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Do you know if they live near public transit or will they be willing to come pick you up from your hotel or station?

ooo that's a tough one. I always wondered about people with babies in the city. If you are actually going to be in manhattan... I wouldn't rent a car. It would be super expensive to park it. But the problem is if you don't have your own car, you are limited pretty much to using the train or the bus with a stroller. Since you can't exactly strap a car seat into a cab very quickly. I would probably just bring the stroller and rely on the trains. NJ Transit and the LIRR are both really easy to use when you need to travel outside the city.

Maybe rent a car for when you're going out of the city? I just think with a LO and you're visiting so you want to conserve time. LIRR isn't available everywhere and neither is the NJ Transit. You often have to take a train to get to them. THen you're at the mercy of the trains schedule which is not as fluid as the MTA.
With a car if timed properly and asking your friends/families for shortcuts it doesn't have to be a 2 hour traffic jam NYC ordeal.

When we took DD (at 15 months), we walked everywhere around NYC. I was a little scared of all the rats in the subway so we walked 90% of the time. We also took the train from NYC to Philly, and it was very comfortable and convenient.

If you are going to a lot of different destinations, I would rent a car; if you'll only be in one or two places, I would take the train.

You've gotten a lot of good advice so far! It's hard to make a perfect plan, so what I always did when living in NYC was take local transportation like subways and trains while in the 5 boroughs and make as much use of LIRR/Amtrack/Metro North as possible.

I'd rent a car now though, if going out to LI or NJ. FOr 11 months old, I'd still be using the bucket infant seat and a snap in frame. YOu can easily install the car seat in a cab without the base and you can snap it in when on a bus or train.