Trip Advisor digsThe NYC Big Adventure!

The Big Adventure made Trip Advisor! We're going to big time now. Well sorta. Trip Advisor's editors posted a link to us on their page of  “New York City Useful Websites" waaayy down at the bottom under “Homages, afficionados and obsessed fans of NYC”. Great. We made the obsessed fans category. Hey, maybe we’ll get some legit European Tourists on December 11th.

Trip Advisor NYC Websites

The Next Big Adventure is Coming!

It's coming...and we're starting to get the engines in gear for another amazing Big Adventure!

Mark your Calendar for Saturday, December 11th and get ready to join us for an entire day (and a good portion of the evening) of an inexpensive, social, incredibly unique and unbelievably fun way to explore New York City.

More details are forthcoming as our staff, various interns and contracted minions are putting everything in place. We'll be providing all of the sorted details in the next couple of weeks well in advance of the day, but we like to keep a lid on thing until all is in place. Let's just say, we'll be celebrating the winter season with one cool theme on December 11th.

Let us know if you'll be joining us by reserving your space on our Facebook Event Page. Hope you can join as this is already shaping up to our biggest and best event yet! http://www.facebook.com/TheBigAdventure?v=app_2344061033&ref=ts

NYC November "Must Do" Event #1: Hand Out Water at the New York City Marathon

The Big Adventure Presents NYC November "Must Do" Event #1: Volunteer at the ING New York City Marathon

This Saturday brings back an annual Autumn tradition as the ING New York City Marathon hits 26.2 Miles of pavement throughout the five boroughs. To be a part of it, you could cram the sidewalks with an estimated crowd of two million of your closest friends. Perhaps you’ll get lucky and land a choice viewing point from a packed corner. 

However, the Big Adventure has a better option: Volunteering at an Aid Station or as a Course Marshall for 41st running of the ING New York City Marathon.

Speaking from experience, volunteering is an incredibly exciting and fun option for getting involved with the race. For the true “part of the race” experience, try to volunteer on the course either as an Aid Station attendant or a Course Marshall in charge of guiding runners in the right direction. A Course Marshall! Think of the prestige with a title like that. At the Aid Stations, your charge is to be part of a fifty-plus person team that prepares and hands out water to each runner from the elite race-leaders to your office co-worker struggling through their first ever marathon.

When handing out water and Gatorade, don’t be surprised if you find you’ve suddenly become the most beloved and desired person in NYC. Grateful runners – fast and slow – will snatch cups from your hand and throw them down mercilessly at your feet. And, yes, you’ll even see a few cases of the dreaded, infamous bloody nipple caused to shirt chafing. You may have a choice of mile markers, but the stations in Central Park towards the end of the course are usually regarded as the best. In short: it is a rare and unique volunteering experience that allows you to see an amazing race up close and personable.

But the best part? Volunteering tends to be much easier on the legs than actually, you know, running the marathon. You must by 18, work the requested hours (a few hours) and you’ll even get some official gear out of the gig. For more information and to sign up, visit this page on the office ING NYC Marathon site. Sign up soon as the race is this Saturday:

http://www.ingnycmarathon.org/course_vols.htm

The Big Adventure NYC Top Twelve: #11- New York Transit Museum

The Big Adventure NYC Top Twelve:

#11- New York Transit Museum (The Subway Museum)

Visited on The Letter C Big Adventure

The Met? MoMa? The Guggenheim? They’ve got nothing on The Subway Museum.

Housed in a 1936 decommissioned, but still operational, subway station in downtown Brooklyn, the New York Transit Museum is perfect for visitors of all ages. Upon shelling out the nominal entrance fee of $6, you can enjoy the permanent collection and temporary exhibits all dedicated to the buses, roads, bridges and, of course, the 106-year-old Subway System. We personally love the collection of turnstiles through the years (man, those things used to be easy to jump) and old subway tokens. 

By far the best part is the Subway cars from the last century that live on two working subway tracks on the lower level. You can meander through every car; each reflects a different era and each is in immaculate condition. To complete the experience, the cars even have print ads and subway maps relevant to the years the car ran. For as much time as most New Yorkers spend on our respective subway lines, this place is a must visit.

Located at the corner of Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn Heights (below ground)

http://www.mta.info/mta/museum/

 

The Big Adventure NYC Top Twelve: #12- Criff Dog

The Big Adventure NYC Top Twelve:

#12- Criff Dog (Visited on The Letter C Big Adventure)

In a city that’s already well known for its ubiquity of Hot Dogs, it’s a tough thing to open a restaurant that makes a quality, custom dog. That’s why Criff Dog easily makes our list. Located in a basement level space on St. Marks, this tiny but always busy Hot Dog joint is a must for any out-of-town visitor.

Criff Dog is a delicious late night option (open till 4:00 AM), but great just about anytime. They've created a menu with unique and tasty custom Hot Dogs – we recommend the one that is bacon wrapped with avocado and sour cream. Criff is incredibly affordable and has an uber-friendly staff that always seems to love being there.

Bonus: getting to watch people get turned away from the Super Secret bar next door (P.D.T) where you have to enter via phone booth.

St. Mark’s Between 1^st Ave and Avenue A

www.crifdogs.com/

Presenting: the Big Adventure NYC Top Twelve

Presenting: the Big Adventure NYC Top Twelve

Starting Tomorrow and continuing over the next two weeks, the Big Adventure is going to unveil our Top Twelve favorite bars, restaurants, museums and other destinations and hot spots that we’ve visited as part of our NYC exploits over the last dozen adventures and four years. Why twelve? Well, limiting it our list to ten just wasn’t working. We’ve seen way too many amazing locales.

Like the best elements of any solid Big Adventure itself, the members of this elite list are all one-of-a-kind, unique to NYC, accessible and affordable to all and have demonstrated the ability to be incredible fun places. Because, really, in the end, that’s what it is all about.

Thanks to all who offered input on this indispensable ranking. We’ve created our list based on a weighed scale of various criteria, polling of complete strangers and our own whimsy (we love the whimsy). What do YOU think our Number One Pick will be?

NYC October "Must Do" Event #3: Fordham Law 2010 Film Festival

The Big Adventure Presents: NYC October "Must Do" Event #3: The Fordham Law 2010 Film Festival.

So, we’re the first to admit that any event that lead’s with “Fordham Law School Presents” doesn’t exactly get our pulse racing. After all, while a great place for a law degree, this is one New York City’s lower profile education centers. Heck, perhaps the most famous alum of Fordham Law might be G. Gordon Liddy. That being said, this film series looks positively exceptional.

A six day event starting on Friday, October 14^th, the school is hosting free screenings of both some classic and new films that are centered around legal themes. The Annual Festival bills itself as “an exciting mix of current blockbusters, classic favorites…(that) illuminate the legal system with all of its triumphs, failures, moral dilemmas, and dramatic moments”. This year’s flicks include 12 Angry Men, Amistad,…And Justice for all, the HBO film You Don’t Know Jack and more.

But this is where the cool factor kicks in –each film followed by a post-screening discussion with notable public figures including Jack Kevorkian, Debbie Allen, Jeffrey Tambor and newly anointed Supreme Court Justice and New York native Sonia Sotomayor speaking on 12 Angry Men! That’s like the equivalent of having Sandra Day O'Connor giving a lecture on the film Legally Blonde..but much cooler!

 Tickets to the Fordham Law Film Fesitval are free. While we are told that many shows have sold out for General Admission there are Rush tickets and overflow seating available. Just make sure that you’re not making too much noise with your Reese’s Pieces when Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor is lecturing. James B.M. McNally Amphitheatre at 62^nd and Columbus. More information and tickets here: http://www.fordhamlawandculture.org/film-festival/2010