My girlfriend and I loved New York and would love to return one day! No one was rude to us, everyone was quite friendly and we were down during the Santa Claus bar crawl. Always nice seeing 100's of Ol' St. Nick in Manhattan during Christmas season, even if most of them were slightly inebriated! City was beautiful and skating at Rockefeller was very memorable. Visiting the site of the fallen World Trade Centre buildings was humbling, especially reading all the names of the ones who lost their lives that day. We really enjoyed the boat tour to Ellis Island, Liberty Island and under the Brooklyn Bridge. Subway lines were easy to navigate, even with one or two down to flooding but on the plus side it meant no rats! Overall, we loved the city, couldn't live there but would love to visit again. Thank you for your article and wishing you the best! PS don't ask a NYC cabbie to get you there quickly with incentive of a better tip. Unless, you are looking for a very fast and rollercoaster type car ride!