Start With a Walk Into the Park
You feel the city loosen its grip the moment you cross into the green. Central Park opens up in front of you: lawns, trees and lakes, spread wide enough that the traffic noise on Fifth Avenue fades behind you. This is the park New Yorkers actually use — for recreation, for concerts, for the simple act of lying on grass in the middle of Manhattan. Come without an itinerary and let the paths carry you.
Landmarks You Already Know by Sight
Manhattan holds the landmarks that have saturated American popular culture, and many of them are within a single walk of the park. From the southern tip of the island to Midtown, you can assemble a day out of buildings and monuments you have seen a thousand times on screen:
- The Statue of Liberty, standing on its small island in the harbor, with Ellis Island nearby preserving the site where millions of immigrants completed their journey to America.
- Wall Street, home of the New York Stock Exchange, and Federal Hall, where George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States.
- The National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center Site, and One World Trade Center — officially named, colloquially the Freedom Tower — rising beside it.
- The Brooklyn Bridge, connecting the Financial District to Downtown Brooklyn and offering views of both the Manhattan and Brooklyn skylines.
- Macy's Herald Square, the flagship of the nationwide chain, and the Empire State Building looming over Midtown with the Chrysler Building dominating the landscape nearby.
- Grand Central Terminal, the United Nations headquarters overlooking the East River, the main branch of the New York Public Library with its lion statues outside the front door, and Rockefeller Plaza — home to NBC Studios and Radio City Music Hall, and in winter the Christmas Tree and Skating Rink.
Fill a Day Indoors at the Museums
New York has some of the finest museums in the world, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Central Park is the grandest of them all: American artwork, period rooms, thousands of European paintings including Rembrandts and Vermeers, the greatest collection of Egyptian art outside Cairo, one of the world's finest Islamic art collections, Asian art, European sculpture, medieval and Renaissance art, and antiquities from around the ancient world. Its collection is so vast that seeing everything in a week would be impossible. The Met also operates The Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, housing medieval art and incorporating elements from five medieval French cloisters and other monastic sites in southern France into its gardens.
Near the Met on the Upper East Side is the Guggenheim Museum, famed for its architecture and its spiraling galleries. The nearby Frick Collection holds a smaller but well-regarded group of paintings by the old masters. In Midtown, the Museum of Modern Art holds the most comprehensive collection of modern art in the world, including Van Gogh's Starry Night and Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, alongside an extensive industrial design collection. Midtown is also home to the Paley Center for Media, a museum dedicated to television. Beyond the majors, hundreds of small galleries are spread through neighborhoods like Chelsea and Williamsburg. Note that many galleries and museums close on Mondays, so check hours before you go.
Skip the Lines, and Time Your Day Right
The single most useful thing you can do for your trip is not stand in line. Tourists often spend an entire vacation waiting — New Yorkers say "on line" — and it is usually unnecessary. The Empire State Building is open and much quieter late, until 2AM. The Staten Island Ferry is an alternative to the Statue of Liberty crowds. The Guggenheim is one of the only museums open on Monday, so stay away from it that day. If you already hold a Broadway ticket with an assigned seat, there is no reason to queue; get a drink nearby and walk in closer to curtain time. Bus tours back up because everyone shares one itinerary — Times Square in the morning, the Statue of Liberty, the East Side by afternoon. Reverse it: go downtown in the morning and save Midtown for the afternoon. Remember too that buses are the slowest way crosstown in Midtown at peak hours and taxis are not much better; you are often better off on foot. Rush hour puts much of the city in gridlock, with subways and roads busier from 4:30PM to 6:30PM.
One Park North, One Park East
Just north of the Theater District — the tourist center of New York, where Times Square runs bright, flashing video screens and LED signs 24 hours a day — sits Central Park itself, with its lawns, trees and lakes popular for recreation and concerts. Further out, in Queens, the Unisphere stands in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, built as the centrepiece of the 1964 World's Fair. Both make a good half-day away from the midtown crush.
Passes Worth Knowing Before You Go
If you plan to see several sights, multi-attraction schemes cut prices and let you skip lines. GoCity offers two: the Explorer pass, for a set number of attractions, which cardholders have 30 days to use after visiting the first attraction, and the All-Inclusive pass, which allows unlimited attractions for a set number of days, with the time limit activating on the day of first use. Both can be printed or used through an Android/iOS app, and cover attractions such as Top of the Rock Observation, the Rockefeller Center Tour, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the Museum of Modern Art, the NBC Studio Tour, movie tours and cruises, plus shopping, dining and additional attraction discounts; the biggest attraction not included is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The New York Pass, also from GoCity, grants access to over 50 top attractions with line-skipping privileges for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 or 10 days, and includes a guide book. The New York CityPASS grants admission to six attractions within nine days of first use: the Empire State Building; the Metropolitan Museum of Art with same-day admission to The Cloisters; the American Museum of Natural History; Top of the Rock or the Guggenheim Museum; the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island Ferry or Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises; and the 9/11 Memorial & Museum or the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.
Decide which of these you actually want to see, book the timed tickets that need reserving months ahead, and build your days around the hours when the crowds thin. The city rewards the visitor who plans a little and wanders a lot — start mapping your route now.