AFAR
  • 12 hours ago
We sent Afar senior social and video editor Tiana Attride on New York City’s most perilous quest: To spend 24 hours straight in the Theater District. Her mission? To find the best things to do in Times Square and prove that the busiest three acres in the United States can be fun—so long as you know where to look.

Locations visited:
📍Margon
📍The CIVILIAN Hotel
📍The Broadway Blue Room at Rosevale Cocktail Room
📍Valerie
📍Din Tai Fung
📍The Lion King at the Minskoff Theater
📍The Carnegie Club (Correction: Located on West 56th Street)
📍RPM Underground
📍The Museum of Broadway
📍Line Friends New York Times Square Store
📍The Drama Book Shop
📍Boqueria
📍Margaritaville Times Square


Get our full guide to New York City here: https://rebrand.ly/8ak6tjt

----
CONNECT WITH AFAR
Afar.com is a digital and print magazine that publishes travel tips, guides, news, and stories: https://www.afar.com

Get updates on the latest articles, travel news, and more from AFAR by signing up for the AFAR newsletter: https://afar.com/newsletters

Follow AFAR on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfarMedia
Follow AFAR on Twitter: https://twitter.com/afarmedia
Follow AFAR on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afarmedia
Follow AFAR on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/afarmedia
----
CREDITS

Claudia Cardia - Video Editor
Tiana Attride - AFAR Senior Editor, Social and Video
Elizabeth See - Designer
Sarika Bansal - Editorial Director
Michelle Heimerman - Photo Editor

MUSIC
“Have I Told You” Junior State/ Musicbed

FOOTAGE / PHOTOGRAPHY
Tiana Attride

Category

🏖
Travel
Transcript
00:00Hey guys, I'm Tiana Achai, Senior Editor of Social and Video at Apart, and I am here
00:08live, as you can see, in Times Square, center of the universe.
00:12Times Square may be some of the most controversial three acres on the planet.
00:16Tourists plan entire trips around it, many New Yorkers won't touch it with a ten-foot
00:19pole, but today we're on a mission to prove that Times Square can be fun and interesting
00:24and even elevated, so long as you know the right places to look.
00:28And we're going to spend 24 hours here to do it.
00:36Here are the rules.
00:371.
00:38The boundaries.
00:39Technically, Times Square is the five blocks between 42nd and 47th Streets from Broadway
00:44to 7th Avenue, but we're going to allow the theater district since those two often go
00:47hand in hand.
00:492.
00:50Our headquarters is the beautiful Civilian Hotel just five minutes from the center of
00:53it all, but besides a few hours of sleep, our goal is to spend the majority of our time
00:57exploring.
00:59And 3.
01:00There will be absolutely no pictures with the Times Square Elmo or any costume characters
01:04on our itinerary, nor should there be on yours.
01:09Before we get started, today's video is sponsored by the Broadway Collection.
01:13No visit to New York City is complete without seeing a Broadway show.
01:15From the groundbreaking Hamilton to timeless classics like The Lion King, there's a show
01:19for everyone.
01:21Get tickets through the official sellers at broadwaycollection.com, book ahead for an
01:24unforgettable experience, and make Broadway the highlight of your NYC adventure.
01:30And that's it.
01:3124 hours starts now.
01:35My partner and I arrived in Times Square just after 3pm, just in time for a late lunch.
01:40Since it wasn't quite time for check-in, we dropped off our bags at the hotel and headed
01:43for Margon, an almost 40-year-old, hole-in-the-wall Cuban restaurant known for its sandwiches.
01:50Since we were all fueled up, we took the first of many strolls through the center of
01:53Times Square.
01:54Since it was the end of October, there was a massive Diwali celebration happening in
01:58the middle of it all, which was a very New York moment.
02:01By 4 o'clock, it was officially time to check into our hotel.
02:04We stayed at The Civilian on West 48th and 8th Ave, and not just because it's close
02:08to the main drag.
02:09I'd heard from other afar staffers that this is a special place to stay if you love
02:13Broadway shows, and I have to agree after staying there.
02:16They've got these light, airy communal spaces that feel nice and secluded if you need a
02:20break from the chaos of the neighborhood, but the real highlights are the original
02:23set models and props from the last century of Broadway they've got inside their downstairs
02:27bar and restaurant.
02:29So cool.
02:30We went upstairs and dropped our bags in the room, and then it was off to our first stop
02:34of the night, Valerie.
02:35Now, if you love a cool cocktail bar or a great gin and tonic, as much as I do, you'll
02:40fit right in here.
02:41The main bar is such a statement piece, and it casts this golden glow over the entire
02:45room.
02:46There's also a restaurant in the back if you want to sit and stay a while.
02:49We kicked off our night with a gin cocktail, an espresso martini, and some people watching
02:53from the second-story bar.
02:55We would have hung out all evening, but we had a dinner reservation to make.
02:59Okay, the time is now quarter past six.
03:05We are on our way to Din Tai Fung.
03:08When Din Tai Fung first opened in New York, it was one of the city's most difficult
03:11to nab reservations.
03:13In fact, you still need to make a res bar in advance.
03:16This Taiwanese restaurant is extremely famous throughout Asia and is known for introducing
03:20soup dumplings or xiaolongbao to the United States.
03:23Naturally, we ordered pork xiaolongbao plus cucumber salad, spinach with garlic, spicy
03:27wontons, and shrimp fried rice.
03:29As we were wrapping up our meal, it was getting close to seven, so the time had come for the
03:33main event, The Lion King, on Broadway.
03:35As you can see, the evening crowds were really starting to pick up here, so we had to hustle
03:39to make the show on time.
03:40The Lion King has been running since November 1997, making it the third longest-running
03:45show in Broadway history.
03:46As a former theater kid myself, I was ashamed to say that I had never seen this show on
03:50stage before, so thank you to our friends at the Broadway Collection for helping to
03:54remedy that.
03:55Naturally, no photography was allowed during the show, so we'll see you after the curtains
03:59close.
04:00Again, I have to use a little microphone because it's so loud, but in the light of the billboards,
04:03we just came out of The Lion King and it was fabulous.
04:07The costumes actually made me tear up in the first 30 seconds.
04:11The night has only just begun.
04:13It is 10.30, I think, right now, so we're off for a night out.
04:18We ventured up to West 46th for this next one, technically putting us out of bounds,
04:22but it was unskippable.
04:23If you want to feel like you're in New York City in the most classic sense, hit the Carnegie
04:28Club during their Sinatra Saturdays.
04:30We sat sipping drinks, listening to a singer who sounded exactly like Frank Sinatra, and
04:35chatting with his fabulous wife, who was born in the Bronx, about whether the Yankees were
04:39going to make it to the World Series this year, which they did that very night.
04:43It really doesn't get more New York City than that.
04:47The time is now 1.15, and we're going to karaoke.
04:54Afterward, we figured, what's a late night out without some karaoke?
04:58We headed to RPM Underground, a bar and vinyl record shop on West 54th with private karaoke
05:03rooms for rent.
05:05We'll spare you the singing, lucky you, not only because we don't want you to hear that
05:09we're tone deaf, but also because we don't own the rights to these songs anyway.
05:12After one too many Oasis tracks, we decided to call it a night and headed through the
05:16silent streets of the Theater District back to our hotel.
05:20And now after almost two hours of karaoke, we've arrived at almost 3.30 in the morning,
05:25so we're about halfway through our 24 hours, and it's time to go to bed.
05:34The Theater District is best suited to night owls.
05:36They stay open late, and there's not much open before 9 in the morning, which in our
05:40sleep-deprived case was a great thing.
05:42Good morning.
05:43As you may be able to hear, the karaoke hit pretty hard last night, but we are on hour
05:5017 at this point, and we are off to get some very much-needed coffee.
05:56After a quick stop at Bibble and Sip on West 51st for coffee, we quickly packed up our
06:00hotel room so that we didn't miss our checkout time and then headed off to yet another must
06:04visit for theater lovers and one of my favorite stops, the Museum of Broadway.
06:08What may surprise you about the Museum of Broadway is that it is massive.
06:13The staircase to the top is designed to look like the backstage stairs in a theater with
06:17old photos lining the walls.
06:19The museum itself is a maze of memorabilia with the history of Broadway's most famous
06:23shows and talents, costumes and props from across the decades, and even a section on
06:27how a production comes to life.
06:29Noon came around, and I decided it was time to make a quick stop just for me.
06:33I cannot resist the allure of the line store.
06:36There are just too many cute Korean knickknacks to pass up on it.
06:39There's also a little photo booth in the back, so we popped in for a picture.
06:42One hour, two photo strips, and a $10 back purchase later, we were headed into the final
06:46leg of our adventure.
06:48After a bit of a stroll around, we headed to the Drama Bookshop, which, again, is technically
06:53just one block outside of the theater district but should not be missed out on if you're
06:56a theater fan or a history buff.
06:58This bookstore has been around for more than 100 years.
07:01It almost shut down in 2019, but Lin-Manuel Miranda himself saved it from closing.
07:05Inside, they've got everything from scripts to theater memorabilia and books on costumes,
07:10tech, Broadway history, and more.
07:12It was 1pm, and the time for lunch had come around yet again.
07:15I figured the last few hours would be the most difficult to get through, and I was right.
07:20Frankly, we were exhausted by this point, but luckily, I knew the cure.
07:25Boqueria is my go-to restaurant recommendation in the theater district, especially if you're
07:29catching a matinee.
07:31The tapas here are exactly what one needs after navigating chaotic crowds, whether for
07:35one hour or, in our case, almost 24.
07:38We admittedly went a little nuts.
07:40We had mushroom croquettes, patatas bravas, flatbread with caramelized onions and black
07:45garlic, and seafood paella to top it all off.
07:48I'm still thinking about all of it.
07:51That was our congratulatory meal, but our legendary final stop was still to come.
07:57What more fitting place to end a journey through Times Square than Margaritaville,
08:01which is so uncool, but ironically glorious at the same time.
08:05Sure, it was only 3pm, but as they say here, it was 5 o'clock somewhere.
08:09We slid up to the bar, put in our order, and with that final drink, our 24 hours was complete.
08:15Well, we're headed back to Brooklyn, but thank you guys so much for joining us on this quest.
08:20If there's anything else in Times Square or the theater district that we missed, let us
08:23know in the comments.
08:24Otherwise, don't forget to like and subscribe, and we'll catch you next time.