I can’t recommend Language Transfer highly enough! It’s completely free too.
I can recommend the metro north day trips. Cold Spring, Tarrytown, and Sleepy Hollow are all fun spots to spend a day, but I’ve never spent the night. Metro north tickets are usually around $30 round trip, so it’s not too pricey.
I’m heavily in favor of congestion pricing. Already NJ is looking to spend Billions (with a B!) widening the turnpike leading to nyc which will eventually funnel more cars (and therefore noise and pollution) into the city. That project is a boondoggle for other reasons, but the point remains that there is massive demand for visiting nyc (duh!). We need to encourage more people to take more efficient methods of transportation. So many people drive into the city with only one or two people in a car, compared to 50+ people that can fit in a bus or hundreds in a train.
There’s a few locations that used to do this, I seem to recall Roosevelt Island had a summer series some years ago.
The AQI was over double what I’d seen for most California smoky days. I hope the city is more prepared for the next time this happens, e.g. in terms of alerting, mask distribution, maybe something like a air filter subsidy.
I hope it gets to a point that you don’t have to check the schedule because you know the wait for the next train is negligible. On an unrelated note, I’ve never heard a person say straphanger in real life, I’ve only ever read it in news articles.
It’s extra pleasant being able to walk along the waterfronts without the noise and pollution from cars, trucks, and motorcycles. I’m looking forward to it!