Where to meet up in Midtown Manhattan
Midtown is New York's main business district, so it suits plans that start at work, like a team lunch, a client meeting or drinks after the office. The Broadway theaters are around Times Square, so Midtown also suits dinner before a show.
Midtown has several large stations. Times Sq-42 St, Grand Central-42 St and 34 St-Herald Sq together serve 18 subway lines on weekdays. The 42 St Shuttle links the first two. The more lines a meeting point has, the more of the group can come without changing trains.
Landmarks that are easy to name in a plan:
- the red steps above the TKTS booth at Broadway and West 47th Street
- Bryant Park, between 40th and 42nd Streets and Fifth and Sixth Avenues
- the main concourse of Grand Central Terminal
- Koreatown, on West 32nd Street near Herald Square
Getting around
- Times Sq-42 St has the 1, 2, 3, 7, N, Q, R and W, plus the 42 St Shuttle to Grand Central. The A, C and E stop at the Eighth Avenue end of the same complex, at 42 St-Port Authority Bus Terminal.
- Grand Central-42 St has the 4, 5, 6, 7 and the shuttle. Metro-North and LIRR trains stop at Grand Central too.
- 34 St-Herald Sq has the B, D, F, M, N, Q, R and W. PATH trains to New Jersey stop at 33 St, at West 33rd Street and Sixth Avenue.
- Penn Station has the 1, 2 and 3 on Seventh Avenue and the A, C and E on Eighth Avenue, plus LIRR, NJ Transit and Amtrak trains.
- 42 St-Bryant Pk has the B, D, F and M, and the 7 stops at 5 Av next to it.
Some of these trains don't run at night or on weekends:
- On weekends, the B, M and W don't run through Midtown.
- Late at night, the B, C, M, R, W and 5 don't run through Midtown either. The 1, 2, 3, 7, A, E, N and Q still stop at Times Sq, and the D, F, N and Q at Herald Sq.
- The 42 St Shuttle stops from about midnight to 6 a.m., as its MTA timetable says. Take the 7 between Times Sq and Grand Central instead.
The MTA's late-night subway map shows every line that runs overnight.