Get a bite, make art and see shows

The Russian Tea Room is next door to Carnegie Hall, but that doesn’t mean you must eat there. Because of this restaurant’s long history as a Carnegie Hall-adjacent hangout (Leonard Bernstein wrote music here), I felt obliged to take a seat beneath the old samovars and gold ceiling.

I had been warned that it would be garish, expensive and full of tourists, but there was only one way to be sure. For the record, my beef stroganoff was tender and arrived quickly — but then for $42 US, it should have. russiantearoomnyc.com.

Art Students League of New York

Barely 100 yards from the hall, you can get soup for $4, sketch a model for $7 and see where some of America’s greatest artists have honed their skills. The Art Students League of New York, whose building at 215 W. 57th St. is just a year younger than Carnegie Hall, has counted Thomas Hart Benton, Alexander Calder, Georgia O’Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, Jackson Pollock, Romare Bearden and Mark Rothko among its students and teachers.

Check out the league’s gallery of student work, then climb the stairs to the plain, cheap, touristfree cafeteria. Order at the counter and nurse that soup.

Or show up a little before 5 p.m. any weekday, hand over $7 and join a studio sketching session with a live model. theartstudentsleague.org.

Lincoln Center

You can’t ignore Lincoln Center. This enormous complex (30 indoor and outdoor venues clustered around Broadway and West 65th Street) arose in the 1960s as New York’s performing arts hub. Besides the New York Philharmonic and several other organizations, it’s home to the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet and the Juilliard School.

I paid $25.50 to catch a sprightly Sunday morning performance by Trio con Brio Copenhagen (piano, violin and cello) in the centRE’s 268-seat Reade Hall. lincolncenter.org

CAROLYN COLE, LOS ANGELES TIMES In the vicinity of Carnegie Hall you can visit the Russian Tea Room at 150 W. 57th St., where high tea is served at 2 p.m. each day.