Oh, To Be A Tourist In Your Own City!

Summer in the city—and city-adjacent! The spotted lanternflies are roaming and the inside of the subways are warming, but there is much for the intrepid student to take advantage of.

Junior Amanda Greenberg believes that taking advantage of New York’s public transportation is a useful way to enjoy the city. “In the city, you're a train or a bus away from pretty much anywhere you need to go,” she stated. This accessibility makes exploring much easier.

Furthermore, the city is filled with hidden resources. Take senior Lopen Zuo, who stumbled upon a New York City Public Library resource boldly named “Culture Pass,” which allows free access to over a hundred museums and art spaces in the city. “[The Culture Pass is] very underutilized,” Zuo said. Ever been to the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, anyone? Thanks to the pass, Zuo was able to visit museums like it during his many expeditions: “This summer, I've been to the New York Transit Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, the Intrepid Museum, and Historic Richmond Town, all at Culture Pass,” he listed.

Zuo noted the financial benefits of the pass: “Because Culture Pass is where you just let other people explore the site for free, I haven't even counted, but I've probably saved over $200 just from using it,” he explained.

The Culture Pass is also valuable since it pushes students out of their comfort zones; through it, Zou has been able to try activities he otherwise would not have discovered. “If we're bored, we'll just, like, scroll through the lists of everything that's available on Culture Pass and choose a random one to use it for. So, like, some random old white man’s home I've found since the 1830s that's still standing — I'm sure people have stopped by,” he said. In this way, yes, it pays to think outside of the box. 

Such diversity in activities is essential, especially since students often find that spending time with friends in the city involves buying food together—something that can become repetitive and costly. The real challenge, then, is changing how we view the limitations of what money can buy.

Senior Aditya Anand quickly found a way to do this: “Food is the main thing that anyone can think of when hanging out. But then we googled, we searched for [other activities],” he stated. “You could do escape rooms, you could bike together. There's more to hanging out than just food.” Furthermore, in a city as large and diverse as New York, students can find activities and experiences that fit their unique niches and interests. 

After all, everyone is fulfilled by different activities; what is old for some people can become completely new for others. For Greenberg, there’s much value in visiting popular New York City tourist attractions and discovering their hidden gems. “The thing that I did that I hadn't really done before was go to Central Park. I've been to Central Park before—like 80th Street I'd never gone above that and so [...] we went up,” she recalled.

“There was a castle by the 90s on the west side. We think on the west side. We did kind of get lost somewhere.” And sure enough, half of the fun was embracing that feeling: “There was a tourist that asked me where to go. And I was like, sure, we don't know where we're going either. And eventually they just gave up trying to follow us, and then we started following them when they asked someone else,” Greenberg described.

Students can also find unique activities located near Stuyvesant, such as spending time on the water. “At Pier 40, Stuy has a rowing club,” Anand shared. “Every Friday, you can go rowing and it's super fun. It's not only the summer, it's during the school year too, it just closes in the winter,” he explained.“You can go all the way to the Statue of Liberty, or to New Jersey, too.”

For Anand, the best thing about rowing is bringing a group along. “Each boat has like six people. So you can go rowing with your friends,” he said. Anand noted that it is sometimes a challenge to convince friends to try something so different and intimidating, but ultimately results in a fun and safe experience. 

Another form of transportation favored by Zuo, who is the Vice President of the Stuyvesant Transit and Urbanism Association, is Amtrak’s intercity train service, with offerings that can be more affordable than expected—all planning takes is a bit of research. “We are taking the train up to Montreal on Rosh Hashanah weekend,” he said. His reasoning? ”Montreal is cool and [the tickets] are only $140. And it's always great to visit a new city,” Zuo explained.

For students spending the summer in New York, this sort of transportation to and from the center of the city can make up the fabric of their summer experience and add more layers to options that initially seemed limited. For Greenberg, commuting across neighborhoods in Brooklyn has been a summer highlight. “I was just taking the buses, and I would sit on two different buses for a total of about an hour and a half, and I would go through at least seven different neighborhoods, all of which had a different feel, and it was also very exciting because each had their own slower pace,” she described.

Other Stuyvesant students have lived in various neighborhoods across (and even out of) the city, which can shape their summer in eventful and nostalgic ways—including junior Sasha Ruinsky, who sometimes lives in Long Island. “I had to go back to my old hobbies,” Ruinsky said. “Something that really stood out to me was when I opened my garage door: I found my old RipStik back from when I was, I think, nine or eight.” What’s a RipStik? “It's basically a skateboard with two wheels and you have to kind of shimmy on it and you have to constantly wiggle back and forth in order for it not to fall over because it only has two wheels,” she explained.

This is just one of the summer activities Ruinsky has discovered: living in Long Island—an environment in stark contrast with the city—has encouraged her to find creative ways to pass time.”It's lonely, and it's even harder during the summer because, you know, everyone paints the picture of playing with the neighborhood kids over the summer, but there's no one my age in, I think, my entire neighborhood. The one girl who was my age moved out,” she described.

Ruinsky remains flexible indeed. “I not only learned how to RipStik successfully down the block, but I also got on my old bike, and I went to a city two hours away. That's something that you can't get as much in the heart of New York if you have everything right downstairs. You're not as focused on getting out and going further away.” The further Ruinsky goes, the more friends she makes. “I'm slowly getting to know the locals, I think. And I got pretty close with this one couple at an antique shop before it closed over a couple months ago. So I think it's more personal than in New York City, like Manhattan,” she muses.

Wherever you are in the city, there will always be something new to discover—if you only know where to look and want to keep looking. So, go out and explore! Leave no rock unturned, and no friend who might want to join along uninvited.