Our first time to New York City was a success! Complete exhaustion set in the moment we got home...I can't believe we did and saw everything we wanted too in two short days. The Big Apple was good to us and left our heads reeling, the only disappointment was the weather,....just a bit chilly. There are 1705 rooms in our hotel,...WOW. Located in the Garment district of Manhattan, Macys, Maddison Square Garden, Penn Station and the Empire State Building are all right out the door so location wise it was perfect. The first thing we did after checking into our gigantic hotel was go to the observatory in the Empire State Building. Being New York City virgins the sensory overload was immediate. I am glad we choose to check out the view from 84 floors up to get our sense of direction back. You can really see everything from up there it is amazing as is the wind chill!! BRRRR. Being the adventurous soles that we are, after splurging on our first slice of New York style Pizza we headed to the Subway...YUP, we did! Getting on at Penn Station and riding it all the way to the Staten Island Ferry.
We missed the last ferry to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty but enjoyed the view from Battery Park where we could let Joaquin run around a bit. As I stated it was a bit chilly so we decided since we were at the tip of Manhattan to turn around and walk a bit back toward some other sites. The New York Stock Exchange near which people were lining up to take there picture with thier head next to a bull's booty ( See the scene from Hitch). The Brooklyn Bridge and City Hall then there was Ground Zero which in all honestly just happened to be on our way. They are currently building a large memorial and museum at the site so there wasn't much to look at except steal beams and construction cranes. Then we hit the good stuff, SoHo and Greenwich Village where we stopped for dinner. 
The homes in the West Village are are straight out of a romantic comedy as are the cafes and bistros that pop up in almost every block. Trendy restaurants, bars and clubs abound in this area and it was clean! After dinner at one of the super cute corner cafes we jumped back on the subway to the hotel. Side note on the subway...It is NOT stroller friendly and the elevators apparently double as urinals???!! It wasn't all terrible in the subway, it is quick and cheap and otherwise completely the way to go IF you don't have a stroller. Looking back I can not believe we did this all the first day especially because we didn't drive in until noon and I am 6+ months pregnant. We went back to our hotel, put the game on and all but passed out.
What a day!
