Sheep-Goats posted:

Macintosh: Sign up for The Skint, Nonsensenyc and maybe Brokelyn (email lists of cheap / often off beat events, Google will find them easily) now and go through the things they mail you. I went to a free storytelling thing last week (which was at a bar but there was no one at the door so you could have went in and talked a qt girl into buying you a drink) with people from NPR and The Moth and whatnot. When you get here buy a Time Out New York magazine (available in many news shops) which lists a lot of events with a cent sign meaning they're cheap or with a little 18+ logo I'd they let non-drinking age people in. Some bars here are very aggressive with carding, others don't seem to care that much. Many venues just do wrist bands for over 21.

Something I always do with visitors is the Met. It's a big museum, it's on the subway maps, and while they suggest 20 bucks for admission you can pay what you want for your admissions button (their building is on public land, it's part of their charter). I usually do a dollar a person. They have a sickening amount of fine art, an awesome arms and armor exhibit (Henry the 8ths armor, a muramasa katana, some rad horse armor, etc etc), a little Egyptian temple preserved in its entirety, and lots of other puerile for you to meet and spend the rest of your day with if you're so inclined.

For cheap eats concentrate on the food trucks which range from gourmet to basic but are never too expensive. Ippudo Ramen is a fun, not too expensive Big Meal Out for you which won't break your budget (15 for one of the city's most well regarded bowls, lots of atmosphere). Get there exactly at 5pm (or even a little earlier on the weekend) unless you love lines.

Any particular interests?

I live in NYC so I'm not allowed to know anything about NJ transit. But if I wanted to I'd type in New Jersey Transit which is the name for their public transport system I think and do some searches. I'd be surprised if there was no way to get from EWR to Ridgewood. I work weekends so I can't show you around or anything.