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Wifi Free Places To Unplug in NYC

It’s hard to find time to sneak out of the city for a weekend getaway. But even when you can’t escape the city, there are still some places where you can bypass wifi and make a quick escape from the bustle and grind.

Here are some of our favorite wifi free places to hang in New York City:

MCNALLY JACKSON SOHO, 52 Prince Street, New York NY
Open Monday -Saturday, 10 AM – 10 PM; Sun. 10 AM – 9 PM

Tucked away in SoHo, this local bookstore provides hours of inspirational wandering with well-curated titles and a tiny cafe to boot. We recommend snagging a seat early on the weekends, and while the fold-down single seat tables are small they provide space for everything you need and nothing you don’t. McNally Jackson is legendary for its selection and its staunch wifi-free policy.

 

JEFFERSON MARKET GARDEN, 14 Greenwich Avenue, New York NY
Open April through October, Tuesday – Sunday, 9 AM to Dusk

Just south of the Jefferson Market Branch of the New York Public Library, this small private garden is the perfect place to be transported to another world. With its winding paths and diversity of local flora, the park is an oasis in the heart of the Village. Come here and reap the benefits of nature in New York City.

 

CLOCKWORK BAR, 21 Essex Street, New York NY
Open Monday – Sunday, 11 AM – 4  AM

When work’s around the corner but you want to feel a thousand miles away, duck into Clockwork, a grungy dive on the border of the Lower East Side and Chinatown. Follow the narrow bar to the back and enjoy all day drink specials in a graffiti-covered back room that can make it feel like midnight at any time of day.  

 

CAFÉ GRUMPY PARK CHELSEA, 224 West 20th Street, New York NY
Open Monday –Friday., 7 AM – 8 PM; Saturday, 7:30 AM – 8 PM; Sunday, 7:30 AM – 7:30 PM

In keeping with its curmudgeonly name, this specialty coffee chain has rejected wifi and has a strict no laptop policy at the majority of locations, including Park Slope, Lower East Side, Fashion District, Grand Central Terminal, and Nolita. But by far the prettiest places for a breather is its tree-lined Chelsea location, where you can relax on a cute patio.

 

NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT MUSEUM, 99 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn NY
Open Tuesday – Friday, 10 AM – 4 PM; Saturday + Sunday, 11 AM – 5 PM

While most of the city’s museums have given in to the wifi trend, not this underground homage to the world ’s largest rapid transit system, which is housed in a decommissioned subway station. Extra points for lacking consistent cell service, meaning you can explore the city’s old subway cars truly free from interruption.  

In need of a more definite escape? Check out our NYC Outpost, featuring wifi free cabins just two hours outside of the city.

Artist Fellowship | Features

Getaway Artist Fellow Profile: Anna Tullis

Anna Tullis has been all around the US. Born in Colorado, she moved to Kansas City to work for a non-profit before relocating to Los Angeles to attend college. These days, she finds herself in New York City, recently having completed a graduate degree at The Juilliard School of Drama.

As an actor, writer, and photographer, Anna enjoys crafting anecdotes about the people, passersby, and surroundings she observes. Informed by her photography, these ideas morph into short stories, vignettes, and poems that feed her expression on the stage and screen.

Anna Tullis Cabin Exterior

After four rigorous years of graduate school, she is mindful to allot time to escape it all. To get away from the bustle of New York City, Anna enjoys traveling upstate, visiting her home in Colorado, people watching in Washington Square Park, or sitting at home in her room and rediscovering serenity.

Anna Tullis Trees

As an Artist Fellow, Anna integrated the solitude and peacefulness of our New York Outpost with its opposite: the constant, taxing presence and pressure of the crowds in New York City. One of her goals was to find inspiration and quiet in nature, to be still, listen, observe, and nurture her innermost self and refuel.

She produced a series of photos and written pieces formatted on her typewriter, capturing nature’s expressiveness through the stillness, aromas, animals, and colors of the Catskills and her tiny cabin in late fall. Enjoy one of her ethereal creations here.

Anna Tullis Poetry

Features

Give Back this MLK Day

This long weekend, consider spending doing something for your community. Ever since the 1980s, Martin Luther King Jr. Day has been marked a day of service and it now serves as an annual reminder to volunteer in the communities we live and work in.

We’ve picked one volunteer event in New York, DC, and Boston that you can sign up to participate in this Monday.

New York

Public parks are important – they serve as small gateways to the natural world within our cities, and we believe in keeping them clean. Join the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation for one of the cleanup projects happening in Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx.

Help keep the outdoors clean.

Boston

A collection of local volunteer organizations, including The Massachusetts Service Alliance and Mayor Walsh’s Senior Corps, are joining together to create care packages for homeless youth in Boston. Volunteers will work together and learn about youth homelessness.

D.C.

Lend a helping hand at the annual blanket and toiletry drive. Volunteers will help package and deliver 1,200 kits to people in need in DC, Prince George’s County, and Montgomery County. You can also donate blankets, shelf-stable snacks, and hygiene products.

The list doesn’t end there. There are plenty of places that still need volunteers for this Monday and many other ways to support local organizations, national parks, and more. Here at Getaway, we hope everyone has a happy MLK Day.