Things to do in Manhattan Island
Top sights and attractions to build your days around once you know when to go.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the fourth-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5,727,258 visitors in fiscal year 2025, it was the most-visited museum in the United States and the fifth-most visited art museum in the world.
Central Park
Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the sixth-largest park in the city, containing 843 acres (341 ha), and the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated 42 million visitors annually as of 2016. Central Park is owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation but has been managed by the Central Park Conservancy since 1998 under a contract with the government of New York City in a public–private partnership. The conservancy, a non-profit organization, sets Central Park's annual operating budget and is responsible for care of the park.
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of architecture and design, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, prints, illustrated and artist's books, film, as well as electronic media. The museum has been instrumental in shaping the history of modern art, particularly modern art from Europe.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. It was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under the guidance of its first director, Hilla von Rebay. The museum adopted its current name in 1952, three years after the death of its founder Solomon R. Guggenheim. It continues to be operated and owned by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library. The museum collections contain about 32 million specimens of plants, animals, fungi, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, as well as specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The museum occupies more than 2,500,000 ft2 (232,258 m2). AMNH has a full-time scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year, and averages about five million visits annually.
MetLife Stadium
MetLife Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium located at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, five miles (8 km) west of New York City. Opened in 2010, it replaced Giants Stadium and serves as the home for the New York Giants and New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL). At an approximate cost of $1.6 billion, it was the most expensive stadium built in the U.S. at the time of its completion. It is the largest stadium in New Jersey and the New York metro area with a capacity of over 82,000, and is the largest venue in the NFL.
St. Patrick's Cathedral
St. Patrick's Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, United States. It is the seat of the Archbishop of New York as well as a parish church. The cathedral occupies a city block bounded by Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, 50th Street, and 51st Street, directly across from Rockefeller Center. Designed by James Renwick Jr., it is the largest Gothic Revival Catholic cathedral in North America.
Bronx Zoo
The Bronx Zoo is a zoo within Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. It is one of the largest zoos in the United States by area and the largest metropolitan zoo, comprising 265 acres (107 ha) of park lands and naturalistic habitats separated by the Bronx River. The zoo has 2.1 million average yearly visitors as of 2009. The zoo's original buildings, known as Astor Court, were designed as a series of Beaux-Arts pavilions grouped around the large circular sea lion pool. The Rainey Memorial Gates were designed by sculptor Paul Manship in 1934 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
Flushing Meadows–Corona Park
Flushing Meadows–Corona Park is a public park in the northern part of Queens in New York City, New York, U.S. It is bounded by I-678 on the east, Grand Central Parkway on the west, Flushing Bay on the north, and Union Turnpike on the south. Flushing Meadows–Corona Park is the fourth-largest public park in New York City, with a total area of 897 acres (363 ha).
National September 11 Memorial & Museum
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum is a memorial and museum that are part of the World Trade Center complex, in New York City, created for remembering the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks which killed 2,977 people, as well as the February 26, 1993, World Trade Center bombing which killed six. The memorial is located at the World Trade Center site, the former location of the Twin Towers that were destroyed during the September 11 attacks. It is operated by a non-profit institution whose mission is to raise funds to program and operate the memorial and museum at the World Trade Center site.
Giants Stadium
Giants Stadium was a stadium located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The venue was open from 1976 to 2010, and primarily hosted sporting events and concerts. It was the home field of the New York metropolitan area's two National Football League teams, the New York Giants and the New York Jets. It also was the home field of two New York metro area professional soccer teams, the NASL's New York Cosmos and Major League Soccer's New York Red Bulls.
The Battery
The Battery, formerly known as Battery Park, is a 25-acre (10 ha) public park located at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City facing New York Harbor. The park is bounded by Battery Place on the north, with Bowling Green to the northeast, State Street on the east, New York Harbor to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. The park contains attractions such as an early 19th-century fort named Castle Clinton; multiple monuments; and the SeaGlass Carousel. The surrounding area, known as South Ferry, contains multiple ferry terminals, including the Staten Island Ferry's Whitehall Terminal; a boat launch to the Statue of Liberty National Monument ; and a boat launch to Governors Island.
Places from Wikidata and Wikipedia.
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