205 Best Sights in New York City, New York

Once the hub of the edgy East Village, St. Marks Place is the name given to idiosyncratic East 8th Street between 3rd Avenue and Avenue A. During the 1950s, beatniks Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac lived in the area; the 1960s brought Bill Graham's Fillmore East ( 105 2nd Ave.) and the experimental Electric Circus nightclub (at Nos. 19–25 St. Marks), where the Velvet Underground and the Grateful Dead played. The shaved-head punk scene followed, and at No. 33, is where the punk store Manic Panic first foisted its lurid hair dyes on the world. At No. 57 stood the short-lived Club 57, which attracted such 1980s stalwarts as artist Keith Haring.

These days, there's not much cutting edge left. Some of the facades lead to luxury condos, and there are a number of global fast-food restaurants for ramen and dumplings. The block between 2nd and 3rd Avenues has turned into a bit of a global fast-food mecca, with boba tea shops and several Asian restaurants alongside stores selling cheap jewelry, smoking paraphernalia, and souvenir T-shirts. The cafés and bars from here over to Avenue A attract customers late into the night—thanks partly to lower drink prices.

This prominent house of worship is the largest Gothic Roman Catholic cathedral in the United States, seating approximately 2,400 congregants, and marked by double spires rising 330 feet. "St. Pat's," as locals call it, provides a calm and quiet refuge in the heart of buzzy Midtown, despite the throngs of tourists: the cathedral receives more than 5 million visitors annually.

The church dates 1858–79, but it was beautifully restored thanks to a major rehabilitation project completed in 2015. Highlights include the choir gallery's century-old organ, with its 7,855 pipes; the famous rose window, considered stained-glass artist Charles Connick's greatest work; and the ornately carved bronze double doors, each weighing 9,200 pounds. A modern depiction of the first American-born saint, Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton, stands in front of the altar bearing her name. The church's Pietà sculpture is three times larger than the version at St. Peter's in Rome.

Daily masses are open and free to the public (check the schedule online) with the exception of Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, which is a ticketed event. Self-guided audio tours ($20 plus tax) are available daily 9 am to 5 pm and VIP docent-led tours Monday through Saturday at 10:30 am and 2 pm; advance purchase is recommended.

If you've seen The Godfather, you've had a peek inside New York's first Roman Catholic cathedral—the interior shots of the infamous baptism scene were filmed here. Dedicated in 1815, this church lost its designation as the seat of New York's bishop when the current St. Patrick's opened uptown in 1879. The unadorned exterior of the cathedral gives no hint of the splendors within, which include an 1868 Henry Erben pipe organ. The interior dates from the 1860s, after a large fire gutted most of the original structure. The enormous marble altar surrounded by hand-carved niches (reredos) houses an extraordinary collection of sacred statuary and other Gothic exuberance. Candlelit tours of the church and its catacombs, along with Most Precious Blood Church, can be booked through  www.tommysnewyork.com.

Open since 1766, St. Paul's is the oldest public building in continuous use in Manhattan. The chapel is part of the Trinity Church Wall Street parish, and in addition to its historic architecture, it's surrounded by a churchyard where Revolutionary War heroes are buried. In more recent times, St. Paul's Chapel served as a makeshift shrine after the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, where visitors from around the world sought solace and shared tokens of grief and support. After serving as a refuge where rescue and recovery workers could eat, pray, rest, and receive counseling through 2001–02, the chapel—which amazingly suffered no damage on 9/11—reopened to the public in fall 2002. The chapel is open for Sunday worship services and occasional interfaith prayer events.

Amid skyscrapers, the two low-rise blocks of bars and restaurants along historic Stone Street feel more like a village than the center of the financial universe. In summer, benches and long tables blanket the cobblestone street for a more convivial mood, especially on Thursday and Friday night. This was Manhattan's first paved street, and today the cluster of buildings along here—with South William and Pearl Streets, and Coenties Alley—make up the Stone Street Historic District.

This memorial to John Lennon, who penned the classic 1967 song "Strawberry Fields Forever," is sometimes called the "international garden of peace." The curving paths, shrubs, trees, and flower beds create a deliberately informal landscape reminiscent of English parks. Every year on December 8, Beatles fans mark the anniversary of Lennon's death by gathering around the star-shape black-and-white "Imagine" mosaic set into the pavement. Lennon's 1980 murder took place across the street at The Dakota, which was home to Lennon and Yoko Ono and has been the residence of other celebrities from Boris Karloff to Leonard Bernstein. The building's elaborate exterior is best admired from Central Park West, as visitors are not welcome in the lobby, and there are no tours.

This block of gorgeous 1890s Georgian and Italian Renaissance Revival homes earned its nickname in the 1920s from less-affluent Harlemites who felt its residents were "striving" to become well-to-do. Some of the few remaining private service alleys, used when deliveries arrived via horse and cart, lie behind these houses and are visible through iron gates. Note the gatepost between Nos. 251 and 253 on 138th Street that reads, "Private Road. Walk Your Horses." These houses were built by the contractor David H. King Jr., whose developments also include Madison Square Garden and the Washington Arch. When the houses failed to sell to white people, the properties on these blocks were sold to Black doctors, lawyers, and other professionals; composers and musicians W. C. Handy and Eubie Blake were also among the residents. If you have the time, detour a block north to see the palazzo-style group of houses designed by Stanford White, on the north side of 139th Street.

Standing on the bluff of Sugar Hill overlooking Jackie Robinson Park, outside the slightly run-down 409 Edgecombe Avenue, you'd never guess that here resided such influential African Americans as NAACP founder W. E. B. DuBois and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. In 1946, Langston Hughes reportedly called it one of Harlem’s “most fashionable addresses." And farther north at 555 Edgecombe (known as the "Triple Nickel"), literary icon Zora Neale Hurston and jazz musicians Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Lena Horne, and others lived, wrote, and played. It's also here that, for more than 25 years, musician Marjorie Eliot has been hosting jazz concerts in her apartment (3F) at 3:30 pm every Sunday. Farther down, at No. 345, you can't miss the Benzinger House with its flared mansard roof. Amid all this history, the modern-looking Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art & Storytelling, at 155th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, gathers local families for programs that encourage the creative spirit of children.

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.

With two floors of exhibition space, the shows here can spread out. Look for innovative modern work in a variety of media, by the likes of Olafur Eliasson, Uta Barth, Ernesto Neto, Lisa Oppenheim, and Sarah Sze, who represented the United States at the 55th Venice Biennale.

Just across Liberty Street from the World Trade Center site, the “Ten House” firehouse is officially known as Ladder Company 10 and Engine Company 10. On the morning of September 11, 2001, firefighters on duty here were among the first to respond to New York’s terrorist attacks. The companies lost six heroes that day. The “Ten House Bravest Memorial” stands inside the firehouse to commemorate their ultimate sacrifice and that of other Ten House heroes. Around the corner on Greenwich Street, the 56-foot-long bronze bas-relief FDNY Memorial Wall serves as a tribute to 343 firefighters who perished on 9/11.

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.

The Today Show doesn't have a studio audience, but if you get yourself to the corner of Rockefeller Center and West 49th Street well before 7 am, with some posterboard and markers (fun signs always get camera time), comfortable shoes (you'll be on your feet for hours), and a smiley, fun attitude, you might get on camera. America's first morning talk-news show airs weekdays from 7 to 10 am in the glass-enclosed, ground-level NBC studio.

In 2014, Saturday Night Live veteran Jimmy Fallon packed up his impressions and sketches, his roster of star friends, and his house band (The Roots) and moved from Late Night to The Tonight Show, filling the big comedic shoes of Jay Leno and Johnny Carson before him. He also moved the show back to New York from Los Angeles, where it had originally resided since 1972. Visit the website to reserve free tickets; they're released during the first week of the month prior to the show.

Occupying a section of land originally granted in 1705 by Queen Anne of England, Trinity Church is considered one of the first and finest examples of Gothic Revival architecture in America. This Episcopal church (the third on this site) was consecrated in 1846 and remained the city's tallest structure until 1890. Among its notable features are its three sets of enormous bronze doors depicting religious and early New York history, as well as some of the earliest examples of American-made stained glass. The churchyard contains the city’s oldest carved gravestone (Richard Churcher, 1681); on its south side, Alexander Hamilton is buried under a marble pyramid, not far from a monument commemorating steamboat inventor Robert Fulton (buried in the Livingston family vault with his wife). Trinity Church recently underwent a major "rejuvenation" project, restoring its historic architecture and adding a new section of stained-glass windows. Episcopalian worship services are held in person on Sunday and online during the week.

In 1925, prominent real-estate developer Fred F. French was among the first Americans ever to buy up a large number of buildings—most of them tenements—and join the properties into a single, massive new complex. He designed a collection of nine apartment buildings and two parks in the "garden city" mode, which placed a building's green space not in an enclosed courtyard, but in the foreground. French also built a 39-by-50-foot "Tudor City" sign atop one of the 22-story buildings, best viewed from the eastern end of 42nd Street. The development's residential towers opened between 1927 and 1930, borrowing a marketable air of sophistication from Tudor-style stonework, stained-glass windows, and lobby-design flourishes. Tudor City has been featured in numerous films, and its landmark gardens—sometimes compared to Gramercy Park, only public—remain a popular lunch spot among office workers. The neighborhood, which is near the United Nations, was designated a historic district in 1988.

Ride the 1 train to its northernmost stop and you'll be greeted—surprisingly—by a park so sprawling and leafy, it's hard to believe you're still technically in New York City. Van Cortlandt started its life as the grounds of a 17th-century plantation built by an officer of the Dutch West India Company, and you can still visit the estate to learn about its generations of owners and the people who were enslaved there.

The park itself has plenty of hiking trails, bridle paths, and sports facilities including a cricket pitch, plus the Van Cortlandt Golf Course, the oldest public golf course in America, which includes a picturesque lake house offering rowing rentals in handmade wooden boats.

The gallery, located in a historic town house on a tree-lined street, features a vast collection of works by contemporary artists from the era of World War II up to the present. Van Doren Waxter represents Caetano de Almeida, Marsha Cottrell, and Farid Haddad, among other artists, while handling secondary market work by Georgia O'Keeffe, Lee Krasner, Roy Lichtenstein, and other revered names.

Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar, among others, host this popular ABC talk show with a live studio audience every Monday to Friday at 11 am. Tickets can be requested in advance but don't always guarantee you'll get in, so be sure to get in line by 10:15 am—or earlier (see ticket instructions). Tapings last about an hour. You must be 16 or older to join.

A rarity in Manhattan, this pretty, brick-covered street—really a glorified alley—is lined on the north side with the former mews (carriage houses) of the area's homes. Although the street is private, gated, and owned by New York University, which uses many of the buildings for clubs and offices, it's open to pedestrian traffic.