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List of the best things to do in NYC. These may include famous monuments, museums and parks. Stores and attractions also make the list. From The Statue of Liberty to Times Square, these are some of the most well-known attractions in NYC. Most attractions in NYC are within walking distance of one another, so you can visit multiple venues in one day. &nbsp;When you're in New York you don't want to miss any of the top must-see attractions in the big city. If you enjoy the outdoors, there are a variety of noteworthy parks in the city that are great for sightseeing. If shopping is more your bag, travel to Times Square for high end stores including Forever 21, Disney, and Quicksilver. Fine dining, Broadway shows and live entertainment also line the streets of Times Square. Around the city, there are many museums and historical attractions. So if you're asking, &quot;What are the best things to do in NYC?&quot; you should continue reading this list to seeing fun, exciting and interesting attractions in New York. Whether you live in the big apple city or are just visiting, you're sure to learn the best and greatest attractions in NYC. These museums, monuments and parks are places you definitely don't want to miss.

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Central Park

Central Park is an urban park in the central part of the borough of Manhattan, New York City. It was initially opened in 1857, on 778 acres of city-owned land, later expanding to its current size of 843 acres.
In 1858, soon-to-be famed national landscapers and architects, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they titled the "Greensward Plan". Construction began the same year, continued during the American Civil War further south, and was completed in 1873. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962. The Park was managed for decades by the New York City Department of Recreation and Parks and is currently managed by the Central Park Conservancy under contract with the municipal government in a public-private partnership. The Conservancy is a non-profit organization that contributes 75% of Central Park's $57 million annual budget and employs 80.7% of the Park's maintenance staff.
Today, Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States as well as one of the most filmed locations in the world.

Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the United States. The statue, designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, a French sculptor and dedicated on October 28, 1886, was a gift to the United States from the people of France. The statue is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue is an icon of freedom and of the United States: a welcoming signal to immigrants arriving from abroad.
Bartholdi was inspired by French law professor and politician Édouard René de Laboulaye, who is said to have commented in 1865 that any monument raised to American independence would properly be a joint project of the French and American peoples. He may have been minded to honor the Union victory in the American Civil War and the end of slavery. Due to the troubled political situation in France, work on the statue did not commence until the early 1870s.

Madison Square

Madison Square is formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for James Madison, fourth President of the United States.
The focus of the square is Madison Square Park, a 6.2-acre public park, which is bounded on the east by Madison Avenue; on the south by 23rd Street; on the north by 26th Street; and on the west by Fifth Avenue and Broadway as they cross.
The park and the square are at the northern end of the Flatiron District neighborhood of Manhattan. The use of "Madison Square" as a name for the neighborhood has fallen off, and it is rarely heard. The neighborhood to the north and west of the park is NoMad and to the north and east is Rose Hill.
Madison Square is probably best known around the world for providing the name of Madison Square Garden, a sports arena and its successor which were located just northeast of the park for 47 years, until 1925. The current Madison Square Garden, the fourth such building, is not in the area.

Times Square

Times Square is a major commercial intersection and a neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is located at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, and stretches from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. Brightly adorned with billboards and advertisements, Times Square is sometimes referred to as "The Crossroads of the World", "The Center of the Universe", and the heart of "The Great White Way". In addition to being one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world's most visited tourist attractions, drawing over 39 million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of whom are either tourists or people working in the area.
Formerly Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in April 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to the newly erected Times Building. That building is the site of the annual ball drop on New Year's Eve, which began on December 31, 1907, and continues today, attracting over a million visitors to Times Square every New Year's Eve.

Empire State Building

The Empire State Building is a 102-story skyscraper located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on Fifth Avenue between West 33rd and 34th Streets. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet, and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 feet high. Its name is derived from the nickname for New York, the Empire State. It stood as the world's tallest building for nearly 40 years, from its completion in early 1931 until the topping out of the original World Trade Center's North Tower in late 1970. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Empire State Building was again the tallest building in New York, until One World Trade Center reached a greater height on April 30, 2012. The Empire State Building is currently the fourth-tallest completed skyscraper in the United States, and the 25th-tallest in the world. It is also the fifth-tallest freestanding structure in the Americas.
The Empire State Building is generally thought of as an American cultural icon. It is designed in the distinctive Art Deco style and has been named as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

American Museum of Natural History

Since its founding in 1869, the American Museum of Natural History has been dedicated to a joint mission of science and public education. AMNH continues to provide a unique platform for communicating the results of current research to the public. 
 
The Museum’s audience is one of the largest and most diverse of any museum in the country. Each year nearly four million people visit onsite, about half of them children. The online audience doubles the onsite attendance, with over four million unique visitors a year to the Museum’s online collections and databases, digital library, exhibition-related Web sites, interactive curricular materials for students and teachers, and other resources based on Museum science, research resources, and collections.

The Museum offers a wide array of educational programs targeted to various audiences—students from preschool through high school, families, educators, and the general public. These programs take place on-site and at schools and community sites throughout the City, as part of the Museum’s continuing efforts to extend its resources beyond its walls.

In 2006, the Museum announced the opening of The Richard Gilder Graduate School and its Ph.D. Program in Comparative Biology.  The Museum is the first American museum granted the authority to award its own Ph.D. degree. The Gilder School offers unique opportunities for students to participate in AMNH’s educational mission as part of their course of study.

Approximately 500,000 children visit the Museum each year through school or camp group visits. These visits are facilitated by education staff or trained teaching volunteers and are enriched by the Teachers’ Guides and Student Field Journals sent to every group before their visit. Many visits are focused on special multi-cultural programming designed to reflect the City’s diversity. In addition, the Museum offers on-site after school, enrichment, and workforce development programs which allow students of a variety of ages and interests to participate in the Museum’s research and education mission.

Professional development programs, a response to the critical need for trained science teachers, are a key element of the Museum’s approach to improving science literacy. The Museum offers a wide range of customized programs for professionals at all levels and works with four CUNY campuses—Lehman, Hunter, Brooklyn and Queens Colleges—to develop courses and institutes for teachers-in-training. Use of the Museum as a teaching resource, exposure to Museum scientists, and techniques for inquiry-based science in the classroom are elements of all programs.

AMNH is also active in wider community outreach. Four Moveable Museums are specially outfitted Winnebagos that travel to schools and community sites throughout the City. More than 150,000 adults take advantage of hundreds of lectures and fieldtrips sponsored by the Department of Education each year and, with their families, attend on-site weekend workshops and cultural events, many of which are associated with Black History Month, Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, Caribbean Celebration, and other multi-cultural festivals. The Museum’s National Center for Science Literacy and Technology brings Museum science and resources to a national audience through award-winning educational websites, and books and magazines for teachers and students of all ages.

The American Museum of Natural History has a long tradition of using innovative permanent and temporary exhibits to bring the Museum’s scientific research program to the wider public. Consisting of more than 60 staff, including writers, artists, designers, preparators, and model makers, the AMNH Exhibition Department has been responsible for a series of groundbreaking shows, including Darwin, Einstein, Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries, and Gold; and new galleries, such as the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Hall of Human Origins and the Millstein Hall of Ocean Life. In the Museum’s Hayden...

Rockefeller Center

Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering 22 acres between 48th and 51st streets in New York City, United States. Built by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, located in New York City, is the largest art museum in the United States and one of the ten largest in the world. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided among seventeen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is by area one of the world's largest art galleries. There is also a much smaller second location at The Cloisters in Upper Manhattan that features medieval art.
Represented in the permanent collection are works of art from classical antiquity and Ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met also maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine, and Islamic art. The museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. Several notable interiors, ranging from first-century Rome through modern American design, are permanently installed in the Met's galleries.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870.

The Broadway Theatre

The Broadway Theatre is a Broadway theatre located in midtown Manhattan. It has a large seating capacity of 1,761, and unlike most Broadway theaters, it is actually located on Broadway, at number 1681.
Designed by architect Eugene De Rosa for Benjamin S. Moss, it opened as B.S. Moss's Colony Theatre on Christmas Day 1924 as a venue for vaudeville shows and motion pictures. The theater has operated under many names and owners. It was renamed Universal's Colony Theatre, B.S. Moss' Broadway Theatre, and Earl Carroll's Broadway Theatre before becoming a legitimate theater house simply called Broadway Theatre on December 8, 1930. In 1937, known as Ciné Roma, it showed Italian films. For a short time during the 1950s it showed Cinerama films.
On November 18, 1928 the first Mickey Mouse cartoon released to the public, Steamboat Willie, debuted at the Colony. Producer Walt Disney returned on November 13, 1940 to debut the feature film Fantasia in Fantasound, an early stereo system.
The legitimate theater opened in 1930 with The New Yorkers by Cole Porter. Stars such as Milton Berle, Alfred Drake, José Ferrer, Eartha Kitt, Vivien Leigh, Zero Mostel, and Mae West have appeared on stage.

Battery Park

Battery Park is a 25-acre public park located at the Battery, the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City, facing New York Harbor. The Battery is named for the artillery batteries that were positioned there in the city's early years to protect the settlement behind them.

Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city. Its interior was declared a city landmark in 1978.

Staten Island Ferry

The Staten Island Ferry is a passenger ferry service operated by the New York City Department of Transportation that runs between the boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island.

Coney Island

Coney Island is a peninsular residential neighborhood, beach, and leisure/entertainment destination on the Atlantic Ocean in the southwestern part of the borough of Brooklyn, New York City. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill. The residential portion of the peninsula is a community of 60,000 people in its western part, with Sea Gate to its west, Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach to its east, the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and Gravesend to the north.
Coney Island is well known as the site of amusement parks and a seaside resort. The attractions reached a historical peak during the first half of the 20th century, declining in popularity after World War II and years of neglect. In recent years, the area has seen the opening of MCU Park stadium and has become home to the Brooklyn Cyclones minor league baseball team, as well as the opening of a new amusement park among several adjacent ones.

Washington Square Park

Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres, it is a landmark in Manhattan in the neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity. It is operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
The Park is an open space, dominated by the Washington Square Arch, with a tradition of celebrating nonconformity. The Park's fountain area has long been one of the city's popular spots for residents and tourists. Most of the buildings surrounding the park now belong to New York University, but many have at one time served as homes and studios for artists. Some of the buildings have been built by NYU, others have been converted from their former uses into academic and residential buildings.

Chrysler Building

The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco style skyscraper in New York City, located on the east side of Manhattan in the Turtle Bay area at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. At 1,046 feet, the structure was the world's tallest building for 11 months before it was surpassed by the Empire State Building in 1931. It is still the tallest brick building in the world, albeit with an internal steel skeleton. After the destruction of the World Trade Center, it was again the second-tallest building in New York City until December 2007, when the spire was raised on the 1,200-foot Bank of America Tower, pushing the Chrysler Building into third position. In addition, The New York Times Building, which opened in 2007, is exactly level with the Chrysler Building in height. Both buildings were then pushed into 4th position, when the under construction One World Trade Center surpassed their height.
The Chrysler Building is a classic example of Art Deco architecture and considered by many contemporary architects to be one of the finest buildings in New York City. In 2007, it was ranked ninth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.

Fifth Avenue

Fifth Avenue is one of the longest streets in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It begins downtown and moves eastward for over five miles. Fifth Avenue passes by the Carlow University, the Cathedral of Learning and other buildings of the University of Pittsburgh, and WQED in Oakland, then forms the borders between Shadyside on the north and Squirrel Hill and Point Breeze to the south. Finally, after passing Chatham University, The Ellis School, and Mellon Park, it turns north and forms the border between Larimer on the west and North Point Breeze and Homewood (Pittsburgh) on the east. At the intersection with Frankstown Avenue its name becomes Washington Boulevard and descends a branch of Negley Run to meet Allegheny River Boulevard near the Highland Park Bridge.
At least 30 streets either cross or intersect with Fifth Avenue, including Penn Avenue, which intersects it twice. Forbes Avenue parallels it from Downtown through Uptown and Oakland before diverging at the University of Pittsburgh; they form a one-way pair through Uptown and Oakland.

Grand Central Terminal

Grand Central Terminal is a commuter railroad terminal at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States. Built by and named for the New York Central Railroad in the heyday of American long-distance passenger rail travel, it covers 48 acres and has 44 platforms, more than any other railroad station in the world. Its platforms, all below ground, serve 41 tracks on the upper level and 26 on the lower, though the total number of tracks along platforms and in rail yards exceeds 100.
The terminal serves commuters traveling on the Metro-North Railroad to Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess counties in New York State, and Fairfield and New Haven counties in Connecticut. Until 1991, the terminal served Amtrak, which moved to nearby Pennsylvania Station upon completion of the Empire Connection. The East Side Access project is underway to bring Long Island Rail Road service to the terminal.
Although the terminal has been properly called “Grand Central Terminal” since 1913, it has "always been more colloquially and affectionately known as Grand Central Station", the name of the previous rail station on the same site, and of the U.S.

Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge in New York City and is one of the oldest bridges of either type in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River. It has a main span of 1,595.5 feet, and was the first steel-wire suspension bridge constructed. It was originally referred to as the New York and Brooklyn Bridge and as the East River Bridge, but it was later dubbed the Brooklyn Bridge, a name coming from an earlier January 25, 1867, letter to the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and formally so named by the city government in 1915. Since its opening, it has become an icon of New York City, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1972.

Union Square

Union Square is an important and historic intersection and surrounding neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City, located where Broadway and the former Bowery Road – now Fourth Avenue – came together in the early 19th century; its name celebrates neither the Federal union of the United States nor labor unions but rather denotes that "here was the union of the two principal thoroughfares of the island". The current Union Square Park is bounded by 14th Street on the south, Union Square West on the west side, 17th Street on the north, and on the east Union Square East, which links together Broadway and Park Avenue South to Fourth Avenue and the continuation of Broadway. The park is under the aegis of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
Adjacent neighborhoods are the Flatiron District to the north, Chelsea to the west, Greenwich Village to the southwest, East Village to the southeast, and Gramercy Park to the east. Many buildings of The New School are near the square, as are several dormitories of New York University. The eastern side of the square is dominated by the four Zeckendorf Towers, on the former site of the bargain-priced department store, S.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

The Cathedral of St. Patrick is a decorated Neo-Gothic-style Roman Catholic cathedral church in the United States and a prominent landmark of New York City. It is the seat of the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, and a parish church, located on the east side of Fifth Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets in midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, directly across the street from Rockefeller Center and specifically facing the Atlas statue.
According to Catholic News Service and the Catholic News Agency, Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan, the incumbent Archbishop of New York, announced before reviewing the city's parade on St. Patrick's Day 2012 that the Cathedral would undergo a massive five-year, three-phase, $175 million renovation because of crumbling bricks, faulty heating, and acid rain and pollution that has eaten away at the Tuckahoe marble of the 135-year-old church. Early donors and grants from the Archdiocese and the Trustees of the Cathedral have already raised $45 million for the first phase, which began in late March.

Manhattan Bridge

The Manhattan Bridge is a suspension bridge that crosses the East River in New York City, connecting Lower Manhattan at Canal Street with Downtown Brooklyn at the Flatbush Avenue Extension. The main span is 1,470 ft long, with the suspension cables being 3,224 ft long. The bridge's total length is 6,855 ft. This is one of four toll-free bridges spanning the East River; the other three are the Queensboro, Brooklyn, and Williamsburg Bridges.
The bridge opened to traffic on December 31, 1909. It was designed by Leon Moisseiff, and is noted for its innovative design. As the first suspension bridge to employ Josef Melan's deflection theory for the stiffening of its deck, it is considered to be the forerunner of modern suspension bridges and this design served as the model for many of the long-span suspension bridges built in the first half of the twentieth century. The Manhattan Bridge was also the first suspension bridge to utilize a Warren truss in its design.

Ellis Island

Ellis Island is an island that is located in Upper New York Bay in the Port of New York and New Jersey, United States Of America. It was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States as the nation's busiest and most crowed immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. The island was greatly expanded with land reclamation between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson and later a naval magazine. The island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965, and has hosted a museum of immigration since 1990. Long considered part of New York, a 1998 United States Supreme Court decision found that most of the island is in New Jersey. The south side of the island, home to the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, is closed to the general public and the object of restoration efforts spearheaded by Save Ellis Island. There was also a similar island known as Hoffman's Island.

Flatiron Building

The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is located at 175 Fifth Avenue in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, and is considered to be a groundbreaking skyscraper. Upon completion in 1902, it was one of the tallest buildings in the city and one of only two skyscrapers north of 14th Street – the other being the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, one block east. The building sits on a triangular island-block formed by Fifth Avenue, Broadway and East 22nd Street, with 23rd Street grazing the triangle's northern peak. As with numerous other wedge-shaped buildings, the name "Flatiron" derives from its resemblance to a cast-iron clothes iron.
The building, which has been called "[o]ne of the world's most iconic skyscrapers, and a quintessential symbol of New York City", anchors the south end of Madison Square and the north end of the Ladies' Mile Historic District. The neighborhood around it is called the Flatiron District after its signature building, which has become an icon of New York City.

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world. The museum's collection offers an overview of modern and contemporary art, including works of architecture and design, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, prints, illustrated books and artist's books, film and electronic media.
The Library's holdings include approximately 300,000 books and exhibition catalogs, over 1,000 periodical titles, and over 40,000 files of ephemera about individual artists and groups. The archives holds primary source material related to the history of modern and contemporary art.
MoMA also houses a restaurant, the Modern, run by Alsace-born chef Gabriel Kreuther.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

List of the best things to do in NYC. These may include famous monuments, museums and parks. Stores and attractions also make the list. From The Statue of ...