Bonding time for Obama, teenage daughters during NYC getaway

New York, Jul 19: It's inevitable: At some point, teenage kids just aren't that into their parents anymore. Parent Barack Obama, who happens to be president, set out to combat that trend by hanging out with his teenage girls on a New York overnighter.

The trio, plus some of the girls' friends, seemed intent on packing a lot into their 24 hours together in the city. But no one was out of the hotel door too early on a rainy today morning after zigzagging around Manhattan in dad's motorcade into the wee hours last night.

They finally emerged about 11:30 a.m., as the sun broke though, for a quick stroll through Central Park, joined by the president's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng and her husband, Konrad Ng.

Next it was lunch in Gramercy Park at Upland, featuring California-inspired cuisine. Then they were off to a matinee of "Hamilton," the hit hip-hop Broadway musical about the nation's first treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, and the Founding Fathers.

The Obamas had lingered past 11 p.m. over dinner at an Italian place in Greenwich Village yesterday and took an after-hours tour of the Whitney Museum that lasted until midnight.

A New York weekend was Obama's idea. He often laments that his girls are less interested in spending time with him now that they are older. But the concept gets a little complicated, of course, when dad is the president.

Obama's every move requires massive security precautions that tie the bustling streets of New York in knots, and he can attract throngs of onlookers in an instant.

The 20-minute walk in Central Park prompted pedicabs, bikers, skaters, horse-drawn carriages and walkers to stop cold as people whipped out cellphone cameras to capture the moment.

AP