2025.01 Weekend in New York City

January 2025 weekend in New York City to see Hugh Jackman

Not personally, but to see him perform live at Radio City Music Hall.  We turned it into a long weekend to hang out in the Big Apple.

Plan and Purpose

When the announcement of Hugh Jackman was doing a series of live shows in New York City in 2025, both of us were interested.  The biggest challenge, with shows sprinkled across most of 2025, which date?  Before tickets went on sale I quickly realized that New York City hotel pricing is in a different league, except for one time period that matched when he would be performing, January.  Hotel prices would be expensive, but not US holiday expensive!

The day tickets went on sale by the time I searched for tickets during lunch they had been purchased and all were gone.  Fortunately, after a few days it was announced that Saturday matinees were being added into addition to Friday and Saturday evening shows.  He’ll put on three performances each weekend.  Now, this time around I was successful.  We got tickets for the Saturday matinee in January.  Show #2!

The hotel location was decided on the fact I wanted to be within walking distance of almost everything [touristy and not far from Penn station].  Using reward points the winner was the SpringHill Suites by Marriott New York Manhattan Times Square hotel.  The name is a misnomer as nothing in New York at our price point would be a suite.  Being on 46th Street just west of Broadway, it was very much near Times Square.  For flights, our preferred times and pricing worked that Newark was the cheapest option, and the reason for being close to Penn station.  This was largely driven by the fact that the New Jersey train is significantly less than a taxi between LaGuardia and our hotel.

What else was planned?  Little Miss wanted to see Van Gogh’s the Starry Night, and Monet, so the Museum of Modern Art was promoted to the top of the list.  Next up was food.  We loved Junior’s Cheesecake and looked forward to returning again.  We also had plans to do more, however the week leading up to the trip she developed a cough.  Somehow I never got it, but she had little energy, so we did not fill our short time in New York City by visiting as many places and running around the island as we had initially considered.  Here’s the whole weekend all in one post.  Enjoy!

Flight to Newark

The reason for our morning flight was to get avoid or minimize weather delays and, visit the Museum of Modern Art on Friday.  The weather cooperated — no snowstorms, and no snow overnight, I hoped our flight should be relatively on time!  We left our house shortly after 5am.  We drove because parking was cheaper than a taxi/Uber/Airport limo.  We were parked at the terminal by 6am. One way to remember where you park — take a picture of the location.  (What did society do before smartphones?, write it down? Have a natural ability to remember things?)

Having Nexus was useful as we went through a dedicated security line in 10-15 minutes, and our conversation with US Customs Border Patrol was summed up by, Agent: “You x and y?” We replied in the affirmative.  Agent “Thank you, have a good weekend.”  We were through customs and in a Premium Plaza lounge within an hour of leaving of house.  Being out of the house by 5am is not a typical time for either of us.  I did put together enough food items to make it look like I had something to eat for breakfast.  No pictures of the lounge as it was very busy.

After having something to start our day we headed to our gate.  The assigned gate was in the main part of the terminal, something I took as a win, because I expected all regional jets would be over in the ‘mobile’ terminal appendage.  The ‘mobile’ part is that the whole building is constructed in a manner to be easily removed, if or when, Terminal One is expanded to have a third pier for more gates.

Flight Toronto to Newark (YYZ-EWR)

United Airlines UA3435, Toronto to Newark (YYZ-EWR), Embraer 175
Scheduled Departure: 7:45am
Scheduled Arrival: 9:30am

We arrived at the gate as the crew arrived, and shortly afterwards boarding commenced.  Once everybody was on board the captain gave his welcome message, and informed us that with the plane having spent night at airport deicing was required.  Pushback was on time at 7:45, and after deicing we were airborne by 8:20am. Here’s a slideshow of pictures of most of the flight:

Within 10 minutes after take-off snack service started. 

For approach to EWR the left side of the plane got the view of the New York skyline. 

The flight was fine, and touchdown was at 9:15.  Then we got to experience of joy of parallel runways and waited 15 minutes before the plane was allowed to cross the parallel and other active runway.  Quickly we arrived at a gate and we were off the plane by 9:35am.

From the slideshow above, once out of the secure part of the terminal we took the AirTrain to the NJ train station.  Train service to New York is frequent, and we were on a train well before the fresh breeze made either of us remotely chilled.  The train reminded me of every commuter train I’ve taken in the Northeast USA.  Soon enough we were at Penn station. 

Our plan was to drop off our suitcase at the hotel and then visit MoMA.

SpringHill Suites by Marriott New York Manhattan Times Square hotel

The hotel is in a great location, and we successfully dropped off our suitcases with them, as no room was yet available.  A handy feature was that we got a text message when our room was ready.  It was available before scheduled check-in.  Being notified by text while we were at the MoMA, was good timing as Little Miss was starting to get tired by then.  The hotel has a tiny footprint and on the floors with rooms even the hallways felt tiny.  The room itself was good.  An example of the compressed space was that the bathroom door, doubled as a door for the toilet.  A plus for the room was that one of the windows could open.  Our room faced south.  Below is a slideshow of pictures of the room:

On the main floor is a small bar area, however the few amenities of the hotel were located downstairs.  There was both a gym, as well as the dedicated area for breakfast.  We did have breakfast here both days.  On the Sunday I ended up waking up early and was able to take pictures of the basement amenities before it was filled with hotel guests:

Overall, the hotel was more than adequate.  Given it’s location, I was happy selecting the hotel.

Food

So many options, and choices.  What did we choose?  Well, we certainly visited places that we liked from our trip in 2023.  In chronological order, our first stop was inside the Moynihan hall train station.

Magnolia Bakery

We split a pudding.  I enjoyed it, however felt a little judged by Little Miss.  She didn’t care for it.  I’d blame her not feeling that great, and maybe because it was also not even 11am.  To me it tasted just as good as the one we had a couple years ago.

Junior’s Restaurant

Our hotel was just around the corner from their Times Square location.  We stopped in to have lunch and made sure that we had enough room for cheesecake.

An important thing we learned was that the restaurant, and take-out counter only have fresh cheesecakes available.  The frozen ones we had spotted in Florida (at Publix), and at their LaGuardia kiosk were not available.  The person working the take-out had time to joke with us “Why do you want the frozen ones, when we’ve got all the fresh ones here, right now?”

This sadly meant that we didn’t have any frozen cheesecakes to bring home with us at the end of the weekend.

China River

Dinner on Saturday was Chinese.  The restaurant is on West 44th between 7th & 8th Avenue.  Originally, Little Miss had spotted a place to try over on 8th Avenue, however it was a bust.  The restaurant seemed built for social media, instead of it being an excellent restaurant heavily recommended on social media.  We skipped it and found this restaurant instead.

I think our choice of this restaurant was based on our level of hunger.  Our choice worked out very well because she got some soup to help battle her being exhausted and under the weather, and the other items were fresh and tasty.  We definitely left the place full.

Hugh Jackman’s “Live from New York with Love”

And now the reason for our long weekend, seeing Hugh Jackman at Radio City Music Hall.  We grabbed a quick bite to eat while we walked to the hall, and were able to enter quickly.  This was the first time for both of us to be at the Music Hall.  I was impressed with the Art Deco styling of the theatre.

After grabbing a snack we headed up to the first balcony where our seats were located.  Our seats were the last or the second last row and we had a good view of the stage, however that didn’t last long.  Suddenly an individual appeared “Hi, how many are in your group?”  We replied it was just us, and she handed us a pair of tickets and the employee remarked “Consider yourself upgraded.  The show starts momentarily, so you should be able to get to your new seats before it starts.” And we certainly did get a bump-up!

Our new seats were in the orchestra level, row KK, and off the centre aisle.  The seats were fantastic.  From the pictures below there were two occasions where he walked up and down the aisle and stopped just a row from us.

The show itself was excellent.  He truly is a musical entertainer first, with an exceptional band, and back-up singers made the performance very memorable.  His music was a mix of songs from prior musicals he has performed in the past.  One part that was truly humourous was his quip after his first song “If you were expecting two hours of me acting like Wolverine, you’re sadly mistaken.”

Here is a slideshow of some pictures from the show:

Another part that made the show entertaining was how some audience members dressed up for the show.  He even took time to point them out, as one was dressed from “Greatest Showman”, and another person was dressed up in a Wolverine costume.

It was a great show, he’s a great performer.  He came across genuine in his excitement and energy being in front of a live audience.

Museum of Modern Art

On Friday, after our early lunch we made our way over to the Museum of Modern Art.  Our goal was simple, Monet and Van Gogh.  Everything else was a bonus.

I may mention this on occasion, most modern art is not my cup of tea, especially abstract. We headed immediately to the room where Monet had filled the room.  She was happy to see the artwork, and I had forgotten the size of the canvases. 

And then we found Van Gogh.  Here’s a slideshow of other things we saw:

From the slideshow, the Andy Warhol Campbell soup collection was truly a collection of their many varieties.  The melted fan to me represents how fans purchased by Little Miss feel.  Well used and they melt from the heat radiating from her hands.

Other Sites

After the show we found the Lego store at Rockefeller Plaza.  We past by St. Patrick’s Cathedral and headed up to the start of Central Park.

By the time we got to Central Park, her energy was starting to fade.  We made our way back towards the hotel, and then quickly headed out for dinner. 

Flight Newark to Toronto

Sunday arrived soon enough, and it was time to head home.  Again, the weather cooperated with another clear day allowing us to not have any delays for our flight home.  From the hotel we walked over to take the subway to Penn Station to catch the train to Newark.

Back at Newark, it was to retrace our steps to the Airtrain and to the terminal.  The line for security was short, and somehow we lucked out as our gate wasn’t too far from security.  Given its a regional flight, our plane was already doing a run between Newark and Toronto.  Soon enough our plane was back at Newark and it was our turn for our flight.

The upside of taking a regional jet is that boarding was quick once it started.

UA3400, Newark to Toronto (EWR-YYZ)
Embraer 175
Scheduled departure 12:00
Scheduled arrival 13:43

Boarding started at 11:30, and the door was closed for an on time departure.

We got another look at the New York skyline while we taxied to the runway.  Take-off was without delay, and we were in the air by 12:15pm, and again like our flight to Newark, in less than 10 minutes a quick snack and drink service occurred.

Surprisingly, the Chocolate Quinoa Crisps were quite tasty.  Our approach into Toronto had us head east before turning for the runway.  A great chance for some pictures of downtown.

The plane landed at 1:30, and by the scheduled arrival time we were off the plane making our long walk to CBSA.  It was a great weekend away.  Our next trip would completely different — a road trip!