119 Best Sights in New York City, New York

Founded in 1980, MOCA is dedicated to preserving and presenting the history of the Chinese people and their descendants in the United States. The current building, near the boundary between Chinatown and Little Italy (many would say it's in Little Italy), was designed by Maya Lin, architect of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. MOCA's core exhibition on Chinese American history, With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America, includes artworks, personal and domestic artifacts, historical documentation, and films. Chinese laundry tools, a traditional general store, and antique business signs are some of the unique objects on display. Rotating exhibitions are held in another gallery. MOCA also sponsors workshops, neighborhood walking tours, lectures, and family events.

Inside the Empire Stores building is this small, family-friendly museum that does a deep dive into the food and drinks that tantalize our taste buds and appease our appetites. Going beyond what we see served at the dining table, the rotating interactive exhibitions here explore the science, culture, history, and communities behind the scenes of our meals. 

Founded in 1901, the Society of Illustrators holds many events and programs at this former town house--turned-museum. There are eclectic exhibitions on comics, science fiction, fashion, animation and 3-D, and historic illustrations from the permanent collection of 2,500 pieces, including the holdings of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA). In addition, there are lectures, costumed sketch nights and more. On the third floor, order a drink from the 128 Bar, which sports Norman Rockwell's "The Dover Coach," a large-scale oil painting for the Saturday Evening Post that was donated by the illustrator himself.

In a granite, 85-foot-tall hexagon at the southern end of Battery Park City, this museum aims to educate visitors on the "broad tapestry of Jewish life in the 20th and 21st centuries—before, during, and after the Holocaust." Architects Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo designed the six-sided museum to be symbolic of the Star of David, and its three floors of exhibits demonstrate the dynamism of Jewish culture. Visitors enter through a gallery that provides context for the early-20th-century artifacts on the first floor: an elaborate screen hand-painted for the fall harvest festival of Sukkoth, tools used by Jewish tradesmen, and wedding invitations. Other exhibits present the rise of Nazism and anti-Semitism and the ravages of the Holocaust. Signs of hope are also on display, including a trumpet that Louis Bannet, “the Dutch Louis Armstrong,” played for three years in the Auschwitz-Birkenau inmate orchestra. The third floor covers postwar Jewish life. The museum's east wing has a theater, memorial garden, library, galleries, and café. A free audio guide, with narration by Meryl Streep and Itzhak Perlman, is available at the admissions desk.

The city's present, past, and future are explored through visually engaging exhibits on subjects such as architecture, fashion, history, pop culture, and politics in a Georgian Colonial Revival building, designed for the museum in the 1930s, along 5th Avenue's Museum Mile. The award-winning, ongoing exhibition New York at Its Core explores the sweeping and diverse facets of the city's 400-year history through artifacts, photographs, archival film, and interactive digital experiences. Timescapes, a 28-minute innovative media projection, illustrates New York's physical expansion and population changes (free headsets available with translations in French, Spanish, and Mandarin), or Activist New York, an ongoing exploration of the city's history of social activism. You also can find New York–centric lectures, films, family programming, and self-guided and curated tours here. The on-site Chalsty's Café serves sweet treats, savory snacks, breakfast, and lunch, and the Museum Shop is a great place to pick up a Big Apple souvenir. After your visit, cross the street and stroll through the Vanderbilt Gate to enter the Conservatory Garden, one of Central Park's gems.

There's no exact formula to get kids excited about math, but the sleek two-floor National Museum of Mathematics (MoMath)—the only cultural institution of its kind in all of North America—comes close to finding the perfect fun-to-math ratio. Kids can ride square-wheel trikes, create human fractal trees, build virtual 3-D geometric shapes (which can be printed out on a 3-D printer for a fee), use lasers to explore cross sections of objects, solve dozens of puzzles, and generally bend their minds. The popular Robot Swarm exhibition allows kids to explore swarm robotics and interact with two dozen small (Roomba-like) glowing robots using simple math rules. Exhibits are best suited to kids aged six and up, but preschoolers can still enjoy many interactive exhibits like the Math Square, a light-up floor programmed with math games, simulations, and patterns.

The museum closes at 2:30 pm the first Wednesday of every month.

The National Museum of Mathematics (aka MoMath) transforms math into hands-on fun for all ages—even if numbers aren’t your thing. Solve mind-bending puzzles, ride a trike with square wheels, make your own color patterns with magnetic tiles, play brain games at interactive stations, and much more. Adults will love it as much as kids, making it a rare museum where everyone can geek out. Don’t miss the stellar gift shop, packed with clever, math-inspired finds.

Massive granite columns rise to a pediment topped by a double row of statues at the marvelous Beaux-Arts Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House (1907), which is home to the New York branch of this Smithsonian museum (the other is in Washington, D.C.). Inside, the oval stairwell and rotunda embellished with shipping-theme murals (completed in the 1930s) is well worth a look. The permanent exhibition, Infinity of Nations, is an encyclopedic survey of Native American cultures from across the continent, with the entire museum preserving more than 825,000 art pieces and artifacts dating from ancient to modern times. The venue presents changing exhibitions, videos and films, dance, music, and storytelling programs. There's also an excellent Museum Store serving as NYC's best place to purchase authentic Native American merchandise.

You can join the gawking crowds watching news tapings outside the NBC studios (which are in the art deco GE Building on Rockefeller Plaza), or you can get even closer to the action (without having to elbow anyone) by taking a slick behind-the-scenes tour of the legendary studios. Tours depart every 20 minutes daily, delving into the history of television and the actual recording studios of some of the network's top shows, like Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and NBC Nightly News. Tours start at the Shop at NBC Studios (49th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues); visitors must reserve tickets, which are sold online, in advance, and children must be at least six years old.

At the northwestern edge of Flushing Meadows Corona Park, this museum has more than 400 hands-on exhibits that make science a playground for inquisitive minds of all ages. Learn about the science behind bubbles by playing with them at The Big Bubble Experiment. Immerse yourself in Maker Space, where activities like woodworking, 3-D printing, and building electronics rotate daily. The 3D Movie Theatre, Rocket Park Mini Golf, and Science Playground require extra fees.

This reconstructed Dutch farmhouse dating back to 1699 played a central role in the Battle of Brooklyn, one of the largest battles of the Revolutionary War. In the 1880s, it served as the clubhouse of the early Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team, and today it's a small, family-friendly museum that looks back at the history of the site, from the Lenape tribes to Revolutionary times in Brooklyn, from the 1640s to 1783. Art exhibits, concerts, plays, and other community events take place year-round.

There are several thrills involved in visiting One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, not the least of which are the spectacular views of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and New Jersey. If you time your visit around dusk, you'll get daytime views as well as sunset and sparkling evening lights. The observatory occupies the 100th, 101st, and 102nd floors of One WTC, and the experience includes an exhilarating trip up in the world's fastest elevators, during which a journey through history is projected on the elevator walls. After you step out at the top, there's also a two-minute video of time-lapse images of Lower Manhattan. The ground floor has exhibits and personal stories about the building of the tower. Admission prices rise for "priority" entrance and other combo tickets (best bought online with timed entry); the box office, security checkpoint, and observatory entrance are on the West Street side of the tower. With some reservations, you can purchase prix-fixe dining or bar packages for ONE Dine restaurant on the 101st floor, which include observatory tickets.

Adjacent to Flushing Meadows Corona Park, these 39 acres include rose and herb gardens, an arboretum, and plantings especially designed to attract bees and birds. An environmentally friendly visitor center uses solar energy and recycles gray water. To learn more about what you're looking at, use the garden's guides, like the summer plant walk guide, the Indigenous Heritage plant guide, or the winter plant walk guide.

Between the zoo and the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park lies the Queens Museum. Don't miss the astonishing Panorama of the City of New York, a nearly 900,000-building model of NYC made for the 1964 World's Fair, and the world's largest scale model. There are also rotating exhibitions of contemporary art, a massive map of the NYC water supply system, a permanent collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass, and an ongoing a mural display by Caroline Kent. Parking is free but limited.

Flushing Meadows Corona Park is home to the intimate Queens Zoo, featuring animals of North and South America. The 18-acre facility includes pumas, Andean bears, Canadian lynx, and southern pudus, the world’s smallest deer species. The zoo also maintains a farm with domestic animals including sheep, goats, horses, rabbits, and more. The last ticket is sold 30 minutes before closing.

In 1986, local artist Mark di Suvero and other residents rallied to transform what had been an abandoned landfill and illegal dump site into this 5-acre waterfront park devoted to public art. Today, a superb view of the East River and Manhattan frames changing exhibitions of contemporary sculptures and topical multimedia installations. A farmers' market, outdoor yoga, and free public programs, including workshops and performances, are offered seasonally April to October. Socrates is open 365 days a year, 9 am to sunset, but the best time to visit is during warmer months.

Head to this unique Manhattan museum, housed inside Schermerhorn Row's early-19th-century brick buildings, to understand the history of The Seaport—and its importance in making New York the ultimate commercial harbor of early America. The museum's visitor center ( 12 Fulton St.) leads you to fascinating exhibits within the carefully preserved, landmarked spaces, and ties into displays at the printing house around the corner ( 211 Water St.) and inside Cannon's Walk ( 206 Front St.). Many find that The Seaport Museum's main attractions, however, are the four restored tall ships docked in the harbor at Pier 16. Museum visits include access (weather permitting) on the 1907 lightship Ambrose and the 1885 ship Wavertree. There are also public sailings of the 1885 schooner Pioneer. The museum organizes walking tours of the area, too. (Creative nonfiction lovers take note: Joseph Mitchell's collection of early New York stories, Up in the Old Hotel, brings to life tales from the neighborhood and the hotel that once occupied some of today's South Street Seaport Museum spaces.) Consult the website for hours and tours that change seasonally.

In 1968, the Studio Museum in Harlem opened to celebrate artists of African descent. In 2018, the museum closed for a $300 million renovation and expansion project, and is slated to finally reopen in fall 2025 after a seven-year hiatus. The reopening will feature work from Tom Lloyd, an activist who was a focal point of the institution's opening 56 years ago. There will be works of art dating back to the early 1800s, showcasing more than 200 years of work by Black creatives, such as Houston E. Conwill, David Hammons, and Glenn Ligon.

Swing Low, a bronze statue of abolitionist Harriet Tubman rising from a traffic triangle at the crossroads of St. Nicholas Avenue, West 122nd Street, and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, was created in 2007 by sculptor Alison Saar. Inspired by West African "passport" masks, the striking monument incorporates the faces of "anonymous passengers" of the Underground Railroad in Tubman's skirt. The granite base includes bronze tiles that depict pivotal events in Tubman's life and traditional quilting patterns.

This is the most energetic part of New York City, a cacophony of flashing lights and shoulder-to-shoulder crowds that many New Yorkers studiously avoid. Originally named after the New York Times (whose headquarters has since relocated to 8th Avenue), the area has seen many changes since the first subway line, which included a 42nd Street station, opened in 1904. The area was once a bastion of the city's unseemly side, but today it's a vibrant, family-friendly destination, with pedestrian-only plazas that line Broadway with tables, chairs, and granite benches. There’s no longer a visitor center here, since the Official NYC Information Center is down at 151 West 34th Street in Herald Square, with maps, brochures, coupons, and a bilingual staff.

The focus of the entertainment might have shifted over the years, but live shows are still the heart of Midtown's theater scene, and there are 40 Broadway theaters nearby. (A few of the most historic theaters are spotlighted in this chapter's introduction.) Learn about Broadway's history and architecture on a two-hour Times Square walking tour by Manhattan Walking Tours ( $50  Daily at 10:30 am  www.manhattanwalkingtour.com) or join the two-hour guided Inside Broadway tour ( $39  Daily at 4 pm  www.insidebroadwaytours.com) that leaves from the George M. Cohan statue at West 46th Street and Broadway.

Each year, from late August through early September, approximately 1 million fans come here for the U.S. Open, which claims the title of highest-attended annual sporting event in the world. The rest of the year, the 34 courts (19 outdoor and 12 indoor, all DecoTurf, plus three stadium courts) are open to the public for $40–$80 hourly. Ball machine rentals are also available for $18 per hour. Make reservations up to two days in advance. Parking is free but limited.

Honoring the history of the 19th-century Black community of Weeksville, one of the first communities of free Blacks in New York (founded by James Weeks), this Crown Heights museum with an industrial-modern building by Caples Jefferson Architects has rotating exhibitions, botanical gardens, and three preserved houses on gravely Hunterfly Road in the back, dating back to 1838. Tours inside these structures depicting life in the 1860s, 1900s, and 1930s can be booked through their website.