But at least from there you had the trailhead of the Canonball Trail to walk to Mahwah. 
If you live near Worcester, why would you take I-95 to Stamford? Take the Mass Pike to 84 West to 684 South to North White Plains. You should be able to make it in under 3 hours without traffic. Park at the North White Plains station lot which is on Metro North’s Harlem line (I believe it’s free parking on weekends). Lots of trains to Grand Central out of North White. Shorter ride to GCT compared to Stamford. Also, less expensive.
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I was planning to take 84 to 91 to 95, catching 95 at Bridgeport, then down to Stamford to stay in a hotel there and catch the train in the morning.
I have to say, as I’ve been trying to pin down the details I am a little nervous about that stretch of 95 just north of Stamford (it was red on Google maps even at 2 AM this Sunday night!) and the parking situation at the Stamford train station since it seems the old garage is condemned and the new one isn’t open yet. 
Do you think 84 to 684 and staying in White Plains & catching the train from there is a better plan?
ETA:
I did get reservations for brunch before the show. My kids and I gave to eat gluten-free sadly, but there was a highly recommended place around the corner from the theater that has lots of gluten-free options. The rest of the family said, “what a great idea. We’ll join you!“ So the reservation is for 10 of us. Hopefully that won’t be a problem.
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There has been traffic from Stamford to Westport for weeks-- two major bridges were replaced recently, and although the actual heavy construction is done, there is often one lane closed in each direction for grading, painting lines, redoing the berm, etc.
As long as the restaurant will seat you guys (and let you order) even if your “entire party” isn’t there yet, it won’t be a problem. If you get stuck waiting for people who are usually late…
You can park in a municipal lot in downtown Stamford and Sunday’s are free… a couple of blocks to walk to the train. The parking garage at the Stamford station is a mess…
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I always rely on Waze, but my weekend route Fairfield County/Vermont was typically I-91 south, catch the Wilbur Cross/Merritt (CT-15) in Middletown and then take that all the way to Stamford. The Long Ridge Road and High Ridge Road exits in Stamford will both take you into downtown Stamford if that’s where you plan on staying.
The Harlem Line basically follows I-684 from Brewster to Mt. Kisco, so that is a good option as well.
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I think staying in White Plains (probably as many trains as Stamford to NYC) is a good alternative to avoid the less-than-predictable traffic on I-95. I drive occasionally on 95 (through the Stamford - New Haven corridor) and it seems to always have that frustrating stop-and-go traffic (without any reason!) that can occur at any given time.
Someone suggested taking the North White Plains station but you should have more train options at the White Plains one. There is plenty of parking at the White Plains station but I don’t know if it is free.
Another restaurant to consider in the Times Square area is Tony DiNapolis. I always have a good time there.
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This is from a friend (as she posted on Facebook) who now lives in Groton, CT and annually takes MetroNorth into Manhattan to celebrate the holidays with one or more of her young adult daughters.
quote
I lived in the city for four years, and NEVER have I seen such a mob of humanity as I saw today. It was impossible to move on the sidewalks, to cross a street. We visit New York during the holidays every year, and nothing in the past was anywhere near as insane as it was today.
Also, I am pretty sure that 50% of the people on the street today were smoking joints. The stink was terrible. Not at all judging them for getting high (it was tempting!), but jeez, people……switch to edibles!!
But despite these challenges, we had the most wonderful day and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat!
end of quote
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Haha so true!
If it was today, it’s extra crowded because of Santa Con. That said, we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Thursday and it was a zoo, not just in the Manet/Degas show.
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I was just in NYC this past weekend and Saturday at Bryant Park Winter Village was an absolute zoo. You could barely move and just had to shuffle slowly along with the crowd. We didn’t even try to check out the booths, just went straight through.
If you do go to St. Patricks you could check out the decorations at Lotte Palace which is right across the street, beautiful inside and out.
One suggestion - if you are by Grand Central (which looked beautiful) - try to get a chocolate chip cookie at Culture Espresso on 38th Street which I kept seeing pop up as a top cookie on TikTok. After trying a few spots - including Levains - this was my number one by far - so good!! 
I also just heard a tip that if you go into the J Crew in Rockefeller Center and exit out the Rock Plaza door you get an unobstructed view of the tree and should have time to take a quick picture before security moves you along.
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Anyone know how long the tree stays up?
Last day is January 13th
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Oh good!!
I know it’s been a while, but I wanted to update you on our trip. It was great!
We ended up staying in White Plains, and that was perfect. We had a leisurely drive down (taking the 84/684 route), leaving Friday midmorning. We actually did have to drive all the way to Mahwah first, because my mom decided she wanted to go along and (long story, you don’t want to hear!) she wanted to stay in Mahwah. I did miss some turns in a few places, but it was fine, we didn’t have any deadlines and traffic wasn’t very bad so we just managed the scenic route in a few places.
The boys and I got to White Plains around 3:30 PM. We decided to go out to dinner at the Hudson Grille in downtown (?) White Plains and walked there from our hotel. It was a really nice walk and a nice area to be in. We very much enjoyed our dinner.
We got up early the next morning and drove to the White Plains train station, where there were copious parking spots and I think I paid $8.50 to park for the whole day. We took the 8 AM express train in to Grand Central Station and got there around 8:40 AM. It was my favorite time to be in New York! There was a lot going on at 9 AM, but it wasn’t crowded at all. We could get around easily and see things. It was actually kind of funny because the day before we had made a list of things that we don’t normally see that we might see in New York City, and we had seen all of them within 15 minutes of leaving the train station.
We walked to the public library, and the kids were excited to see the lions because they loved the PBS show “Between the Lions“ when they were little. Then we checked out the market at Bryant Park, watched the ice skaters, and got some hot chocolate. After a little while we wandered over to Times Square and checked out all of the sights there.
My extended family actually showed up on time, and we met them at their parking garage near Times Square around 10 AM and walked to our reservation at Friedmans in the Edison Hotel for 10:30. We all enjoyed the food. They were able to accommodate all 10 of us: the five of us who are gluten-free; the one who is vegan; and the four who drink heavily. 
We hung out in the Times Square area for a bit after so they could see the sights, then saw Hamilton at one. We all thought it was great.
After this, things got a little dicey. We had several people in the group who had been drinking heavily, and my mom who doesn’t walk steadily in the best of situations, and a couple of people who seem to need to go to the bathroom every 20 minutes. It felt like we spent over an hour finding bathrooms and trying to keep everyone together to walk a few blocks and then finding more bathrooms.
Then we seemed to have it together and headed over toward Rockefeller Center. I realize that was a poor choice, and my choice of route made it an even worse decision. I was trying to make it easy by taking a very direct route, but that took us right by Saks Fifth Avenue, and I did not realize that there was that terrible light show going on. I won’t go into all of the details, but I thought we were going to be crushed in a crowd incident. I have never experienced anything like that. Our party got divided into two. My sons and I and a couple of other people from our group ended up on a side road near Saks Fifth Avenue, and the other half of the group actually made it to Rockefeller Center. At that point it was almost 6 and we were feeling tired and didn’t want to deal with the crowd anymore. We made sure the rest of the group got back together and then we headed back to the train.
It was an easy train ride back to White Plains. We had parked our car right at the pedestrian bridge from the train platform to the parking garage so it took us about one minute to get off the train and into our car. We had a relatively short, about 2 1/2 hour, drive home in good weather. I only missed one turn.
Thank you all for your advice and encouragement! It was a really nice time, despite the bit of stress with the crowd. And I was surprised and excited that both of my boys, who had not been enthusiastic about the trip and really only went because they wanted to see their cousins, both said they thought it was fun and would happily do something like that again.
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And you should do it again- soon! (After winter!). You’ll feel more confident this time!
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Sounds like you plotted out a good plan and we’re flexible going with the flow. Good job!
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It’s too bad you were at the end of a very busy day…that light show at Saks is amazing. It really is. But I can see how it might not have been much fun trying to get a large group together through there. That light show is a great holiday thing.
Glad your trip went well.
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Glad you had a good time in NYC and White Plains. Hudson Grille is one of my favorites in White Plains, so good choice!
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We were supposed to take a day trip into NYC this weekend, Sunday, to see a Broadway show with the kids & their SOs.
It was a fairly straightforward proposition: got six (relatively) cheap seats, a relative is watching the dog, we were gonna do Chinatown and just wander before the show.
NOW. HAH.
There’s a near-blizzard in the forecast for us in PA and if we tried to drive in on Sunday, we’d never get out of our town: we have mountains everywhere, and indifferent snow removal, and we don’t have AWD.
So the cheap day trip has now become booked-two-rooms-in-midtown the night before.
I never learn! Don’t make inflexible/nonrefundable plans in the winter!
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But that will be fun!
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