Hey Aonex -
Welcome to NYC.
Wow.
Look, bring your sticks to NYC. NYC has plenty of places to play. Some of these posts are incredible.
I finished grad school a few years ago at Columbia and lived right there, at 121st and B'way, 124th and Riverside Drive, 107th and Amsterdam, and now at 207th and B'way in Inwood.
I was just hanging out on the weekend at 122nd and Amsterdam, eating homemade apple pie at a place called Kitchenette. On my way in with my fiancee, a couple guys with their gfriends, still in warm ups with tennis bags, held the door for us. No sh*t.
There are 9 gorgeous red clay courts in Riverside Park at 96th Street, groomed and immaculately maintained, right along the Hudson River. You can watch 1951 Wimbledon & Australian winner Dick Savitt's incredibly effortless strokes there. There are 7 brand new resurfaced hard courts right next to Grant's Tomb at 122nd Street, also in Riverside Park.
These courts can be accessed from April until November for a season fee of $100. That's it, unless they've raised the price. Still, a bargain if they did. Or you can pay by the hour, $6.
You can walk to the hard courts in 5 minutes, the way I used to, or take the M5 Riverside Drive bus to the clay courts. That'll take 5 minutes too. A monthly metro card will set you back $70, and you'll have one anyway.
Central Park at 96th Street has 22 har-tru courts. You can go there too with the season tennis pass. All 22 were just restructured last season at the cost of millions. The courts are fantastic. And before anyone posts that you have to sweep your own court, well - you don't anymore. They discovered that the excessive sweeping degraded the surface. Central Park is only a zoo on weekends, as mentioned, and before and after work. If you're in NYC to hang out though, you'll be able to play all day 9-5 no problem, and usually without having to go from court to court. I used to do that in grad school and the guys who run the place would let us stay as long as we wanted. But since you'll be so close to the others, you'll probably play there.
I live right next to Columbia's brand new indoor tennis facility, 6 sweet courts where off hours during winter are $30/hour. The men's team practices days, and if you can haul ***, they may hit with you. That said, when you arrive, the public courts will be open, or about to do so. In Isham Park, right next to me, are 8 hard courts, not as well maintained, but the park guy who runs the place knows me so he never checks for mypass and I save the fee. The Dominican guys there play better tennis than most college guys and will happily wipe all posers off the courts.
No tennis in NYC? The same mayor who got the National Tennis Center built where the US Open is played got the city to invest a ton to build courts in the city itself.
Truth is, NYC is divided into East and West Sides, and people rarely travel east-west here because all the subways travel north-south. No big deal, but anyone living on the east side has very little reason to go and know what's in the part of the city where you'll be living, unless they went to Columbia, Manhattan School of Music or the Jewish Theological Seminary.
You'll be in Morningside Heights or Harlem depending on where you are, which is on the Upper Upper West Side. You'll be on the 1/9 subway line which stops at 125th street, and everybody rides it, no big deal. Please.
And you can play tennis in NYC until your frickin' arms fall off.
Drop me an email and I'll give you whatever info you need.
