Planning trip to Yankee Stadium/NYC ...

The key phrase, there, is "moderately priced hotel". In conjunction with "in NYC", that's largely an obsolete concept.

Urge serious considertion of Priceline or Hotwire, or you're looking at >$200, easy, for anything that's not a trap.

 

For hotels go to www.tripadvisor.com and check them out. They have reviews and member-submitted photos, so you should be able to avoid the obvious shitholes.

They also have a feature that will check six or seven different online services for the best rate on the dates you choose. Look closely, because there often is a major difference. Depending on time of year, it's not unreasonable to expect that you could get something nice for less than $200.

Stay away from Mantle's and all the other "theme" places. Check out 9th Avenue in the 40s. All kinds of restuarants in various cuisines and various price ranges.

BTW, my experience was that the stand-by route rarely works for the bigger TV shows.

 

I think you can just do hotels through orbitz, or there's a million other online places to look for deals. Have fun parking your car if you do go the road trip route. You might just have to take the plunge and fork over money for a garage, instead of worrying about moving it every few days. Depending on where the garage is will affect the price, but don't worry about parking it near the hotel. If you can leave it there your whole trip, you can just take the subway to the hotel once you're done and not worry about it again until you go home.So if you end up staying in midtown, don't think you have to find a garage near Times Square. I wouldn't recommend staying on Long Island. If you're in the city, it's so much more convenient to be be close to everything.

If you're into art, or even if you're not it's still cool, check out the metropolitan museum of art. When my folks came last year we all got in for free as we sort of avoided the suggested donation part (insert Homer Simpson joke here).

My favorite place to eat, on the upper west side, Flor de Mayo. Peruvian/Asian, "best chicken in the city."

 

You could park a car at a suburban train station and train into city and the hotel. I have several times left my car at Stamford and taken MetroNorth into town for the weekend. Definitely cheaper than Manhattan parking.

 

Went to Carmine's this past year. It was pretty good, but I definitely agree it's more preferable if in a large group. Also, I had tickets to the Daily Show that week and we missed getting in by 5 people (not guaranteed to get in with tickets). We would have made it if not for a day's worth of ridiculous situations. The capper was my friends (I took our bags back to my sister's apt because we had just gotten in) who had never been to the city before getting bad directions to the studio and causing them to get in line 30 minutes later than they would have which would have easily gotten us in. I'm still pissed about that.

 

There's a wealth of restuarant discussion here:

http://www.chowhound.com/boards/18

 

If you ever get into a Letterman taping, wear your longjohns.
It's freezing in there.

 

The food we had at Hard Rock was awesome. ESPN blowed major donkey balls.

 

Go to Jersey and take the train in. Much, much cheaper and convenient. Also try to make it over to Yogi's museum, too. It'd be a sin for a Yankee fan to come all the way from KY and NOT see it.

 

Don't stay in Jersey. Don't stay on Long Island. Part of the fun of being in NYC is deciding you want a nine-course Chinese dinner at 3 a.m. and having a choice of places to go.

Plus a lot of the hookers on craigslist won't go to Jersey or the Island.

 

Blowed? Outing alert: PressBox is Emmitt Smith.

 

If you get a chance to venture out, the Original Vincent's in Little Italy is fantastic.