223 Best Sights in New York, USA

After more than four decades of laughs, SNL continues to push buttons and nurture comedic talents. All "live from New York." Requests for advance tickets (two per applicant) must be submitted during the month of August by email only, sent to  [email protected]; you may ask for a ticket for either the dress rehearsal (8 pm) or the live show (11:30 pm). All recipients are determined by lottery. Standby ticket reservations for up to four people open at 10 am on the Thursday prior and are distributed at 12:01 am on the day of the show; see the NBC ticket website for information. You must be 16 or older to sit in the audience.

Founded by artists in 1928 to exhibit innovative contemporary work, SculptureCenter occupies a former trolley repair shop that was renovated by artist Maya Lin in 2002 and expanded by Andrew Berman Architect in 2014; it's not far from MoMA PS1. Indoor and outdoor exhibition spaces close between shows; see the website for details or call ahead before visiting.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a pioneer of modernist architecture, built this boxlike bronze-and-glass tower in 1958, and it remains a must-visit for architecture buffs. The austere facade belies its wit: I-beams, used to hold buildings up, here are merely attached to the surface, representing the idea of structural support. The Seagram Building's innovative ground-level plaza, extending out to the sidewalk, has since become a common element in urban skyscraper design, but at the time it was built, it was a radical announcement of a new, modern era of American architecture. With its two giant fountains and welcoming steps, the plaza also is a popular lunch spot for Midtown workers. Visit late in the afternoon to avoid crowds.

Why did reform movements flourish in the Finger Lakes? Many of the answers are at this museum, where narratives of water power, transportation, industry, and cultural history are interwoven to tell the story of 19th-century Seneca Falls. The museum has interactive exhibits for kids, who are urged to ask questions of tour guides.

The center, in a log building on the grounds of the Oneida Indian Nation, has exhibits highlighting baskets, beadwork, dolls, and wampum. You may also learn about the role of the Oneida Nation during the American Revolution, when it sided with the rebels rather than with the British.

Why get a crick in your neck—or worse, risk looking like a tourist—while appreciating New York City's famous skyscrapers? Instead, visit this small museum, where you can appreciate highly detailed, hand-carved miniature wood models of Midtown and Lower Manhattan; explore the past, present, and future of the skyscraper—from New York City's Empire State Building to Dubai's Burj Khalifa (taller than the Empire State Building and Chicago's Willis Tower combined)—and examine the history of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center. Exhibits continue to evolve, so expect models of current or future buildings, videos, drawings, floor plans, and talks that reveal the influence of history, real estate, and individuals on shaping city skylines.

The transformation of an industrial boiler house into an edgy arts compound is quintessential DUMBO. This 12,000-square-foot structure now hosts large-scale avant-garde exhibitions and runs a prestigious residency program. Don't be surprised if you pass a smartphone-clutching event planner on your way in; it's also a popular wedding venue.

Located in Southpoint Park, right before the entrance to Four Freedoms Park, this fenced-off, ivy-covered ruin was an 1856 smallpox hospital that was in operation during the island's time as Blackwell's Island. While this city landmark is off-limits, informative placards on the site tell much about the building's history and design by James Renwick Jr., whose resume includes the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. The hospital ruins are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. If you're in a taxi on the FDR Drive across the river, you'll notice the ruins are floodlit at night, creating an eerie spectacle from afar. While in this area, also see the FDR Hope Memorial, a bronze sculpture depicting Roosevelt in his wheelchair, greeting a young girl wearing leg braces.  

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.

Steeped in New York City history and shaded by graceful gingko trees, this somewhat-hard-to-find section of Leroy Street has 15 classic Italianate brownstone and brick town houses (1851–54). Novelist Theodore Dreiser wrote An American Tragedy at No. 16, and poet Marianne Moore resided at No. 14. (Robert De Niro later lived here for decades—in mid-2012 he sold it for $9.5 million.) The colorful (and corrupt) Mayor Jimmy Walker (first elected in 1926) lived at No. 6; the lampposts in front are "mayor's lamps," which were sometimes placed in front of the residences of New York mayors. This block is often used as a film location: No. 4 was the setting of the Audrey Hepburn thriller Wait Until Dark. Before 1890, the James J. Walker Park, on the south side of the street near Hudson, was a graveyard where, according to legend, the dauphin of France—the lost son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette—is buried.

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.

One of the oldest lighthouses on the Great Lakes looks out over the outlet of Lake Ontario. The Coast Guard left in 1981, and the building is now used as a youth hostel. Off-season reservations at the hostel must be made by e-mail at [email protected]. The lighthouse is 12 mi west of Clayton.

The brick building that houses this museum served as the main office of the Ticonderoga Pulp and Paper Company in the late 1800s. Exhibits here focus on the industrial history of Ticonderoga, which was known as a center for paper- and pencil-making.

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.