10 Best Sights in New York City, New York

Internationally renowned, this cultural destination attracts more than 6.5 million visitors annually to its massive, white-travertine-clad complex of buildings, including the homes of the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, the Juilliard School, the Film Center, a branch of the New York Public Library specializing in the performing arts, and the Damrosch Park outdoor performance space. All of this makes Lincoln Center one of the nation's most concentrated destinations for the performing arts. The16-acre campus, containing 30 venues in all, was designed by prolific New York architect Wallace Harrison and was built over the course of several years from 1962 to 1969. When David Geffen Hall reopened in fall 2022 after a two-year $550 million renovation, the acoustically superior venue—home to the New York Philharmonic, the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States—evoked and honored the vibrant Black and Puerto Rican neighborhood that had been razed to make way for the complex with a multimedia piece by the composer Etienne Charles called “San Juan Hill.” The opening included a commitment to making programming more accessible to all audiences: performances from within the Wu Tsai Theater will be simulcast on the lobby’s Hauser Digital Wall for anyone to experience and rotating visual artworks will also be shown on the digital wall as well as on the facade on 65th Street at Broadway. You can also get a glimpse of artists working and rehearsing in the new Sidewalk Studio facing Broadway.

The Metropolitan Opera House, notable for its arched entrance, features immense chandeliers and Marc Chagall paintings, both of which can be seen from outside. Even the fountain in the central plaza puts on a show, with performances that include spouts of water 40-feet high. From mid-May to mid-August, Lincoln Center's "Summer for the City" presents hundreds of mostly free events. 

New York City's oldest (and perhaps most under-the-radar) museum, founded in 1804, has an extensive research library in addition to sleek interactive technology, a children's museum, and inventive exhibitions that shed light on America's history, art, and architecture. The eclectic permanent collection includes more than 14 million pieces of art, literature, prints, photographs, and memorabilia, and special exhibitions showcase the museum's unique voice and ability to provide fresh insight on all things related to New York and the nation. The Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture includes 100 dazzling Tiffany lamps on display and historic treasures that tell the American story in a novel way. Also part of the Luce Center is the Center for Women's History, examining the untold stories of women who have impacted and continue to shape the American experience. The DiMenna Children's History Museum on the lower level invites children to become "history detectives" and explore New York's past through interactive displays, hands-on activities, and the stories of iconic New York children through the centuries.  The museum hosts a New York--theme citywide Gingerbread contest around the holidays and displays the winners from mid-November to mid-January.

Storico, the light-filled restaurant on the first floor (separate entrance), serves upscale Italian food at lunch and dinner; Parliament Espresso & Coffee Bar sells beverages, pastries, and light lunch fare.

This expansive green space runs alongside the Hudson River—hence its name—and offers a welcome dose of tranquility from 72nd to 158th Street, as does the park's south extension, from about 59th to 72nd Street. Walking and biking paths dot the entire park, among them the broad Promenade between 83rd and 96th Streets. The park's original sections were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux of Central Park fame and laid out between 1873 and 1888. Riverside Park also includes the soaring white marble Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (at 89th Street), dedicated to New Yorkers who served in the Civil War, and the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial Plaza (at 80th Street), dedicated in 1947. The 79th Street Marina, with its café, visiting yachts and permanently moored houseboats, is closed for renovations to make the marina climate resilient and expand access for boaters. 

The focus of this museum near Lincoln Center is its incredible collection of work by folk and self-taught artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, including the single largest collection of reclusive Chicago artist Henry Darger, known for his painstakingly detailed collage paintings of fantasy worlds. The gift shop has an impressive collection of handcrafted items.

By some measures the largest cathedral in the world, even with its towers and transepts still unfinished, this divine behemoth comfortably asserts its bulk in the country's most vertical city. As such, the cathedral has long been a global landmark, and it was finally designated a New York City landmark in 2017. The seat of the Episcopal diocese in New York, it acts as a sanctuary for all, offering special interfaith services that include a celebration of New York's LGBTQ+ community. Built in two long spurts starting in 1892, the cathedral remains only two-thirds complete. What began as a Romanesque Byzantine–style structure under the original architects, George Heins and Christopher Grant Lafarge, shifted in 1911 to French Gothic.

Above the 3-ton central bronze doors is the intricately carved Portal of Paradise, which depicts St. John witnessing the Transfiguration of Jesus. Step inside to the cavernous nave: more than 600 feet long, it holds some 5,000 worshippers, and the 162-foot-tall dome crossing could comfortably contain the Statue of Liberty (minus its pedestal). The Great Rose Window is the largest stained-glass window in the United States. Sunday services are at 10:30, 2, and 7. Tours, including self-guided and guided Highlights Tour and a Vertical Tour, are offered throughout the week. The grand and gothic interior hosts regular musical events including choir performances, organ recitals, artists in residence, and visiting national and international artists; check the online calendar for more details and to purchase tickets.

In this five-story exploratorium, children ages 1–7 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), walk through or crawl under larger-than-life contemporary sculptures at Inside Art, and wriggle through the human digestive system in EatSleepPlay. 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.

This busy traffic circle at Central Park's southwest corner anchors the Upper West Side and makes a good starting place for exploring the neighborhood. The 700-ton, granite monument in the circle's center, capped by a marble statue of Christopher Columbus, serves as a popular meeting place. To some people, Columbus Circle is synonymous with the Deutsche Bank Center (formerly Time Warner Center) building and its several floors of shops, restaurants, and quick-bite cafés. The Whole Foods market and the food hall Turnstyle (on the subway-station mezzanine) are good spots to pick up sandwiches or sushi for a Central Park picnic. The building is also home to the Rose Hall performing arts complex, part of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Dominating the skyline here, the towering granite mausoleum (1897) is the final resting place of Civil War general and two-term U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant and his wife, Julia Dent Grant, who retired to NYC after the White House. The formal name is the General Grant National Memorial, but everybody except the National Park Service calls it Grant's Tomb. As the old joke goes, who's buried here? Nobody—they're entombed in a crypt beneath a domed rotunda, surrounded by photographs and Grant memorabilia. Once a more popular sight than the Statue of Liberty, this pillared Classical Revival edifice remains regal and timeless. The words engraved on the tomb, "Let Us Have Peace," recall Grant's speech to the Republican convention upon his presidential nomination. Surrounding the memorial are the so-called rolling benches, covered with colorful mosaic tiles. Made in the 1970s as a public art project, they are now as beloved as they are incongruous with the grand memorial they surround.  Stop by the visitor center (across the street from the tomb; check hours online) for a 20-minute film about Grant.

Housed in a glass and glazed–terra-cotta building on the rim of Columbus Circle, the museum is an epicenter of experimental and innovative craft, art, and design, with a focus on contemporary jewelry, glass, ceramic, fiber, wood, and mixed-media works. Pieces are human-scale, with many neatly housed in display cases rather than hanging on walls. Exhibitions offer new ways of thinking, experiencing, and telling stories about art and design. Exit through the gift shop, with its incredible housewares, jewelry, and other artful items unseen anywhere else. Free docent-led tours are offered Friday to Sunday at 11:30 and 2:30. The top floor houses Robert at MAD, a full-service restaurant with glorious views of Central Park through floor-to-ceiling windows.

An 1898 Upper West Side town house contains this small, eccentric museum dedicated to the work of Russian artist Nicholas Roerich, who immigrated to New York in the 1920s and quickly developed an ardent following. About 150 of his paintings hang here—notably some vast canvases of the Himalayas.