous trees. Many others, including us, perused the graveyard in search of familiar names.

We paid our respects to our beloved Alexander Hamilton and wife Eliza.

Hercules Mulligan was buried here. He was a spy during the American Revolution, a true hero. Read more

A Visit to the Empire State Building

While in Manhattan a few weeks ago, I made a visit to the Empire State Building. I plunked down the $20 to get up to the 86th floor Observation Deck. It’s a self-guided tour, but multitudes of jacketed escorts direct the lines of people (and lines and lines and lines of them) through corridors and up elevators.

The Empire State Building was constructed (completed) in 1931. It was the tallest building in the world, until the World Trade Center was built in 1972. It’s designed in the glamorous Art Deco style.

I was surprised at the crowds in the building. It was Wednesday morning, and yet there were hundreds of people waiting to get up to the Observation Deck. Most of the time was spent waiting in line to get up there.

Midway through the journey of walking down long hallways and taking elevators up, we had to have our bags scanned through an x-ray machine and we had to pass through a metal detector. It was chaotic. I haven’t been to an airline since 9/11, but the experience must be as or more confusing and noisy. Yuk.

A large family ahead of me caused a small ruckus with the guards. Read more

Trip To New York City: On the Train

I pulled away from the plaster dust from our home renovation, and took a short business trip to Manhattan. I hadn’t been to the city in 22 years, since I was a young drama student in the 1980s. And New York is just as fabulous and exciting as it was then. This is the first essay in my short series Trip to New York City. It was my first time taking the train (Amtrak, from Union Station in Utica), too. A marvelous experience! I can’t wait to do it again. This is my travelogue written while on the journey…

Going to the Big City

Travel by train is, generally, pleasant. The speed is moderate, the rails bumpy in a jostling, cradle-like motion, the scenery very rural (at least on the Northeast corridor). Cell phone service is spotty and I found no wireless capability at all. These ingredients make for an unusually contemplative and sleepy experience which is strange and foreign to our interconnected and frenzied modern lifestyle. I miss my Internet connection; but then again, I do not miss it. I’m happy soaking in the environment and spending the next four hours in quiet solitude. I suddenly realize that I forgot to pack my book, and I do sorely miss that.

The train I’m on must have been constructed in the 1980s or thereabouts. It’s pleasant, but slightly older, like a favorite old coat that is just starting to look a little outdated and worn from much use. I’m pleased to see tiny buttons above my head that activate small reading lights. I’m traveling in the daytime and most likely will not need lights, but it’s comforting to know they are there if I want them. An electrical outlet is nestled on a strip below the window, and again a bubble of gratitude rises up: I can power up my small netbook, if I desire.

Railroads are usually built just outside the town or city limits, situated between a thick corridor of trees to shield residents from the clatter and appearance of train traffic. The scenery outside the windows is usually desolate; running alongside the rails are numerous swamps and other algae-laden river depositories, and rusty iron rail yards, and cornfield-rimmed highways, and the occasional decrepit farmhouse sitting forlornly on a hill. In the zenith of summer, the scenery is one of constant green.

Yet every once in a while, the dense populations of trees open up to reveal an impressive Gothic or Greek Revival mansion, perched on a rocky pedestal. The house looks like a yellow-frosted cake on a hilly green dais, bedecked with sugary ornaments of white or pink architectural icing. Upstate New York experienced massive growth in the 1830s to the 1850s, and the multitudes of glorious Greek Revival farmhouses testify to its prosperity. Unfortunately, New York’s heyday has come and gone; and as if in chorus, the graying Greek Revivals of the cornfields reflect the decay. Still on occasion, a restored old grand dame rises up from New York’s green and rocky peaks. That, in its stubborn resistance to defeat, is testament of the endurance and perseverance of Upstate New Yorkers amongst a climate of high taxation and government meddling.

My route leads me eastward toward New York’s capital city. This route runs alongside the mighty Mohawk River (of Drums Along the Mohawk fame). Upstate has experienced a deluge of rain so far this summer (7 inches for the month of June 2010), so the Mohawk has raised its muddy head, and laps ominously close at the edges of its banks. I did notice on the news (before abandoning my precious Internet capability back home) a flood watch in effect for today.

The vista suddenly opens up as we enter the city of Schenectady, New York. There is nothing terribly notable about Schenectady for non-New Yorkers, other than the curious pronunciation (Sken-NECK-tah-dee) and its proximity to Albany. Still, the scenery has finally changed from leafy walls of green to scrubbed brick buildings and industrial ruins. Now that we have re-entered civilization, cells phones start buzzing and children’s voices rise with questions. Only twenty-odd people fill my train car, but within sit some of the noisiest twenty-odd people with whom I’ve ever traveled.

A group of young families in the back talk very loudly, laughing and discussing the glories of the latest music and improved technology of Huggies versus Pampers. A young Chinese traveler, situated in the seat before me, sniffles and coughs loudly with an aggravatingly dry, constant cough. His elderly father, who I assume he escorts, sits very quietly beside him. Perhaps the young man is taking his father to see relatives in New York City. How sweet of him. The young man is meticulously watchful of the older; when we boarded the train and I somehow managed to come between them in the line, the young man was constantly looking back to the older. And when the train lurched to a brief stop to pick up passengers, the older man tottered to the restrooms; all the while, the younger looked back, waiting for his elder’s return.

Across the aisle from me, an older woman sits quietly. Her hand is always over her mouth or under her chin. She spends much time looking out her window; sometimes her eyelids droop closed. A loud clatter from the train’s wheels, or a shout from the two loudly bickering children in the back, cause her eyes to pop open again. Her face is extremely wrinkled, giving her the appearance of being much older than she probably is. She wears the uniform of a busy, upper-middle income woman: a dressy, purple sweatshirt with a white polo shirt collar, sweatpants, crisp white sneakers, and a Macy’s shopping bag. Our eyes meet briefly. I smile; she turns away. She’s going to her sister’s in New York City, who is ill and needs a nursemaid (I heard her confide such to the conductor as he punched our tickets). She must have a lot on her mind. (Later, she asks me to escort her out of the train into Penn Station, because she tells me: “You look like you know where you are going.”)

We stop in Albany. I know it is Albany because we have crossed over the behemoth—a wide-mouthed, very deep, and agate blue river. It’s the Hudson. We say our goodbyes to the brown and tempestuous Mohawk, and turn our attentions to its sparkly and livelier sister, Henry Hudson’s namesake. I settle in for some good sight-seeing, as I am unfamiliar with this more prosperous portion of the state.

…to be continued…

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