199 Best Sights in New York, USA

Franklin D. Roosevelt frequently used this 1914 train station, which was designed by the same architects who designed New York's Grand Central Terminal. Today, it houses an extensive collection of railroad paraphernalia and has running displays of model trains all manned by knowledgeable enthusiasts.

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.

This brick-tastic experience has seven “lands”–Brick Street, Bricktopia, LEGO NINJAGO World, LEGO Castle, LEGO City, LEGO Pirates, and Miniland–LEGO fans can explore. Special features include the unique-to-this-resort (a.k.a only one in the world), LEGO Factory Adventure Ride, which puts guests in the middle of a LEGO factory by shrinking them down to digital miniversions of themselves so they can experience how bricks are created, and the park’s Miniland, which has original brick creations of landmarks from all five New York City boroughs and around the Empire State as well as the resort’s hometown of Goshen. Another cool feature is the musical fountain, Stepping Tones, which plays music and spurts water as various sensors are activated; this is the only place you can see the fountain besides LEGOLAND Billund in Denmark.

Fan favorites include the Build & Test center where future LEGO Master Model Builders can flex their skills by building anything they can think of–cars, boats, skyscrapers–and then test them out. LEGO NINJAGO World has LEGO NINJAGO The Ride where participants train at the Monastery with Master Wu. LEGO Castle has LEGOLAND’s signature Dragon and Dragon’s Apprentice roller coasters (for those under five), as well as the Tower Climb Tournament. LEGO City has the Driving School and the Coast Guard and Fire Academies as well as the Palace Theater where guests can see LEGO Movies in 4D and the Water Playground (reservations only). LEGO Pirates is where you’ll find the popular rides Splash Battle and Anchors Away! Brick Street has the appropriate-for-all-ages Brick Party Carousel, which instead of the traditional horses, has a motorcycle and a tiger to name a few, as well as the Big Shop, the largest LEGO retail space in North America. 

Housed in an old airplane hangar, this is a learning laboratory with hands-on exhibits. Children ages 2 to 12 can explore a multi-sensory garden, climb into big bubbles, build Roman arches, play musical instruments, or pretend they're TV-news anchors.

A 19th-century oystering vessel and a small collection of local craft are on display at this museum 1½ miles west of Sayville village. Changing exhibits focus on boating and maritime history. Boatbuilding can be observed most days, and guided tours are available by appointment. The big draw here is the calendar of annual events, including a pirate festival, kite festival, seafood festival, and boat burning. Summer camps and educational programs are available for kids. The museum also offers seasonal sailings on its 19th-century, 60-foot fishing sloop Priscilla, departing from the Snapper Inn on Shore Drive in Oakdale.

Noted architect Alexander Jackson Davis designed this magnificent marble mansion overlooking the Hudson River. Built in 1838, Lyndhurst is widely considered the premier Gothic Revival home in the United States. You may tour the mansion's elaborate interior and stroll the 67 landscaped acres, which include a conservatory and a rose garden. The estate also includes a turn-of-the-20th-century bowling alley and an original child's playhouse. Kids can walk outside the perimeter of the playhouse and admire it, but are not allowed to enter it. During summer weekends, visitors can pay $5 to roam around the grounds, and then apply that fee to the guided tour price if they wish to learn more about the house.

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).

Martin's Fantasy Island has more then 100 rides, including a wooden roller coaster, a 140-foot-tall swing ride, and a petting zoo, and a water-park area with a wave pool, swirling slides and chutes, and a log-flume ride.

Built in 1725 and full of beautifully preserved colonial antiques, the museum contains artifacts and exhibits illustrating Amagansett life from the colonial period through the 20th century. On summer weekends pony rides are given on the museum lawn, and twice during the season there are huge antiques sales full of local treasures. In a barn to the rear of the property is the Roy Lester Carriage Museum, which displays locally made horse-drawn carriages.

You can still play "catch the brass ring" at this 1920s carousel, housed in a round, gleaming glass structure, the highlight of Greenport's renovated waterfront.

The county park, once a gentleman's farm, was named after a Lenape word meaning "by the swamp," because of its location near what is now part of the New York City watershed. A lively seasonal roster of special events is offered, including hayrides and demonstrations of blacksmithing, maple sugaring, and sheep shearing. Farm animals—sheep, chickens, pigs, goats, cows, horses—are permanent residents.

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.

Walk through replicas of the human heart and brain; crawl, jump, and slide through the five-floor Science Playhouse; and learn about cave formations exploring the Discovery Cave. The MOST, as it's called, is a hands-on science museum built to entertain and educate. It occupies a former armory and includes an IMAX theater.

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.

Experience the natural history of New York State through exhibits called "Beneath an Ancient Sea," "Where Dinosaurs Walked," and "A World Carved by Ice." Whale and mastodon skeletons, along with audiovisual theater presentations, help prepare museumgoers for hands-on labs featuring fossils, dinosaurs, and ice. The on-site Paleontological Research Institution runs the museum.