Today we are going to Central Park. I’m going to take you through pretty much the start of Central Park all the way up to have lunch at my favorite restaurant in the Upper West Side. It is one of my favorite restaurants in New York City as well. It’s called Tavern on the Green. They have the best burger in the city in my opinion, and I’ve still not found a better one. So, let’s go and explore!
It’s about a week left until we are leaving New York City, but not permanently. We will be back here either at the end of this year or early next year, depending on the rent market in New York City. Usually, rent is a lot cheaper during the winter time because nobody wants to move during the snow.
I am very excited to see what apartment we end up with, but we’re not going to know until probably a lot closer to that date because in New York City, you don’t really know the apartment you’re going to get until three weeks before.
The best burger in NYC, truffle fries, and the famous birthday cake.Unless you’re going to move into a luxury building, you can kind of see what’s going to open up further in advance. But for the most part, once a listing goes up and it’s a good rate, they’re gone in pretty much two days. So, you got to kind of be on top of it, have all your documents ready, make sure you qualify, and so forth.
The Reality of NYC Real Estate
One thing about New York City that I learned once I moved here is you have to make 40 times the rent to qualify for this apartment or any apartment in Manhattan for the most part. I don’t understand how some people can do that. That’s why we started out with a studio because as a joint income that it’s the most reasonable way to qualify for an apartment. They’re a little bit more lenient because we’re in a building. Instead of having a landlord, we have an actual building owner, so the qualifications are a little bit different. But I would say 85% of apartments in New York City, it’s going to be you got to make 40 times the rent or your guarantor has to make 80 times the rent. So you can also pay a guarantor company to help you qualify for an apartment in New York.
Navigating the high-stakes world of NYC luxury apartment hunting.We are off to the train. It should be here in about one minute as we are taking the C train. We have about two more stops. Actually, no, we’re going to get off at 59th Street. The train is actually not very crowded today, which it sounds like it’s crowded because it is loud all the time in the train, but for the most part, it’s actually not too busy today. And we are off at 59th Street.
Columbus Circle and The Walk Up
So, Columbus Circle, that is going to be that mall I talked about when I was at the Hudson Yards the other day. This is the other mall, but we’re not going to go inside that mall today. That’ll save that for another video. But that is the other mall that a lot of people go to in New York City. It’s going to be smaller, but it still has a lot of luxury stores to it, but it’s right next to Central Park. We are out of the subway now and walking to Central Park. It is so bright. There’s always a lot of food carts in New York City and a lot of halal hot dogs. I have been here three years and I’ve never tried any of them because street food is just not for me. Only in Japan.
That globe right there kind of reminds me of Universal Studios. So that building up there, that tall building at the very top, that’s actually a residential building is now the tallest building in New York City, I think in the US as well. I have never been inside it and don’t know anyone that lives in there, but it’s pretty cool. I don’t think I could live in there because it’s too high up for me. And over there is going to be the Columbus Circle Mall. So, they have five different stories, but it’s very condensed. It’s going to be kind of like half a mall. It’s nice to walk around and they have really good food places.
This place called Bad Roman that has mixed reviews from what I’ve heard, but it’s very hard to get a reservation. But you can actually walk in and just wait maybe 35 to 45 minutes to get a table if you go there at like 5:00. There’s actually very good food and the staff was nice. So I do recommend it if you have a chance to go eat there as it is worth the hype.
It’s bright out, so we’re going to put the shades back on for now. So, this is going to be the front of Central Park when you first enter on that 59th Street Columbus Circle. This is going to be the entrance here. And you have that statue up top. There’d be no New York without a Mr. Frosty. I have been a Mr. Frosty; it is overpriced ice cream, but it is good, especially when it’s hot out. You can always get driven around Central Park if you want. They have those all around the front of Central Park.
And here is going to be the front of this statue. It’s nice and has a cute little water fountain. It kind of gives you that “I’m in Rome” energy, besides the music you can hear behind me. Here’s another part of the statue here. I actually haven’t paid that much detail to this until just now.
The gateway to nature: The Columbus Circle entrance and monument.I walk past it all the time because I come to Central Park a lot to walk. And now we’re off to the nature. A lot of people do yoga here, have book clubs, read, or lay out. It’s not really a layout kind of day, but a picnic would be nice, but we are going to Tavern on the Green. No picnic today, and you’re going to see why Tavern on the Green is really that great.
It’s actually a really peaceful day in Central Park right now as there’s not a lot of people. You can always get a Citi Bike and ride it around this area. Most of Central Park you can’t drive, and they have these areas where you can get driven around by one of these guys here or you can have a scooter or you can have a bicycle. So, it’s just a nice safe way to get your exercise in. You can go for a run, and a lot of people run little half marathons to themselves or with their friends. I know the New York Marathon goes through here. I’m not a runner; I’m a pace walker.
The Destination: Tavern on the Green
So, we’re actually going to go to Tavern on the Green now because it’s closer than the lake area in Central Park. So, we’re going to stop there, have lunch, then I’ll take you around the rest of Central Park. Not all the way to the top because we’re not going to Harlem today, but we’re going to go maybe to the midway point. They have a really beautiful lake, a lot of geese, ducks, and just a lot of wildlife. It is very relaxing. Um, so we’re going to go to Tavern on the Green now and show you a little bit on the way.
I feel like it would be really cool to actually ride your bike here, maybe in the fall. It’s way too hot in the summer and way too cold in the winter. I feel like maybe October to December is the perfect time to kind of ride your bike here or the spring. But the spring this year was actually really cold. It went straight from really cold to extremely hot, and there was no in between this year. We have a baseball field over here. If you have not known by now, summer in New York is my least favorite season. I’ll keep saying it’s hot. It is hot. And I’m dressed not appropriately for this weather because we’re eating at Tavern on the Green and half my clothes are packed. 80% of my clothes are packed. So, we are here in a long sleeve, very light shirt, but still very hot. But the fall and the winter in New York are spectacular. And the spring is great when there’s a real spring in New York.
And now there is Tavern on the Green. That is the front of Tavern on the Green, but I like going through the side entrance. Maybe this is the side entrance and I’ve been going through the front, but I’m vice versa. One of them is the front entrance, one of them is the side entrance. That is Tavern to Go. So, if you want to get your food to go, that is probably why I went the correct direction the other times. This kind of looks like the front, but if you want to get any of the food to go, you can come up here and just order it, I assume, and get a takeout. The food’s so good. I don’t really recommend getting takeout just because it’s not going to be as good. But yeah, I think you can probably get take out and maybe eat it in Central Park.
Arriving at the iconic Tavern on the Green.We’ve made it. We’re here. We have arrived at Tavern on the Green. They have the best burger in New York City and have really good salads as well. And also my favorite birthday cake slice. It’s not my birthday today, but we’re still going to ask for it because it’s that good. I got to show you guys why it’s so good. I mean, it’s the flavor. You can’t really explain it; the birthday cake is going to look like a birthday cake, but it is spectacular.
Arriving at the iconic Tavern on the Green.It’s a lot cooler in here. So, when you first come in here, there’s going to be a lobby area where you’re going to wait to be seated. Usually, it’s not too crowded when you have two people or maybe even four people, but I know bigger families have to wait a little bit. But, it doesn’t look too crowded today. I believe at night they have a piano player for dinner. This is going to be the bar area over here with those cute horses with wings and a nice fireplace. And then they have an open kitchen concept, so you can actually watch everyone cook, which is really neat. Here’s some of the seating area and then a full open glass view which is super pretty.
The Menu and The Meal
We are here and we have a lunch menu. I already know what I want. I’m getting a burger and a salad. But I’ll show you the options. And they change their menu not too frequently, but there are certain options that they kind of switch out, especially for dinner. The watermelon salad sounds good, just a little small. The beets are incredible. If you like beets, I’m actually a very big beet salad person. Wasn’t my whole life, but if you catch on to the trend, I promise you, you might actually like it. It’s not like eating raw or regular beets at home. Most restaurants do a pretty good job at it. They have a whole raw bar selection. It’s not really my thing, but to each their own.
And that’s the burger. That sounds very basic, but I promise you it is not. The blend of the burger is incredible. Their cheese is incredible. And I always switch out the fries for truffle fries. The Salmon burger I’ve had before is also very good. But we’re going to get that Cobb salad there with no tomatoes. Tomatoes on the side because I don’t do tomatoes. They have mocktails that sound good. Non-alcoholic prosecco. That sounds interesting.
So, this is going to be the Cobb salad. They actually give you deviled eggs instead of hard-boiled eggs, which is a really nice touch. I don’t always love hardboiled eggs just because the yolk is too hard for me. So, this is kind of like a nice little touch that they do. Avocado is included. You always get the blue cheese on the side because Danielle doesn’t like blue cheese. It’s a very acquired taste, so I understand.
Now, this is going to be the burger with the truffle fries. It really is the best burger. I know it looks basic, but I promise you it’s not. It’s so good and I’m very excited. My god, so juicy. And the cheese, I don’t know what type of American cheese they use, but it’s the best American cheese I’ve ever had. 11 out of 10.
The fries are okay, though. It’s a little cold. 7 out of 10. Usually the better because sometimes when you come here the waiter will ask you if you want to substitute the cheese. Don’t do it. It’s not extra. Switching the cheese for like a white American or white cheddar, it’s not worth it. It takes away from the whole entire burger. You have to get the American traditional cheese that comes with it. Don’t change anything on it. Get it medium. Get medium rare. But it is really that good. I promise you. If you don’t like it, let me know. We can have a debate about it.
So, lucky for us, we are celebrating Danielle’s birthday. Didn’t want to say anything earlier, but her birthday was three weeks ago. Um, and so that way we’re celebrating a little bit late. So, this is actually the birthday cake. You can actually order it on the regular menu. I think this is a smaller portion of it, but it is really that good. So, you can order a regular one, but if it is your birthday and you have a little bit late of a birthday and you want to celebrate, this is what they bring out to you. But either way, I highly recommend ordering that. It is so good. And if you love sprinkles, because I’m a sucker for sprinkles, it is the best cake.
I was just explaining how full I was and complaining I didn’t want to eat any sweets, but it was worth it. And I did promise I was going to eat this and we had to celebrate Danielle’s birthday. So, it was worth a little birthday. Shout out to Tavern on the Green. That was very sweet. Only bad thing was the fries. I rate it now down to a six because everything else was a 10.
Now that we finished eating, I want to come back over to the kitchen. So that’s the open kitchen area there. Have a full wood oven or full oven. You see this whole open concept kitchen. This is so cool. So they’re also going to have an outdoor area where you can eat as well. No one’s out here really because it’s a little hot and rainy at the moment. Not like pouring rain, but sprinkling. But this is what it looks like. You actually come here at night, there’s a bunch of lights that get turned on.
The Gift Shop Findings
So, I’m going to take you guys to the store. So, they sell all these little antiques here. Have like a crocheted hot dog and a mug. I actually own this mug here from the first time I was here. They have a cute ornament and I’ve actually never seen the ornament before. Have some cologne. But let’s go ahead and go into the store. So if you are leaving the restaurant here, it’s going to be this gift shop here. It’s very tight in here. Got these bookmarks, some books there, and playing cards. It’s actually really cool. I don’t know what the cards look like, but the box is cool. Some watercolor stuff and a vintage puzzle. These cute little chocolate things, little chocolate eggs. Let’s see. They have this little mouse thing where you kind of put your mouse to sleep. That’s really cute.
And the lamb. Why have I never seen this lamb before? The lamb is actually made from alpaca fur. That is so cute. Let’s have this horse lamp. Okay. Oh, I wish you had it. That’s really cool. You know why? Because I have tons of New York homes at home because I’m from New York. And that is all for Tavern on the Green. And now we’re going to head back out to Central Park.
Cute finds in the gift shop: An alpaca fur lamb.Exploring the Deeper Park
I don’t know if you can see, but it’s lightly raining right now. I don’t know why, as it didn’t say it was going to rain today. It’s one of my least favorite things when I lived in Florida. It’s every single day you’d look at the weather and said, “Oh, 40% chance of rain and 80% chance of rain.” And I later on found out that it doesn’t mean it’s a 40% chance of rain. It means 40% of the area of that specific area is going to rain. So you never know which cloud is going to go over where you’re at.
Here’s the Central Park map. So this is going to be everything in the Harlem area here. I’ve not passed the pool. It’s not an actual pool, so don’t go swimming in it. Um, but we’re going to go to this lake. This is how big to give you perspective Central Park is; it goes all the way up to 110th Street and it starts at 60th. You have a better view of that building there that I’ll never live in because it’s too expensive and because I will never live that high up. And we’re almost to the lake now. A lot of people are taking advantage of those bicycle people driving the cart around.
So, a fun fact, there’s going to be a bunch of these light posts around Central Park. So, if you get lost, they have these numbers on it. This one says 7233. I think it means a specific location that you’re at, so you can actually find your way back to where you need to go, like back in the day, before iPhones and everything. But, they have these labeled on so you can know exactly what part of Central Park you’re at, which is pretty cool. Over here is going to be the lake. In the summertime, a lot of people like to take the little rowboats out, which is really pretty and romantic. I don’t see any out right now. I wonder why, as it is summer. Maybe because it’s a weekday. They have these wooden arches to kind of cover you, not really cover you because you’re still going to get poured on, but does take the sunlight off you and provide a little bit of shade while you’re walking around. It’s also just like a cool little art piece that fits the vibe of Central Park made out of wood. So yeah, if you see this pole here, this one’s going to have a different number. It’s going to be 7237.
The Turtle Phenomenon
Heading down to the lake here, we’re going to have some seating area over here where you can just sit down and watch the boats go by if people are on them right now. You see the turtle? And we have some turtles. Oh, look at them. I will try to zoom in so you can see the turtles. You can only see his head, but there’s a bunch of them. It’s really cute. There are three right here. Three turtles just swimming around. They are pretty big. I think these are an invasive species. I don’t think they’re supposed to be here. I’m pretty sure they’re red ear sliders and that means that they’re an invasive species. So, I think they kill the natural wildlife because they don’t have a predator. So they overeat, which hurts other animals, but they’re really cute.
Spotted: A swarm of hungry turtles in the lake.There’s a lot of them. I would say there’s probably 10 turtles just in this one spot. So I can’t imagine how many are actually in this whole lake area over here. So you can see they’re hungry, but I don’t have food for them. But there I counted about 17 turtles over here looking for food. I’m assuming a lot of people who come over here just feed them whatever they feel like it. So they’re just ready to eat whatever I have. And unfortunately, I don’t have anything. Maybe next time, buddy. I’ll bring you some Tavern on the Green meat.
So, this is the lake. There’s other views you can go by, like standing on this bridge all the way down there, but it all connects. And I believe you should be able to row like a little boat. They have other things you can ride out there, but not today apparently. So, I’ve been to that spot a million times and I’ve never seen that many turtles before. So, I don’t know where they came from. Maybe someone just fed them and they just swarmed over. But, that is now the spot to find turtles. At least for right now. So, if you want to find turtles, go to the light post. That’s 7237, I believe. The one I showed earlier in this video.
The Ramble and The Castle
This is one of my dream buildings I would love to live in. You can see it from pretty much any area in Central Park on the west side. It’s so notable. Even though I checked the Yelp reviews and the building doesn’t have the best reviews for some reason, but I don’t know if it’s because people pay a lot of money to live there and they have high expectations. But I wouldn’t be complaining if I live there. I’d love to live there. Walking closer, there’s like a rock platform that you can actually walk out to and sit out there.
So, now we’re going to go over to the Ramble area, which is where a lot of people hike. They just walk around. It’s going to be a lot more scenic for nature specifically. They have a castle up there. Don’t know if we’re going to make it up there this trip. So, the reason why I haven’t seen that many turtles before is because they usually come here in the fall and the winter. They actually burrow themselves and they’re not really out to the public. So, because I’m here in the summertime, I usually leave New York in the summer, so I’m not here to avoid the heat. So, that is the reason why there’s so many turtles. So, the more you know. We got a celebrity over here. Oh, you’re so cute. Mango.
So, this is the start to the ramble over here to the right. But this is how you’d get there is it starts at this bridge over here. So, if you want to find your way here, this is 7725 to get to the ramble. And then you’re going to make a right to this bridge over here. Now, this bridge is not normally this empty, and for some reason, it’s empty today. But there’s definitely people who row boats here because I have been to this area and it all connects. Just for whatever reason, no one is rowing their boats today. Look at the view here. You really can’t beat seeing New York City from Central Park. I highly recommend not going to the Ramble in this outfit because I’m wearing business casual, but you know, we got to make the trip. We got to be here. We’re already up here. It’s the last day of Central Park, so we are going to explore and show you around.
Here’s the Ramble sign. Dogs must be on a leash. Can’t say that happens all the time because I see a lot of people without their dogs on the leash. It’s definitely more shaded over here. It’s a nice squirrel. You always hear birds flying around here. Pretty much the more stairs you see here means you’re going to somewhere cooler. And not cooler as in you’re going to find AC, but cooler as in you’re going to find more trees, more animals. We’re going to go across this little rock formation bridge. You can actually go through it. So, there’s a little tunnel you can go through, which is another direction to take you. Still up the ramble. Just another area. Look at all these trees. Where else can you get the photosynthesis of trees and fresh air? Nowhere in New York City, I’ll tell you that. This is the spot for you. Otherwise, you’re smelling not necessarily everything bad, but it’s not going to be as fresh as out here.
Getting lost in nature in the Ramble.So, I’m going to take you guys to the Belvedere Castle, which they also have Shakespeare in the Park over there. And that is where the actual turtle pond is that I know of. But there’s turtles in both bodies of water. I don’t see a lot of squirrels today. I’ve only seen two. Fact that I’ve seen more turtles today than squirrels is a shocker.
We’ve made it here. Belvedere Castle. I don’t think there’s any relation to the Belvedere brand. But that is what it’s called. There’s a little seating area covering again. What structure? I think I’ve burned that whole burger off in calories from this walk and sweat just to get here. Again, you’ll find another map. But here’s the castle. So, when you’re walking around Central Park and you go more north, you’ll find this castle, but you can look it up on Google Maps or Apple Maps and you’ll find it. It’s very small, but it was built in 1872.
The historic Belvedere Castle overlooking the park.You can see it was restored officially in 2019. So, it is very old, but you can walk up there, get other nice views. And then over there is going to be the Shakespeare in the Park right over there. They have a little gift shop.
The historic Belvedere Castle overlooking the park.So, this over here is actually going to be the Turtle Pond area. Can’t really see any from up here because it’s so far up. We finally found some birdies. I did not see birds earlier. I’m going to try to get a little closer. They do not want me to get closer, which is understandable. I am a scary human. Finally, another squirrel. Looks more friendly, too. If you haven’t noticed by now, I just love all animals except snakes. I don’t like snakes.
All right, I’m headed out of here because it is way too hot for me to be out here in these clothes. But thank you for joining me today. Please hit that like and subscribe button below. Thank you for tuning in on this journey through Central Park and Tavern on the Green and my last week here in New York City until the end or next year. I hope you guys have a great rest of your day and talk to you soon.