Things to do in NYC: Experts Your first Visits

Things to do in NYC: Experts Your first Visits,our essential rundown of the things every New Yorker and visitor must check off their bucket lists—we replaced a whopping 34 entries. (That’s, like, a third of the list, people!)

Why?

Because in NYC, what’s necessary is always changing. As you can see below, we’ve added recent faves—looking good, Paulie Gee’s Slice Shop—and even yet-to-debut attractions—ditto, The Edge—into our mix of tried-and-true staples. Plus, we also crowned a new No. 1 pick: Having one hell of a night out at Club Cumming.

Every day, our staffers are eating, drinking, partying, gigging and generally appreciating their way throughout this fair town of ours. Which makes pinning down the most essential New York activities kinda tough.

We need to include the classics, naturally—art museums in NYC, stellar New York attractions, killer bars and restaurants in NYC—but also spotlight the more recent or little-known gems that we truly love. Consider the below your NYC Bible.

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Statue of Liberty

Last year, a record 4.4 million tourists visited Liberty Island, the 14-acre swath of land one mile south of lower Manhattan upon which the Statue of Liberty rests. While there is no fee to visit Liberty Island, you do have to pay for a round-trip ferry ride via Statue Cruises. (Construction started: September 1875)

The ferry also stops on Ellis Island, part of the national park, which houses the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration, where visitors can search ship manifests for the records of their relatives. If you plan to visit the Statue’s pedestal or crown, plan ahead: There are a limited number of tickets available each day and they sell out weeks, if not months, in advance. And also plan on spending the day: It can six hours to properly visit the statue and Ellis Island.

Brooklyn Bridge

When the Brooklyn Bridge was constructed in 1883—extending 1,595 feet across the East River, connecting lower Manhattan to Brooklyn Heights—it was the longest suspension bridge in the world.

Now, it’s a historic staple of the New York City skyline, transporting commuter car traffic underneath and touristic foot traffic above. Standing before arches and rectangles with city skyscrapers rising in the distance, will at once inspire a sense of grandiosity and slightness.

Brooklyn Museum

At 560,000 square feet, Brooklyn Museum is the third largest museum in New York City, and one of the its great institutions. Housed in a Beaux-Arts building from 1897,

it sits on the edge of Prospect Park, inviting for spontaneous walk-ins. With 1.5 million works as part of the collection, just about every form of art is represented here. Particular standouts include its selection of paintings by Dennis Hopper and Norman Rockwell, and a top-notch Egyptian artifacts gallery.

Coney Island

Coney Island has a reputation as a circus-worthy tourist trap, which is exactly what it is. But you may be surprised by the old-timey charms of this beachfront American town. You’ll definitely be impressed by the food and drinks—Totonno’s Pizza, Gargiulo’s and Coney Island Brewery in particular.

Locals and tourists hang out on the beach, eat ice cream cones on the promenade, and stand in line for the famed Cyclone roller coaster. The beach and boardwalk along with spots like Nathan’s are open year-round. The amusement park itself is seasonal.

The High Line

The High Line is a perfect example of what New York City does best: cleverly rehabs old spaces into exactly what you want them to be. When a 1.45-mile-long abandoned freight rail on Manhattan’s West End was transformed into an elevated, mixed-use public park in 2009,

New Yorkers came running. Towering 30 feet above buzzing 11th Avenue, the High Line is a masterful feat of landscape architecture that melds walkways, benches, and chaise lounges with grass, perennials, trees, and bushes in perfect unkempt-kempt harmony.

Memorial and Museum

Every American should visit the 9/11 Memorial and Museum at least once. As you enter the museum, you descend from the street to bedrock level—the foundation of the former Twin Towers—and are placed in a meditative NYC mindset, forced to recall where you were on that fateful day.

The museum itself is a masterful balance: It’s grand in scale, contemplative in its construction, and personal in its execution. It pays homage to the enormity of the loss, both physical and spiritual.

Central Park

Step off the crowded sidewalks of 59th Street into Central Park and you’ll hardly realize what lies before you: 693 acres of man-made gardens, meadows, forests, and rolling hillsides. If you ambled down every one of Central Park’s pathways, you would walk 58 miles.

Along the way, you pass fountains, monuments, sculptures, bridges, and arches. Plus 21 playgrounds, a winter ice-skating rink, a zoo, and even a castle. But you’d hardly notice the four major crosstown thoroughfares, which cleverly disappear into foliage-covered tunnels.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The Guggenheim is a radical departure from the typical museum layout—and from every other building in New York, for that matter. The circular concrete structure stands in stark contrast to the rectangular steel-and-glass buildings that surround it.

Inside, a central ramp—which spirals upward and outward from one exhibition floor to the next—creates an open interior space, flooded with daylight that pours in through a glass dome. Frank Lloyd Wright designed the iconic building that houses Solomon R. Guggenheim’s modern art collection, which includes paintings by Kandinsky, plus works by Picasso, Klee, Miró, and more. If you have time for a meal, head to The Wright, a James Beard Award-winning American bistro on site.

Dover Street Market New York

When London shopping mecca Dover Street Market debuted its New York outpost in December 2013, throngs of accessorized fashionistas camped out for days outside its Lexington Avenue entrance. Dover Street is more than just a luxury department store; it’s a fashion-meets-art exhibition space.

Featured designers configure their own display areas, allowing the shopper to interact with the clothes in a holistic manner that takes you inside the designer’s world—as opposed to just picking through dresses hanging on a metal rack. Also don’t miss the ground-floor café, Rose Bakery.

Governors Island

For almost two centuries, this 172-acre isle in the heart of New York Harbor was closed to the public, operating as a military base. Now, anyone can visit Governors Island’s monuments, parks, and exhibitions during summer NYC (May through October, seven days a week).

To get there, all you need is a round-trip ferry ticket, and New York residents just have to show a valid state license to ride free. Governors Island has immediate escapist appeal, but most people go for a memorable event: music festivals, pop-up dinners, art exhibits, dance performances—the list goes on.

Queens Night Market

The Queens Night Market, a chaotic melting pot of a market, feels like the opposite of Smorgasburg, the Brooklyn market known for its artisanal, often Instagram-friendly food. Inspired by the night markets of Southeast Asia, it brings together vendors from as many different cultures as there are in the borough itself—well, almost.

Vendors rotate on a yearly basis, but you can expect a veritable United Nations of dishes, from Peruvian Quinoa Chaufa to Taiwanese popcorn chicken to Moldovan waffle rolls. Most dishes cost $10 or less, so you can have yourself a little international food tour without spending too much.

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