Winter Outings

By Tracey McCormick

If you’ve been putting off a trip on the Ferry for warmer weather, I am here to convince you otherwise. We’ve just bid farewell (for now) to the holiday tourists, lines are down, and reservations are easy to get. NYCGO.com partnered with Mastercard to put on a Winter Outing with city-wide deals to encourage locals to explore NYC in this downtime. A headline of the Winter Outing is Off-Broadway Week, which offers 2-for-1 tickets as low as $29.99 now through March 5 when you book through NYCGO.com and use the code OBW23.

The Off-Broadway movement launched in the 1950s as a reaction to expensive venues in the Broadway District. These smaller, more experimental shows that were cost-friendly began to emerge and have become integral to the professional theater ecosystem. Many popular shows like Hamilton, Avenue Q, Rent, and A Chorus Line found success Off-Broadway and made the leap to The Great White Way. This year, Off-Broadway Week offers entertainment for everyone.  Take children as young as three to see Gazillion Bubble Show or Dog Man: The Musical in kid-friendly theaters. For the grownups, Titanique, a musical parody, melds the story of the Oscar-winning film Titanic with Céline Dion’s songs. The whole family can enjoy The Play That Goes Wrong, one of Off-Broadway’s longest running shows, a hybrid comedy inspired by Monty Python and Sherlock Holmes.

The beauty of choosing Off-Broadway is it often takes you out of the Theatre District radius. With theaters from Union Square to the Upper West Side, you can catch the Wall Street subway lines (5-minute walk from Pier 11) to get you to your show. At the Wall Street/Williams Street station, you can take the 2 or 3 trains via 7th Avenue up the West Side of Manhattan. The Wall Street/Broadway station allows you to explore the East Side via Park Avenue on the 4 or 5 trains. No MetroCard? No problem, The MTA has begun phasing out MetroCards which will be replaced by OMNY payment systems in 2024. This means riders can use their digital wallets and tap to pay to go through the turnstile without loading up a MetroCard. 

Temperatures outside might not be “sit on the top deck” just yet, but these mild late February days make it easier to explore past The Seaport. Looking forward to reporting on the best outdoor activities in March- just a ferry ride away!