Living in New York -- everyone who comes from another place to visit you-- wants to see the usual sights--the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, lower Manhattan-- where the World Trade Center is being re-built, and so on. To be honest--I'm really tired of taking my guests there--no offense, but after a while it gets old. Yeah, yeah, I know...this are the world-renown icons, etc. But when you've been going there for the millionth time, you want to show people that New York has so much more, and that Manhattan (where most tourists gravitate to) is not the end-all, be-all.
So in the interest of presenting another side of New York--once in a while I'll describe a place that is different-- to visit... and not necessarily in Manhattan. One such place is Old Bethpage Village Restoration located in Long Island (east of Manhattan). This is a sort of living museum, where a mid-19th-Century American Village is recreated by people dressed in the clothes of the era. The great thing about this place is that there are historic houses and stores that where brought here from other places in Long Island, which makes you feel as if you stepped through some magic tunnel---back to post-colonial times and see how people lived back then. You honestly forget all about the noise, and crowds of Manhattan and really get into the history of the place. We recently took some relatives from abroad there-- and they couldn't believe that this was close to Manhattan, yet seemed to be centuries away, they loved it!
If you want to break from the usual, search in your browser for: Old Bethpage Village Restoration, Nassau County, Long Island, New York and check out the information on how to get there from Manhattan or whatever other place you're staying in in New York...and enjoy your journey to the past !
