Explore New York

St. Paul's Chapel is an Episcopal chapel of Trinity Church on Broadway in Lower Manhattan, built in 1766 in the Georgian style and the oldest surviving church building in Manhattan. George Washington worshipped here after his inauguration in 1789. It stood undamaged when the World Trade Center towers fell on 11 September 2001 and became a refuge for recovery workers.

Federal Hall on Wall Street marks the site where George Washington took the oath as the first US president in 1789. The present Greek Revival building, designed by Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis, was completed in 1842 as the Custom House. The National Park Service runs it as a museum, with Washington's statue on the steps.

Trinity Church is an Episcopal parish church on Broadway facing Wall Street. The present Gothic Revival building by Richard Upjohn, completed in 1846, is the parish's third church on the site and was the tallest building in New York until 1890. Its churchyard holds the graves of Alexander and Eliza Hamilton.

The Brooklyn Bridge crosses the East River between Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. Designed by John A. Roebling and completed under his son Washington Roebling with Emily Warren Roebling, it opened in 1883 as the longest suspension bridge of its time. A raised promenade for pedestrians runs above the traffic lanes between its two granite towers.

The Staten Island Ferry is a passenger ferry run by the New York City Department of Transportation between Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan and St. George on Staten Island. The 8.4-kilometre crossing of New York Harbor takes about 25 minutes and passes the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and the Manhattan skyline.

Brooklyn Bridge Park is an 85-acre waterfront park on the Brooklyn side of the East River, laid out by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates on former industrial piers. It runs 1.3 miles from Atlantic Avenue past the Brooklyn Bridge to the Manhattan Bridge, with lawns, playgrounds and sports fields on Piers 1 to 6.

Washington Square Park is a 4-hectare public park in Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan, run by NYC Parks. The marble Washington Square Arch, designed by Stanford White and completed in 1892, marks its northern entrance, and the central fountain plaza is a gathering place for students, musicians and street performers.

Little Island is a public park on an artificial island in the Hudson River at Pier 55, off West 13th Street in Manhattan. Designed by Heatherwick Studio and opened in 2021, it rests on 132 concrete pot-shaped columns called tulips and has lawns, planted paths, viewpoints and a 687-seat amphitheatre.

The High Line is a 2.33 km elevated park on a disused freight railway viaduct on Manhattan's West Side, running from Gansevoort Street through Chelsea to 34th Street. It opened in stages from 2009, designed by James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro with plantings by Piet Oudolf, and keeps lengths of the old rails among the plants.

The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building is the flagship of the New York Public Library, a Beaux-Arts marble building by Carrère and Hastings on Fifth Avenue that opened in 1911. Two stone lions flank the entrance steps; inside are the Rose Main Reading Room, exhibition galleries and research collections.

Bryant Park is a 3.9-hectare park in Midtown Manhattan between 40th and 42nd Streets, behind the main building of the New York Public Library. Named in 1884 after the poet and journalist William Cullen Bryant, it was rebuilt in the 1930s and restored in 1988–1992, and has a central lawn, tree-lined terraces, movable chairs and a carousel.

Grand Central Terminal is a railway terminal at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, opened by the New York Central Railroad in 1913. Behind its Beaux-Arts facade with a clock and sculpture group lies the Main Concourse with a ceiling painted with constellations. Metro-North trains leave from here, and Long Island Rail Road trains from Grand Central Madison below.

Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings between 48th and 51st Streets in Midtown Manhattan, developed by John D. Rockefeller Jr. The 14 original Art Deco buildings went up from 1931 to 1939 around 30 Rockefeller Plaza and a sunken plaza with a winter ice rink. Art fills the buildings, and the Christmas tree is lit here every year.

MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution in Long Island City, Queens, housed in a Romanesque Revival public school building from the 1890s. Founded in 1971 by Alanna Heiss and affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art since 2000, it shows changing exhibitions and hosts performances and summer music events in its courtyard.

Prospect Park is a 213-hectare park in Brooklyn laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux and opened in 1867. Its landscape includes the Long Meadow, a 36-hectare lawn, Brooklyn's only lake, wooded ravines, the Boathouse and the Prospect Park Zoo.

Central Park is an 843-acre (341 ha) landscaped park in the middle of Manhattan, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux after their Greensward Plan of 1858 and completed in 1876. Its meadows, lakes, woodland paths and bridges, the Ramble, the Reservoir and Bethesda Terrace lie between the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side.