Often, people who travel far from their homes, use the distance and the anonymity to do some risky things. And I'm not talking just sex. Although risky sex comes to mind first. But hang-glinding, black-market money exchanges, alcohol and drugs, and just choosing to wander down a dangerous street can all be risky.
Before I tell you which risky behavior I chose - actually I invented a new risk - here's how to get from LaGuardia Airport to almost anywhere in Manhattan for $2.25.
The M60 MTA bus stops at all the LaGuardia terminals. There's never more than a few minutes wait. I came in on Delta. Inside the Delta terminal near the exit to the buses was a newspaper stand that sells Metro cards. I bought a discounted five-ride card for a little over $10. I could have used $2.25 in exact change on the bus, if I didn't need the five rides.
Walked out to the bus. That M60 bus wanders through Queens, across the bridge into Manhattan and then east to west across 125th street. A couple of the M60's Manhattan stops along 125th connect with most north-south subways. I got off at 125th and Lexington Avenue. Walked a half a block and transferred, using the same card, to a stop and a subway that let me off a few blocks from my brother's place. Total time, including the walk to Jim's, was a leisurely one hour and thirty minutes. Cost was a little under $2.25.
A metro card trick. The card keeps track of transfers. You have an hour (maybe it's two) to get on another MTA subway or bus after departing the first one. But the computers are smart. So if you take a subway from mid-town and travel south to pick something up in a store, and then head back uptown on the same subway line, the computer knows you're not really transferring. You're doing a round trip, and you get dinged for two rides. But you can outsmart the computers. If you go down on the subway and back on the bus, it's one ride. Enjoy that tip, at least until they close that loophole.
Risky behavior. I didn't go to New York in search of some exotic sexual adventure. I don't drink or gamble. There's no hang-gliding on Manhattan that I know of. And the last time I engaged in a dangerous black-market money exchange was in West Africa, and I'll never do that again. But I came up with something new.
I went to the Sak's Fifth Avenue flagship store. Took the escalator to the sixth floor. (Not a lot of security around up there.) Then I found the escalator that comes down from the seventh floor. I bent over the moving handrail at the bottom and let it roll by, with my tongue pressed against it. Risky enough for you?
