Going to New York City October 18-22 plane arrives to New York at 1pm and I leave at 4pm on the 22 I'm trying to plan things to do but I have no idea where to even start. I want to hit major attractions as well as small more local places as well. Any advice would be great thanks!!!

Go over to Trip Advisor's New York City Forum. They have lots of suggestions on the right hand side of the page.

Then sit down and make a list of all the attractions and things you want to do....group them on a map and plan your days visiting those things near each other.

It would help a little to tell us who/how many you are - and also your interests.

Are you focused on culture, museums, typical tourist sights, interesting neighborhoods, bird watching in Central Park??? You need to give us a clue!

I think you need to try to identify and then narrow down your interests. First, buy a good guidebook. There are many many options. And I mean a print guidebook that you can thumb through to get some inspiration, particularly one with photos. And then if you tell us your interests, we might be able to help you narrow things down. Does "Major Sights" include museums? Does it include the Empire State Building (one of the worst rip-offs in NYC in terms of time and money ... but mostly time)? Does it include the Intrepid? Does it include great food? Or are you happy with Applebee's or sandwiches? How about theater? Nightlife?

One thing you can do is to try to identify a couple of things you'd like to see for each day you're here, and then plan your day around them.

I am 23 it's my fiancé and myself we are into music museums nightlife food historical places shopping pretty much everything

As Doug suggested, start with a guidebook. There is so much to see and do in New York, you've got to start with getting an overall picture of what's "available"! And a guidebook is the best way to do that!
To say "...we are into music museums nightlight food historical places" really doesn't help us to give advice, since those six words describe a good part of what New York is all about!!!
Do some research....and then come back to us!

NY has dozens and dozens of museums. I fyo have to pick just a few I would go with

the Met - the greatest cultural institution in the western hemisphere

Natural History - fantastic dino exhibit, human evolution and gem/sminerals - also attached to the planetarium and has a umber of IMAX movies

Ellis Island Immigration Museums (absolutely brilliant) and part of the same ferry trip at Liberty Island. I believe the Statue is still closed for renovations but you can get a great view from the ferry. but you MUST get ferry tickets now - or the waiting line can take hours.

For music/nightlife there's anything you want. Go to the website of time Out New York and it will give you all the options - and tell you which are easy - or impossible - to get into - and the price range.

As for shopping - for what. and what price range?

I got a Knopf folding-map book for our trip. Easy to use, fit in purse or Hubby's back pocket, and didn't have to fold and unfold a huge map. And I used lots of color-tab post-its to mark places we wanted to go, one color for eats, another for sites. Yeah, I'm pretty anal. I even had a document in pages with links to these places, their websites, menus, yelp, etc. Definitely anal.

We used the City Pass. In 3 1/2 days, we used all six tickets (Circle Cruise, MOMA, Natural History Museum, Empire State Bldg, Met Museum of Art, Top of the Rock). Plus we saw the NY Public Library, a bit of Central Park, 9/11 Memorial, the Frick, St Pat's and Temple Emanu-El, walked around Lower Manhattan, some of Greenwich, enough of Lower East Side to get to Katz's, down Fifth Avenue from the Met Museum of Art all the way past FAO Schwartz, and a lot more. We loved just seeing the city. So you CAN see a lot in a little bit of time.

Oh, and we preferred 2d Ave Deli to Katz's. Minetta Tavern was very good. Keen's Steakhouse was fine, our "neighbors" were friendly and we chatted. We didn't go to any of the big name eateries, but I'm not sure my palate could really appreciate the flavors anyway.

You did not see "Greenwich" - that is a very upscale suburb in CT. You saw either Greenwich Village or The Village. If you ask people in NYC how to get to "Greenwich" they will send you to Grand Central for a train to CT.

I too think you need a guidebook, and definitely get inspired by the photos.

Another way to look at this is, how much of your time do you want "inside" at a museum or similar activity and how much do you want browsing/shopping, and how much walking around outside in a park, a neighborhood or on a boat etc?

One thought: Unless you visit museums a lot, 2-3 hours in one will probably be sufficient for a day.

Agree that you need to have lists of indoor and outdoor activities ready - based on what type of weather you run into.

Central park should still be attractive and you can walk or rent a boat on the lake (go to the Central Park Conservancy web site for info). Also consider a ride across the harbor on the free staten island ferry. And a walk on the high line.