3 Days in New York, Staying Downtown: A Lower Manhattan Itinerary

Start early and eat close to home. Fulton Street runs straight west from our block to the World Trade Center site, which is about a 10 minute walk, and it's the easiest bit of orientation you'll get all trip: keep the tower in front of you and you can't get lost. The Financial District is a working neighborhood in the morning, so you're walking with people going to their desks, and coffee lines move fastest before 8:45.

Go to the pools before the museum, and go before the crowd builds. The two fountains sit in the footprints of the original towers, the names are cut into the bronze parapets, and it's quiet enough at that hour to actually read them. Budget 30 to 45 minutes outside. If you're doing the museum too, that's another two hours, and it will take more out of you than you expect, so we'd put the observatory after lunch rather than straight after.

Cross under West Street through the Oculus. It's a transit hall and a mall, but the white ribbed hall is worth the two minute detour on its own, and it's your rainy-day escape hatch for the whole trip. Keep walking west through the passage and you come out at Brookfield Place on the water, which is where we'd stop for lunch: harbor views, a food hall, and marina benches if you'd rather sit outside with something to go.

Afternoon light is better for the observatory than morning, and the sky is usually clearer than it looks from street level. It's open 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM daily at the corner of West and Vesey, about 10 minutes on foot from John Street, and you'll want a timed ticket booked in advance. Give it an hour and a half. From the top you can trace the rest of your trip: the bridge you'll walk on day three, the ferry route you'll take tomorrow, the Seaport piers off to the east.

Stone Street is our default first-night answer. It's a cobblestone block a few minutes south of us, closed to cars, lined end to end with restaurants and pubs that put tables outside from spring through fall. It's loud and busy right after work on weekdays and calmer by 8:00 PM, and it's the one place downtown where the after-work crowd feels like a scene. Afterward it's a short walk home, which matters when you're still on another time zone.

Take the first boat of the day. Battery Park is about a 15 minute walk south from John Street, and the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island ferries leave from Castle Clinton in the park. The early departure is the difference between 20 minutes in line and an hour, and both islands are calmer before 11:00. Book the ticket online ahead of time and ignore anyone selling you one on the street.

Plan on three to four hours round trip for both islands, more if you have crown or pedestal tickets. If the family isn't up for that, the alternative is the free Staten Island Ferry out of Whitehall Terminal, also about 15 minutes from us on foot: it passes the statue, takes about 25 minutes each way, and costs nothing. We send people to it constantly when a morning frees up unexpectedly.

Come off the boat hungry and walk east. South Street Seaport is about five minutes from our block down Fulton Street, on the East River side: cobblestones, the tall ships at Pier 16, Pier 17 with its rooftop and harbor-facing seats, and the Brooklyn Bridge framed right up the river. It's the most pleasant afternoon in the neighborhood that doesn't involve a ticket, and it's the best photo of the bridge you'll get from the Manhattan side.

Day two is when a kitchen earns its keep. Our suites have full kitchens, so this is the night we suggest picking up groceries and eating in rather than doing a third restaurant meal in 48 hours. There's a supermarket and a few markets within a short walk of the building. If you'd rather not cook, the Seaport and Stone Street are both close, and the rooftop terrace is a good place to sit with a drink afterward: there are lounge chairs up there, and the harbor breeze does something for a jetlagged evening.

Go at 7:30 and you'll have the promenade to yourself. The pedestrian entrance is about a 10 minute walk from John Street, and the crossing takes 30 to 40 minutes at a normal pace. By 10:00 AM in summer the walkway is shoulder to shoulder, which is a completely different experience, so this is the one early start we insist on. Bring a jacket even in August: it's windier over the river than on Fulton Street.

Come down on the Brooklyn side and walk to Washington Street for the shot of the Manhattan Bridge framed between the warehouses, then down to Brooklyn Bridge Park for the waterfront. Coffee and a pastry in DUMBO is a fair reward for the crossing. Walk back across the bridge or take the ferry back to the Manhattan side if legs are done, either way you're home by late morning.

Fulton Street station is a couple of blocks from us, and the 2/3 and 4/5 both stop there. That's your afternoon: Midtown, a museum, a matinee, whatever you didn't get to. The point of a downtown base isn't that you never leave downtown, it's that one train covers the rest of the island. Give yourself 25 to 30 minutes each way and don't try to schedule anything tight right after.

Come back for the evening rather than eating uptown. The Financial District after 7:00 PM empties out in the best way: the office crowd is gone, the streets are quiet, and the lit-up buildings are the version of this neighborhood people don't expect. Dinner in the neighborhood, a walk down to the water, packing in a suite where you can actually spread the suitcases out. That's a good last night.