840 Best Sights in New York, USA

Set back from U.S. 209 between the center of Stone Ridge and Hurley is the Bevier House Museum, which dates from 1690 and is the headquarters of the Ulster County Historical Society. Among the house-tour highlights are the scullery, which contains early building and food-prep tools (some from the 17th century), and an extensive collection of Civil War artifacts, including guns, photos, drums, and uniform pieces. A small gift shop has books about local history and architecture.

Duck farming was a major industry on Long Island when a local farmer erected this massive and endearing 20-foot-tall duck-shape building in 1931. Today it serves as a tourism center and gift shop carrying T-shirts, mugs, and other souvenirs bearing the aquatic birds. Long Island's most recognized landmark, the Big Duck is on the National Register of Historic Places. Annual events at the Big Duck Ranch include the rubber duck race. A farming museum was new in the fall of 2014.

Walking the stretch of Bleecker Street between 7th Avenue and Broadway provides a smattering of just about everything synonymous with Greenwich Village these days: NYU buildings, record stores, Italian cafés and food shops, pizza and takeout joints, bars and nightclubs, and funky boutiques. A lazy afternoon here may consist of sampling some of the city's best pizza, grabbing an espresso, and soaking up the downtown fashion scene. Foodies love the blocks between 6th and 7th Avenues for the specialty purveyors like Murray's Cheese (No. 254). At the intersection of Bleecker and Carmine Streets is Our Lady of Pompeii Church, where Mother Cabrini, a naturalized Italian immigrant who became the first American citizen to be canonized, often prayed. West of 7th Avenue, the shops get more upscale, with fashion and home-furnishings boutiques featuring antiques, eyeglasses, handbags, shoes, and designer clothing.

Housed in a 1905 barn, the visitor center sits above the Blenheim-Gilboa pumped-storage project, which generates power by recycling water between two reservoirs. Hands-on exhibits explain the science of energy production; an enclosed porch overlooking the lower reservoir has exhibits of local fauna. Picnic tables are scattered between the historic outbuildings. Hiking trails lead to Mine Kill State Park.

These local brewers may have made it big, but they've never strayed from their roots of creating—and drinking—some really good beer. About 4 miles east of Sayville, the tasting room, where you can sample a dozen brews, is quintessentially local, with a handmade bar that was built using bricks from the old Patchogue Lace Mill and a wildly colorful ceramic-tile-mosaic top. Come in your jeans, T-shirts, and flannels, because when you're here, you're home. There's an outdoor area behind the brewery where you can enjoy Toasted Lager or one of their seasonal brews and maybe grab a bite from a food truck.

In 1928 Darwin Martin commissioned a family mausoleum—a project he dropped after his fortunes were pummeled by the following year's stock-market crash. In 2004, Buffalo's Forest Lawn cemetery (near Delavan Avenue) built the concrete-and-granite Blue Sky Mausoleum from plans owned by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

High-style period furniture and collections of crystal, silver, and porcelain fill this restored 1808 mansion, now a museum of Federal-period decorative arts. Built by States Morris Dyckman, a descendant of one of New Amsterdam's early Dutch families, the house originally stood in Montrose, some 15 miles south. It's open by tour only, but the grounds are reason enough to visit.

The small plaza that is Bowling Green, at the foot of Broadway, became New York's first public park in 1733. Legend has it that before that, this was the site upon which Peter Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan from the Indigenous Lenape people, in 1626, supposedly for what amounted to 24 U.S. dollars. On July 9, 1776, a few hours after citizens learned about the signing of the Declaration of Independence, rioters toppled a statue of British king George III that had occupied the spot for 11 years; much of the statue's lead was melted down into bullets. In 1783, when the occupying British forces fled the city, they defiantly hoisted a Union Jack on a greased, uncleated flagpole so it couldn't be lowered; but patriot John Van Arsdale drove his own cleats into the pole to replace it with the Stars and Stripes. The copper-top subway entrance across State Street is the original one, built in 1904–05. Many know Bowling Green as the home of Arturo Di Modica's 7,000-pound, bronze Charging Bull statue (1989); look for it on the northern tip of the park.

A crowd-pleasing Basquiat show in 2019 marked the inauguration of this East Village art space, and subsequent shows have proved that the privately owned Brant Foundation isn't a one-trick pony. That's not surprising since Peter Brant's own collection includes a vast selection of works by such contemporary artists as Andy Warhol, David Altmejd, Carl Andre, John Chamberlain, Urs Fischer, Dan Flavin, Dash Snow, and the aforementioned Basquiat, just to name a few. The four-level space was once a power station (it later became the studio of conceptual artist Walter De Maria), and it's towering ceilings and giant windows are the perfect setting for large-scale artworks. There’s a quiet garden and a gift shop, too. Check the website to confirm opening times, price of admission, and to make a reservation to visit.

Just steps from the subway, this stretch of golden sand is the showpiece of Brooklyn's oceanside playground. Families set up beach blankets, umbrellas, and coolers, and pickup games of beach volleyball and football add to the excitement. Calm surf, a lively boardwalk, and a handful of restaurants for shade and refreshments complete the package. That spit of land in the distance is the Rockaway Peninsula, in Queens. Amenities: toilets. Best for: people-watching; sunsets.

Along this main drag you'll find a Russian caviar boutique amid the Cyrillic shop signs advertising everything from pickled mushrooms to Armani handbags. Local bakeries sell sweet honey cake, cheese-stuffed vatrushki danishes, and chocolatey rugelach from sidewalk tables. Vostochny Bazaar ( 1007 Brighton Beach Ave.) has aisles of freshly prepared to-go food that will entice anyone.

A long-running community outreach program that used to operate a mobile children's museum out of a purple bus has now found a permanent home within the cavernous, former Powerhouse building in Mill Pond Park. Kids can play and create in this bright, colorful, and bilingual space (English and Spanish) with two arts and crafts areas, a learning area about local nature, a flowing water play table to learn about boats on the river, and "The Block"—a kid's version of a neighborhood street scene. Programs, like story times and animal encounters, are scheduled regularly.

The four towers of this complex (aka the World Financial Center) range from 34 to 51 stories high and are topped with different geometric ornaments designed by Cesar Pelli. Inside are the company headquarters for the likes of American Express and Dow Jones. But the main attraction is the glass-domed Winter Garden atrium with its signature palm trees—a pleasant open space that hosts music, dance performances, a winter ice rink, and links to a variety of stores and restaurants. You can cross West Street at street level, or use the concourse underneath that connects Brookfield Place with the World Trade Center site (and the subway and PATH trains). The massive windows at the top of the Winter Garden's grand staircase on the north side of the atrium provide a view of the 9/11 Memorial Plaza and Westfield World Trade Center (the Oculus) to the east.

Most of Brooklyn Heights, with picturesque brownstones spanning Old Fulton Street to Atlantic Avenue, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965. This includes the quiet "fruit streets"—Pineapple, Cranberry, and Orange Streets—named in the 19th century by one Lady Middagh, a resident who thought it was more democratic to get rid of the former names of aristocratic families. Ironically, Middagh Street still exists. One notable building in the area is 58 Joralemon Street, which at a glance appears to be a 19th-century Greek revival town house, but is actually a facade for an MTA ventilation shaft.

The oldest continually operating winery in the United States, Brotherhood includes some European-style stone buildings that date from 1839. Tours and tastings are available; call ahead to reserve. A charming on-site café with patio seating serves sophisticated French fare in warmer weather. The winery is about 16 miles west of West Point.

Cheese maker Ronald Brovetto, his wife Corinne, and son Russell have been making quality farmstead cheeses on their farm for over eight years. They make Harpersfield cheese, an aged, semihard, washed-rind, Tilsit-style cheese, cave-aged on the property, as well as flavored cheeses. All are made from milk from the resident herd of Holstein cows.The farm is about 8 mi north of Stamford, about a 40-minute drive from Roxbury.

Even in the middle of winter you can soak in the sights and scents of the tropics under the domes of this Victorian glass conservatory. The greenhouses shelter cacti, fruit trees, palms, and orchids. The American Ivy Association certified the claim of the largest ivy collection of any botanical garden in the world. Formal gardens and a park with a golf course (the park is popular with runners) surround the conservatory. Guided tours are given by reservation.

A guided-missile cruiser, destroyer, and a World War II submarine are on display at this 6-acre waterfront site, the largest inland naval park in the nation.

This broad-shouldered art-deco architectural masterpiece rises from the heart of downtown. An elevator to the 25th floor, then three flights of (unmarked) stairs take you to an observation deck; though you can't go outside, it has spectacular views of the city and the Lake Erie waterfront.

Exhibits cover everything from anthropology to zoology. One exhibit uses the stories of three mummies to explore what daily life was like for ordinary citizens in ancient Egypt.

The Buffalo Transportation/Pierce-Arrow Museum is building a winged gas station from unfinished Wright plans. A former Wright apprentice is involved with the project, which, once built, won't actually function as a station but will rather complement the museum's collection of cars and automobile memorabilia and artifacts.

Endangered Amur (Siberian) tigers, Asian elephants, and Indian rhinos are among the nearly 1,000 wild and exotic animals found in this natural setting in Delaware Park. The grounds include an interactive, mock, field-research station, and a rain-forest exhibit. There's also an on-site children's zoo, which features farm animals historically found in the Erie Canal area.