I posted See New York City for Free in 2022 and See New York City for Cheap in 2024. In summer 2025, we spent 4 nights in Midtown. I will post general reflections about kids and New York here. Last week, l posted a short itinerary for our half-week in Manhattan with elementary-aged kids, as suggestions for other parents: NYC Family Summer Trip Itinerary
1. Assuming a middle-income family with 1-3 kids, when it comes to travel, I propose Do Less for Preschool. Save money by staying close to home when the kids are under the age of 6. I know people who do international trips with babies, usually because they are visiting family. I have not.
2. A mentor encouraged me to have kids early. One of my objections in 2014 was that I hadn’t traveled the world yet. Everyone I knew was posting selfies in Thailand. How could I have kids if I haven’t even posted from Thailand yet? He told me that you can travel with your kids when they are older. Now it’s 2025. Did that time go by fast? It’s a blur at this point. I remember the time when I read in a book that your kids will potty train themselves if you let them walk around with no diaper. When I tried that, my folks just went on the floor. That’s the stage of life when you might want to put unnecessary travel on hold.
3. Someone had told us that the NYC Subway is not safe and we should not take our kids on it. We used the Subway every day and it was fine. I saw one young man jump the turnstile. The elevator smelled bad. One night when I was checking routes, I noticed a warning on the map reading, “trains are delayed while we request NYPD for someone being disruptive on train…” So, people who rely on the Subway at all times might still have some complaints.
We enjoyed peace and safety in touristy areas between the hours of 8am and 9pm. Were we the beneficiaries of the crime decrease? I saw a bus ad celebrating the decrease in murders in NYC. Before I left Birmingham, Mayor Woodfin announce a big decrease in murders. The trend seems to be real.
4. The Observation Deck of the Empire State Building trip is almost more meta than the MOMA. You are inside the building looking at pictures of the outside of the building. You are posting pictures of yourself next to 50-year-old pictures of the outside of the building. People appear to go to the real thing in order to poast.
You can just do things, as they say, or at least you could in 1930.
Both kids voted that the Empire State Building was more “wow” than the MOMA. Maybe they like constructing more than deconstructing.
5. I vote the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) as more “wow” because the permanent installations include many famous pieces including Starry Night by Van Gogh.
I had booked a day at MOMA without knowing exactly what was inside. My kids got to see me going around saying things like, “Wow. They have a real Picasso!” Instead of acting as a docent through a world I’ve already explored, my kids get to discover a lot along with me. We discussed what counts as “art” and “how did that get on the wall of a museum?”
6. If you are going to Lower Manhattan to see the New York Stock Exchange and the World Trade Center, don’t miss a free tour of Trinity Church. (Hamilton’s tomb is in the churchyard.) It is an example of progress to see the cathedral dwarfed by the surrounding skyscrapers considering that: “With its 281-foot steeple, the third Trinity Church became the tallest building in the United States.”
Here at EWED, Jeremy has often pointed out that people are richer today than in the past. The maligned Boomers would have seen a shorter New York skyline as children. Many of the supertall glass structures you see today were built after 2001, meaning it’s Gen Z who gets to live with them. (I learned that on our harbor boat tour.)
7. The 7-year-old got Lion King and the M&M store in Times Square. The tour of the United Nations headquarters was for the older people. The 10yo and I learned a lot from an excellent tour guide.
The 7yo had to be carried. She did not understand why they were calling “an emergency meeting on Syria.” The next day I asked her what she remembered from touring the UN. She sincerely replied, “What United Nations?” If you are wondering if she remembers anything from the trip, the answer is yes. The Empire State Building and the Chrysler building, among many other things, are newly part of the family vocabulary.
After the UN tour, I took the family back across 1st Avenue to see the Isaiah Wall. Scaffolding blocked our view, which is not encouraging for the hope of peace. The idea is that: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
Imagine a child named Johnny trying to form a model of the universe from the journey I set up for my kids this summer. In New York, Johnny embarked on a cultural safari that began at the MoMA, where he stood wide-eyed before melted clocks and soup cans, absorbing the idea that the world might be an absurd, fragmented collage. Then came The Lion King as a dazzling counterpoint, suggesting that the world is imbued with cosmic purpose. Every giraffe, ghost-dad, and blade of savannah grass existed in service of a divine, eternal monarchy. Finally, at the United Nations, he was led past flags and translation booths, where no one bowed to anyone and the world’s contradictions were negotiated over coffee. By the end of the day, Johnny wondered: is meaning a myth, a fact taught by the Spirit, or a matter of committee?
I noticed that they serve Starbucks coffee in the basement of the UN and in the Empire State Building. As long as we can get coffee before and dinner after, no one seems to care if the message is coherent.
Economist Writing Every Day 