If you don�t need to get anywhere fast, then skip the subway and take a bus: you�ll see more of the city that way.

Some of the best views of Manhattan are from outside the island. Hamilton Park (Weehawken) and Liberty State Park (Jersey City) in New Jersey offer incredible panoramas of Midtown and Downtown Manhattan, respectively. Maybe someone else can tell you the best way to get there without a car. The following pictures don�t do the actual views justice:

http://www.worldfromtheweb.com/Park...n/Hamilton.html
http://www.worldfromtheweb.com/Park...llisIsland.html
http://www.worldfromtheweb.com/Park.../BrookProm.html


Consider taking a round-trip excursion on the FREE Staten Island ferry. This used to be one of the more romantic approaches to the WTC:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/ma...s/statfery.html


Some other ferry links (not free):

http://www.nywaterway.com/ (commuter ferries to Liberty State Park and Weehawken from Manhattan)
http://www.nywatertaxi.com/


Finally, hang out in neighborhoods with a large student population. Columbia University and NYU/Greenwich Village tend to have cheap eats:

http://www.nyu.edu/infocenter/village/food.html
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/gsac/cuarea.html


You can save even more money if you pack yourselves bag lunches for your daily excursions. Save your money for special things, like a trip to the observation deck of the Empire State Building.

The Apple Store in SOHO beckons, http://www.apple.com/retail/soho/