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Brooklyn Bridge lit up at night with the Lower Manhattan skyline

Best Things to Do in New York City

You can't do it all, and New Yorkers never try. Here's our shortlist for a first visit, in rough order of priority. Mix one big museum a day with a walk and a neighbourhood, and the city stays fun instead of exhausting.

  1. Central Park. 843 acres of lakes, meadows and rock outcrops, designed in the 1850s to look natural. Follow our Central Park walk from 59th Street to Belvedere Castle.
  2. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Five thousand years of art on the edge of the park. Don't try to see it all. Pick the Temple of Dendur, the European paintings and the American Wing, and leave.
  3. The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. One ferry, two islands and half a day. Our Statue of Liberty guide explains which ticket to buy.
  4. Walk the Brooklyn Bridge. Start from the Manhattan side near City Hall so the skyline is behind you, then look back from the middle. The walkway is now separate from the bike lane. Carry on into our Brooklyn guide.
  5. The 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Two square pools sit in the footprints of the Twin Towers, with the names of the dead cut in bronze around them. The memorial is free. The museum underneath is powerful and needs at least two hours.
  6. The High Line. An old elevated freight railway turned into a planted walkway, from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District up to Hudson Yards. Go early morning or at dusk.
  7. MoMA. Van Gogh's The Starry Night, Monet's water lilies, Warhol's soup cans. Smaller and easier to manage than the Met.
  8. A view from the top. Top of the Rock is our pick because the view includes the Empire State Building and looks straight down on Central Park. The Empire State itself is the classic, and Edge and Summit are the newer, showier options.
  9. A Broadway show. Book the big musicals ahead. For same-day discounts, try the TKTS booth under the red steps in Times Square.
  10. Grand Central Terminal. Look up at the green ceiling painted with the zodiac, then find the whispering gallery by the Oyster Bar, where a word spoken into one corner carries across the arch.
  11. The Staten Island Ferry. Free, running around the clock from Whitehall Terminal, and passing close to the Statue of Liberty. Ride there and straight back.
  12. The American Museum of Natural History. Dinosaur skeletons, a blue whale hanging from the ceiling and dioramas that haven't changed in decades. Children love it, and so do most adults.

And the one we'd skip: Times Square. See it once after dark, for five minutes, on your way to a show. The chain restaurants and costumed characters asking for tips aren't the city at its best.