119 Best Sights in New York City, New York

In this five-story exploratorium, children ages one to seven are invited to paint their own masterpieces, float boats down a "stream" (seasonal), rescue animals with Dora and Diego (in an exhibition created in collaboration with Nickelodeon), and walk through or crawl under larger-than-life contemporary sculptures at Inside Art. In the immersive, comic book–inspired Superpowered Metropolis exhibit, a trio of lively pigeons—Zip, Zap, and Zoom—guide you through a 1,500-square-foot space equipped with interactive features like a climbable, two-story tree house. Special exhibits are thoughtfully put together and fun. Art workshops, science programs, and storytelling sessions are held daily.

The CMA encourages children ages 1 to 15 to get creative through a variety of mediums. Along with the requisite children's museum offerings like pencils, chalk, and paint, you'll find a clay bar; a media lab with mounted cameras and a recording studio; a small slide and colorful ball pond that kids can play in; an airy exhibition space with rotating exhibits (and workshops inspired by exhibits); a permanent collection of children's art from more than 50 countries; and classes in ceramics, origami, animation, filmmaking, and more. Check the website for a busy calendar of events.

Subway tokens, Statue of Liberty figurines, and other artifacts you might find in a New York City time capsule crowd the displays of this quirky, community-run museum inside a former bodega. While exhibitions rotate, one that's found permanence is of actual children's letters addressed to Spider-Man, sent to his comic book address in Queens. 

This 2½-mile beach, flanked by the Riegelmann Boardwalk and the amusement park rides beyond, has become an essential part of New York legend. Although open (and visited) year-round, the beach really heats up in summer, when it can feel like the entire population of New York is out sunning and swimming. In winter, you'll see Russian, Eastern European, and Central Asian inhabitants of neighboring Brighton Beach strolling the boardwalk in their Sunday best. Moreover, the annual Polar Bear Plunge on January 1 sees thousands of revelers greet the new year by diving into the frigid waters of the Atlantic. Run by the Coney Island Polar Bear Club ( www.polarbearclub.org), a winter bathing club founded in 1903, it's free and open to everyone as long as they've registered on the website—although donations are highly encouraged at registration, to benefit local nonprofits and the community. Amenities: toilets; food and drink. Best for: swimming; people-watching.

The star attraction at Deno's is the towering 150-foot-tall Wonder Wheel, a New York City landmark. The Ferris wheel first opened in 1920, making it the oldest ride in Coney Island, and the spectacular views from the top take in a long stretch of the shoreline. Higher speed thrills come from the Phoenix, the harrowing, inverted steel-track roller coaster. For the tots, there's the Pony Carts and a brightly painted carousel. Older kids will appreciate Stop the Zombies, a virtual-reality arcade game.

Once the grounds of the Domino Sugar Factory, this riverside park tastefully incorporates clunky metal remnants of its refinery past, including its Artifact Walk, an elevated walkway with Manhattan skyline views. There's also a playground, a garden, dancing fountains, and Tacocina, a walk-up eatery from Danny Meyer of Shake Shack fame. You’ll see locals at the bocce court or playing with their pooches at the dog run, but most of all, you’ll marvel at a truly spectacular view of the Williamsburg Bridge, seemingly right above your head.

Cherished by residents for its grassy knolls and superb Manhattan views, this park contains vestiges of the 19th-century dock that once occupied these 7 acres. On Saturday, more than a hundred vendors sell artisanal goods at the Smorgasburg open-air market (see Chapter 8, Park Slope and Prospect Park, for full listing). The park can get crowded on summer weekends, so don't be surprised if you find yourself scavenging for an open patch of grass.

El barrio, Spanish for "the neighborhood," is the nickname for East Harlem, a largely Spanish-speaking community; the museum, on the edge of this neighborhood, focuses on Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean art. Founded in 1969, the museum's permanent collection of more than 8,500 objects is highlighted through evolving themes, including women, African and Indigenous artists, Latinx representation and more. Art and crafts from Latin America are prominent. One highlight is the over 300 santos, carved wooden folk-art figures from Puerto Rico. El Teatro, formerly the Heckscher Children's Theater, has stunning 30-foot murals and stained-glass roundels. The museum's events include lectures, films, festivals and parties for Latin and Caribbean holidays, including a Three Kings Day parade.

Turned over to the National Park Service in 1994, this 226-acre historical military site on the Narrows of New York Harbor was on defense from the Revolutionary War to World War II. Today, it's the starting point of the New York Marathon each November, and makes for a relaxed summertime hangout, with views of Battery Weed and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Tours and events are ongoing but irregular, so make sure to check their website's calendar beforehand.

Join New Yorkers cyling, strolling, playing tennis, picnicking, and in summer, partying in droves on the lively and scenic stretch of park that runs from West 155th Street alongside the Hudson River under the George Washington Bridge (G.W.B.) and up to Dyckman Street in Inwood. The park offers unique views of Manhattan, and spectacular views of the bridge and the tree-filled cliffs of New Jersey Palisades across the way. The Little Red Lighthouse, a beloved local icon (and popular photo op) made famous in a children's storybook—The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge, written by Hildegarde Swift and Lynd Ward in 1942—is the island of Manhattan's last remaining lighthouse.  If you don't want to walk along the river from 155th Street and just want to visit the lighthouse and linger in the park under the G.W.B., enter the park at 181st Street. You can also grab a CitiBike on 181st Street.

Designed by Louis Kahn, this triangular-shaped park, at Roosevelt Island's southernmost tip, is a public memorial to FDR and honors his 1941 State of the Union address emphasizing the universal freedoms of speech, worship, and freedom from want and fear. A large stone inscribed with this portion of his speech and a bronze bust of the president by sculptor Jo Davidson are on view here. Venture up a 100-foot-wide staircase or along the linden-tree aligned paved walkways going toward a three-sided open-air chamber. Here, the skyline views of Manhattan and Queens's Long Island City neighborhood are rewardingly photogenic.

One of the last stretches of the Hudson River Park to be transformed from wasteland to a verdant well-manicured oasis, Gansevoort Peninsula opened in fall 2023. The main attraction is a sandy beach on the Hudson, complete with Adirondack chairs and beach umbrellas to take in the view. The 5.5 acre pierlike space just south of Little Island also boasts a soccer field, picnic tables, and large patches of lawn for frolicking.

You may spot famous film and television locations around the city, but no firehouse is quite as eye-catching as the one whose exterior was made famous by the 1984 blockbuster Ghostbusters. (Its interiors were filmed in a studio.) The 1903 building is still the active home of FDNY Hook & Ladder Company 8, which ran with the ghost-busting theme for its logo—you’ll find the movie’s iconic ghost and red-circle strikethrough combined with the FDNY badge painted on the pavement out front. Movie buffs can buy a T-shirt with the logo, too, at  www.fdnyshop.com.

Located in Roosevelt Island Lighthouse Park, this intriguing and monumental sculpture honors Nelly Bly, the journalist who exposed the horrors of the island's Women’s Lunatic Asylum by going undercover as a patient. Simultaneously, it spotlights women who have endured—and overcome—hardship. Shown as sections of faces in silver for Bly, and bronze for the others, the pieces represent being both broken and repaired. Also on-site, just behind the sculpture, is the Roosevelt Island Lighthouse. The stone structure was built by the New York City government in 1872. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and is also a New York City Landmark.

Built as a country retreat by Scottish-born shipping magnate Archibald Gracie in 1799, when New York City ended much farther downtown, Gracie Mansion was made the official residence of the city's mayors in 1942. The first mayoral resident, Fiorello LaGuardia, dubbed it the "Little White House." More recently, former mayor Michael Bloomberg stayed in his own town house nearby while pouring millions into renovating the house and turning the first floor into a museum reflecting the city's history and diversity. Some mayors were hesitant about moving into Gracie Mansion; Eric Adams, the current mayor, has publicly said that the mansion is haunted, but he has been focusing on making "the People's House" more experiential to visitors. Public tours of the building are offered on Monday at 10:30 am, noon, and 1:30 pm and to private and school groups on Wednesday. Reservations must be made online; plan at least a month in advance, if possible.

The truly great 14-acre oval has endured billions of footsteps, thousands of ball games, hundreds of downpours, scores of concerts including regular events by the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera, the annual Global Citizen concert of superstars, and even the crush of people attending one papal Mass. The lawn and adjoining Turtle Pond are located on the site of a former reservoir for the 19th-century Croton Aqueduct system, which was filled in early in the 20th century. Yet it's the stuff of a suburbanite's dream—perfectly tended turf (a mix of rye and Kentucky bluegrass), state-of-the-art drainage systems, automatic sprinklers, and careful horticultural monitoring. The area hums with action on weekends and most summer evenings, when its softball fields and picnicking grounds provide a popular and much-needed outlet for city folk (and city dogs) of all ages, just as the Sheep Meadow does a bit farther south in the park. Although Central Park is dog-friendly, dogs must be on a leash.

Catching Hamilton on Broadway isn't the only way to learn about the famed Founding Father. Alexander Hamilton and his wife raised eight kids in this Federal-style country home, which he called his "sweet project." Once located on Hamilton's 32 acres, the Grange, named after his father's childhood home in Scotland, has moved three times since it was built in 1802. It now stands in St. Nicholas Park and gives a lesson in Hamilton's life, from his birth in the West Indies and his appointment as the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury to his authorship of The Federalist Papers and his death following a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr. The house's ground floor, formerly servants' quarters, hosts an interactive exhibit that includes a short film on Hamilton's life. Tours include views of the parlor, study, dining room, and two guest rooms. Note the beautiful piano, which belonged to his daughter, Angelica.

New York City's only living-history museum is like a small-scale version of Virginia's Colonial Williamsburg. This 100-acre village, constructed from the 1670s to the early 19th century, was the site of Staten Island's original county seat. Thirteen of the site's 30 historic buildings (28 landmarked) are open to the public. During Open Village season (May–August), you can wander town to encounter historical interpreters in period dress demonstrating Early American crafts and trades such as tinsmithing, broom making, and basket making, or talking politics in the village tavern. During the cold months when most reenactors are on hiatus, guided tours are still available for a few buildings, along with the Historical Museum, built in 1848, housing thousands of Staten Island artifacts within the nine galleries.

This 7,000-square-foot museum in the heart of Little Italy focuses—as you'd guess from the name—on the Italian American experience and history. There are exhibitions on Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European to sail into New York Harbor (in 1524), and on Italian immigration to New York in the late-19th and early-20th centuries—with some nods to famous Italian Americans along the way. 

This popular green space that runs along the East River is undergoing large-scale renovations as the City of New York, in conjunction with the federal government, work on a project to reduce the risks of flooding from storms and sea-level rising. Sections of the park, with its spectacular views of Brooklyn and the Manhattan Bridge, will remain open, but check the website for changing access points. The NYC Ferry dock, located at Corlears Hook, will also remain accessible.

The highlight of this 26-acre space in Prospect Park is the pair of all-season open-air rinks—for ice-skating when it's frigid, and roller skating otherwise. Walkways, a lakeside esplanade, and the Music Island nature reserve—all part of the original Olmsted and Vaux plans—contribute to this area of the park that's a pleasant place for a stroll, bike or pedal-boat ride, bumper car session, or a bite at its Bluestone Cafe. In the summer, kids can cool off at the splash pad by day, while DJs spin at theme roller-skating nights on weekends by night.

Much of the fun here comes from photo opportunities—you're encouraged to pose with and touch the more than 200 realistic replicas of the famous, infamous, and downright super. Croon with Tina Turner and Taylor Swift, swoon to your favorite heartthrob (be it Justin Bieber or Justin Timberlake), strike a fierce pose with RuPaul and Heidi Klum, or enjoy a royal chat with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, aka William and Kate. 

The Marvel 4-D Experience includes wax likenesses of heroes like the Hulk, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, and Thor, as well as a short animated movie shown on a 360-degree screen. Other interactive options include a karaoke café, a celebrity walk down the red carpet, and a Sports Zone where you can see how you measure up to legends like Serena Williams and Lionel Messi. Note that closing hours vary during peak seasons, but the last tickets sold are always one hour prior.

The benches of this elegant, tree-filled park afford great views of some of the city's oldest and most charming skyscrapers—the Flatiron Building, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower, the gold-crowned New York Life Insurance Building, and even (to the north) the Empire State Building—and serve as a perfect vantage point for people, pigeon, and dog watching. Add free Wi-Fi, Shake Shack, temporary art exhibits, and free summer and fall concerts, and you realize that a bench here is certainly a special place to be.

New York City's first baseball games were played in this 7-acre park in 1845. On its north end, an 1881 statue by Augustus Saint-Gaudens memorializes Civil War naval hero Admiral David Farragut. An 1876 statue of Secretary of State William Henry Seward (the Seward of the term "Seward's Folly," coined when the United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867) sits in the park's southwest corner, though it's rumored that the sculptor placed a reproduction of the statesman's head on a statue of Abraham Lincoln's body.

After a $7.9 million renovation completed in fall of 2019, a 47-foot cast-iron watchtower (Julius Kroehl, 1865), the last remnant of a citywide network used to spot and report fires in pretelephone days, once again stands atop a 70-foot-high outcrop of Manhattan schist (the same bedrock that anchors the city's skyscrapers) at the center of this historic, tree-filled public square. Around it, an Acropolis provides great views of Manhattan and the handsome neoclassical row houses of Mount Morris Park Historic District, which extends west from the park. In summer, check out musical and stage performances at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater and at the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival (at the end of August).