We can be helpful!

I have a friend from L.A. who is visiting New York for two days next week and is looking for things to do. Don’t ask me why on earth someone who’s never been to our fabulous city would only spend 48 hours here—guess he can’t bear to be away from Hollywood too long.

I thought since so many of you are New Yorkers (and there’s nothing they like better than giving their opinion), you might have some suggestions for him! Here are some of my thoughts:

Do: Take the Staten Island Ferry, which is free, so you can get a look at the Statue of Liberty. Do not: Stand on line and pay for the boat that goes out to Liberty Island so you can mill around with people from Kansas. (I’m saying “on line” because that’s what New Yorkers do.)

Do not: Wait on line for two hours to pay $18 to go to the top of the Empire State Building. Do: Look at the lights of the ESB from afar.

Do: Ride the subway—because it’s fun. Whee! Do: Take a taxi in Manhattan at least once. Makes you feel like you’re in a movie.

Do: Spend five minutes after dark in Times Square to gawk. Then get back on a train and go somewhere less touristy. Do not: Go to Olive Garden, Red Lobster, or Bubba Gump’s in Times Square.

Do: Stroll around the West Village and SoHo, the most beautiful and uniquely New York neighborhoods. Do not: Take the “Sex and the City” bus tour there.

Do, if you’re lazy but pressed for time: Take one of the double-decker bus tours so you can see more of the city. But it’ll cost you.

Do: Get delicious halal street food. Do not: Get a dry-as-hell pretzel or hot dog from street vendors. Do: Appreciate the smell of roasted nuts from street carts but do not: Buy them. They smell better than they taste.

Do not: Wear any combination of the following: white athletic shoes, college sweatshirt, cargo shorts, ball cap. I know it’s hard, Eric, but please, if you look like a tourist the locals will hate you.

Do: Walk around Chinatown (not just Canal Street, which is just where you buy knockoff handbags) and Little Italy and the Lower East Side. Look at the tenements and think about what it would have been like to have been an immigrant there 100 years ago. Or now, for that matter. Feel free to romanticize this gritty past, like I do.

Do: Go to Rockefeller Plaza, but not for long, as this is also tourist central. Get there early in the morning to watch the “Today” show taping and housewives from Virginia holding up signs to get Al Roker’s attention.

Do: Visit the site of the World Trade Center if you feel compelled to make it more real for yourself or pay your respects, etc. While you're down there, do: walk down Wall Street and past the New York Stock Exchange. Bizarrely grand building on very narrow street.

Do: Pay for overpriced drinks in Manhattan. If only because you can’t avoid it. Do not: Complain about it. That’s why we all live in Brooklyn.

Most of all: Do not: Stop in the middle of a sidewalk to look at a map. Do: Drift slowly to the side if you need to pause, so pushy pedestrians like myself do not barrel into you and cuss you out.

What do you guys think?