City Pass
CityPass offers a huge savings for sightseeing aficionado. Attractions include:
Empire State Building Observatory & Audio Tour
Guggenheim Museum
American Museum of Natural History, including the Hayden Planetarium and the Rose Center for Earth & Space
Museum of Modern Art
Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum
2 hour Circle Line Semi Circle Cruise
New York Water Taxi Avoid the stress of New York City traffic. New York Water Taxi connects you to neighborhoods, parks and cultural attractions along the East Side, West Side, Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn waterfronts.
Get your 2-day ticket for the smart way around town and hop-on, hop-off as you please!
Statue of Liberty
Liberty Enlightening the World, commonly known as the Statue of Liberty, is a statue, given to the U.S. by France in the late 19th century, that stands at the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbor as a welcome to all: returning Americans, visitors, and immigrants alike. The sculptor was Frederic Auguste Bartholdi; Gustave Eiffel (of Eiffel Tower fame) created the armature.
The copper statue of the goddess of Liberty was a present by France, as a centennial gift to the U.S. and a sign of friendship between the two nations. The pedestal was constructed by the United States. The Statue of Liberty is often used as a symbol that personifies the entire nation of the United States, much like Uncle Sam. In a more general sense, the Statue of Liberty is used to represent liberty in general and is a favored symbol of libertarians. Her British counterpart is Britannia, a forerunner of Lady Liberty, Britannia represents British values and was especially well-known at the height of the British Empire.
The goddess of liberty holds a torch in her right hand and a tablet in her left. The tablet shows the caption "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI", the date of the Declaration of Independence. One of her feet stands on chains. The seven spikes in her crown represent the seven seas or seven continents.
The height from ground to the tip of the torch is 305 feet (93 meters); this includes the foundation and the pedestal. The height of the statue itself, from the top of the base to the torch, is 151 feet (46 meters).
The statue was built from thin copper plates hammered into wooden forms. The formed plates were then mounted onto a steel skeleton.
Circle Line Statue of Liberty
Leave from Battery Park in Manhattan via tour cruiser to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
Coney Island
Find out about the history of Coney Island, the Mermaid Parade, Sideshow School, the Coney Island Freak Show, and more.
Ellis Island
Between 1892 and 1954, approximately 12 million people entering the United States through the port of New York were legally and medically inspected at Ellis Island.
Empire State Building
Visit the Web site of the Empire State Building to learn about visiting hours and fees, see the lighting schedule, and take a virtual tour.
Grand Central Terminal
Get information on upcoming events, tours and history, and see a directory of dining and shopping opportunities at Grand Central Terminal.
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings between 48th and 51st street in New York. It's located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, straddling both Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. Today's Rockefeller Center is essentially a combination of two building complexes: the older Art-Deco office buildings from the 1930s and a set of four International-style towers built along the Avenue of the Americas during the 1960s and 1970s.
Rockefeller Center was named after John D. Rockefeller Jr. who leased the space from Columbia University in 1928 and developed it between 1929 and 1940. Rockefeller initially planned to build an opera house on the site, but changed his mind after the stock market crash of 1929. Construction of buildings in the Art Deco style began in 1929. Principal architect for the complex was Raymond Hood, working with a team that included a young Wallace Harrison.
The nation's largest indoor theater, Radio City Music Hall, is located in the Rockefeller Center complex. One of the complex's first tenants was The Radio Corporation of America, hence the names "Radio City" and "Radio City Music Hall."
The centerpiece of Rockefeller Center is the 71-floor, 872-foot GE Building (formerly known as the RCA Building), centered behind the sunken plaza. It was renamed in the 1980s after General Electric (GE) acquired RCA. The skyscraper is the headquarters of NBC and houses most of the network's New York studios, including the legendary Studio 8H, home of Saturday Night Live. Unlike most other Art Deco towers built during the 1930s, the GE Building was constructed as a slab with a flat roof. The entire Rockefeller Center complex was purchased by a Mitsubishi subsidiary in 1989.
Among other public art in the complex, Paul Manship's highly recognizable gilded statue of Prometheus recumbent, bringing fire to mankind, features prominently. It stands above a below-level plaza which is used as an ice-skating rink during winter. Manship was not fond of it. Sculptor Lee Lawrie contributed a number of friezes and the statue of Altas. Mexican socialist artist Diego Rivera had been commissioned to create a mural for the center, but Man at the Crossroads was removed soon after completion because it contained a portrait of Lenin and other anti-Rockfeller imagery.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Visitors can learn about the central banking functions that the Federal Reserve System performs and see the Bank's vault of international monetary gold on the bedrock of Manhattan Island, five stories below street level.
Lower East Side Tenement Museum
Understand the experience of immigrants in early New York City through a tour of old housing.
Dyckman House Not far from Inwood Hill Park at Manhattan's northern tip, the Dyckman House is the only remaining Dutch colonial farmhouse in the borough.
Early Harlem See images of Harlem from 1900 - 1940 from the Public Library's Schomburg Center.
Gracie Mansion
An 18th century house that is the official residence of the New York City Mayor.
General Grant National Monument
Exhibits and artwork depict the life of President and General Ulysses S. Grant. Ranger guided tours daily 10:00, 12:00 and 2:00 help explain the art, architecture and history of the Memorial, as well as provide access to the crypt level of the site. Living history demonstrations, blackpowder weapons demonstrations, and special activities are offered weekly.
Please call for more info: (212) 666-1640
Jeffrey's Hook Lighthouse
The Jeffrey's Hook lighthouse, erected in 1880 and moved to its current site in 1921, has become widely known as the children's literary landmark, "The Little Red Lighthouse."
Merchant's House Museum
The Merchant's Museum is New York City's only family home preserved intact from the 19th century. A National Historic and New York City landmark, the house was built in 1832 and was home to a prosperous merchant family for 100 years.
Morris-Jumel Mansion
Manhattan's oldest surviving house, the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Harlem Heights is rich with history.
Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre
The Swedish Cottage, a model schoolhouse, was built as Sweden's exhibit for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, and was moved to Central Park in 1877.
