Livers all over the city, exhausted from filtering solely whiskey and iced coffee, rejoice!
There are few things no one gives us heads up about as we age:
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- Acne doesn’t go away when you’re done with puberty – it takes on a vilified adult form and haunts your very existence. Stress, hormones, and the slightest temperature change send skin into complete chaos.
- Bills. Being a self-sufficient human functioning on your own is extremely expensive and you pay for everything. You start to realize how expensive it must have been for your parents to air-condition an entire home…
- You must make yourself go to the doctor and the dentist. My proudest moments of the year are when I go get my teeth cleaned on my own accord.
- Being hung-over is a completely paralyzing reality. It’s like in Harry Potter where the Dementors suck the life out of their victims – they are the embodiment of what alcohol does to the aged.
Hangovers can trash multiple days of your life, rendering you unable to work, exercise, socialize, eat, even simply move your body. Unfortunately, most social activities in New York revolve around alcohol – “grabbing drinks” is the go-to for first dates, meeting with clients, catching up with friends, ect. So for anyone looking for options aside from figuring out how much tequila is too much tequila, here are a handful of things to do in the city where alcohol is not necessary to enjoy:
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1. Bushwick Collective (St Nicholas Ave, Brooklyn, NY) – Lead yourself on your own walking tour of some of the best street art in New York City. The murals are constantly changing and most are extremely impressive. Roberta’s pizza is also close by….and if you go on a Wednesday late afternoon/early evening, you can catch Drink N’ Draw quite close by. Drink N’ Draw occurs every Wednesday from 8pm-10:30pm and the $10 admission gets you all-you-can-drink beer and 2.5 hours of drawing time with a professional model.
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2. Tenement Museum (103 Orchard Street, NY, NY) – Explore the history of our country’s immigration through the personal accounts of those who built lives in the Lower East Side. You’ll view restored apartments from the 19th and 20th centuries in tangent with walking the historic neighborhood. Before or after, you can grab food at Dudley’s, check out the galleries on Orchard, and drop into any of the many bars around in case you decide to imbibe.
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3. Governors Island – Rejoice, Governor’s island is now open until Oct 31st! A quick ferry ride from FiDi, this historic island has been repurposed for public use and in addition to plenty of events and glamping, there are always activities to explore with the New York skyline as the backdrop. When you get back to the mainland, you can hit one of the world’s best cocktail bars, the Dead rabbit, if you please…
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4. Royal palms shuffleboard – Bringing the Floridian boardwalk game to New York, Royal Palms is a walk-in shuffleboard haven with a beautiful aesthetic, food trucks, huge bar, and super-sized Jenga to play while you wait for a court to open up. Gowanus has plenty of great spots to choose from for before or after playing, from Freek’s Mill, to Pig’s Beach, to Ample Hills Creamery, to Lavender Lake.
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5. Comedy Cellar – Founded in ’82, this comedy club is New York’s most famous, as top comedians, like Amy Schumer and Seinfeld, regularly pop in for unannounced performances to test new material. Tickets are between $14-24 dollars and you just need to have a minimum of two drinks, with or without alcohol. If you’re hungry before or after, hit Minetta Tavern for what’s touted as the best burger in the city.