29 Best Sights in New York City, New York

New York’s second-largest museum (after Manhattan’s Metropolitan Museum of Art) is also one of the largest in America, with 560,000 square feet of exhibition space. The colossal Beaux-Arts structure houses one of the best collections of Egyptian art in the world, as well as impressive collections of African, pre-Columbian, Native American, and feminist art. In addition, you'll find works by Georgia O'Keeffe, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, George Bellows, Thomas Eakins, and Milton Avery. The museum is also well known for its contemporary, cutting-edge special exhibits. The monthly (except for September) First Saturday free-entry night is a neighborhood party of art, music, and dancing, with food vendors and several cash bars.

The Cooper Hewitt has taken an ornate, century-old mansion—once the residence of industrialist Andrew Carnegie—and outfitted it with the latest technologies and amenities to create a slick, highly interactive, 21st-century experience, so you don’t just look at design; you engage with it. Download the free app to guide you through some of the wide-ranging collection's more than 200,000 objects, including antique cutlery, vintage wallpaper, art and design books, Japanese sword fittings, and examples of robotics and animation. Rotating exhibits may focus on a particular designer or design era.

The focus on design and discovery extends to the SHOP, where limited-edition objects are for sale. There is a café, and an outdoor garden is free and open to the public. The museum offers guided tours aligned to exhibition topics at 1:30. Purchase timed tickets online.

While the Frick Collection's opulent 5th Avenue mansion is being renovated and modernized with new technology, some of the museum's treasures are displayed in this modernist building nearby, formerly the Met Breuer (named for the building's architect, Marcel Breuer) and before that the Whitney Museum of American Art. Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) made his fortune amid the soot and smoke of Pittsburgh, where he was a coke (a coal fuel derivative) and steel baron, but his amazing art collection of Old Masters is decidedly far removed from soot. Exceptional pieces from the Renaissance through the late 19th century include paintings by Holbein, Vermeer, and Rembrandt, as well as works by El Greco, Goya, van Dyck, Hogarth, Degas, and Turner. The museum also has 18th-century French furniture and delicate Chinese ceramics and other decorative arts. Children under 10 are not admitted. A free mobile guide for Frick Madison is available through Bloomberg Connect. When the collection returns to its mansion home at 1 East 70th Street (likely in late 2024 or early 2025), it will again include the building's restful 5th Avenue garden, dotted with sculptures.

A pioneer in the "alternative-space" movement, MoMA PS1 rose from the ruins of an abandoned school in 1976 as a sort of community arts center for the future, focusing on the work of currently active experimental and innovative artists. Long-term installations include work by Sol LeWitt, James Turrell, and Pipilotti Rist. Every available corner of the enormous building is used; discover art not only in former classrooms–turned–galleries, but also in the boiler room, and even in some bathrooms.

What this small three-gallery museum in the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) lacks in size and effects it more than makes up for in substance and style. You might not find interactive mannequins, elaborate displays, or overcrowded galleries at the self-declared "most fashionable museum in New York City," but you will find carefully curated, fun, and interesting exhibits. The Fashion and Textile History Gallery, on the main floor, provides context with a rotating selection of historically and artistically significant objects from the museum’s permanent collection of more than 50,000 garments and accessories (exhibits change every six months). The real draws, though, are the special exhibitions in the lower-level gallery. Gallery FIT, also on the main floor, is dedicated to student and faculty exhibitions.

Housing one of the world's finest collections of modern art, MoMA is renowned for its permanent collection, which includes masterpieces by Picasso, van Gogh, Monet, Kahlo, Warhol, and Dalí, as well as its first-rate multimedia exhibitions. MoMA completed a $450 million renovation and expansion in 2019, and the building now features walkways between old and new galleries, each organized to showcase familiar masters alongside great, but lesser-known, artists—many of them women and people of color. Contemporary works and those of varied media also are strategically exhibited beside familiar classics. The displays breathe new life into the institution's curatorial experience.

MoMA spans six levels, and it's helpful to explore from top to bottom. See the most famous works on Floors 4 and 5; installations on 6; and galleries of photography, drawings, architecture projects, and special exhibitions on the lower floors. Level 1 remains home to the delightful Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. Within the museum, dine at high-end The Modern; snack at cafés on Floor 2; and enjoy outdoor views from the Terrace café on Floor 6. The cellar-level cinema screens international films and theme series (museum entry is included with your film ticket). Browse at the famous MoMA Store and MoMA Design Store (across 53rd Street).  Entry is free for NYC residents the first Friday of each month, 4–8 pm. The first-floor galleries are free and open to the public. The museum is open until 7 pm on Saturday.

This seven-story, 60,000-square-foot structure—a glimmering, metal-mesh-clad assemblage of off-center squares—caused a small neighborhood uproar when it was built in 2007, with some residents slow to accept the nontraditional building. Not surprisingly, given the museum's name and the building, shows are all about contemporary art, often provocative and frequently with a video element. Free tours are offered; check the website for times.

Frank Lloyd Wright's landmark curving, nautilus-like building is renowned as much for its famous architecture as for its superlative collection of modern art and well-curated shows, some of which utilize the entire museum. Opened in 1959, shortly after Wright's death, the Guggenheim is acclaimed as one of the greatest buildings of the 20th century. Inside, under a 96-foot-high glass dome, a ramp spirals down, past the artworks of the current exhibits (the ramp is just over a quarter-mile long). The museum has strong holdings of works by Wassily Kandinsky (150 works), Paul Klee, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, and Robert Mapplethorpe.  In 2023, the museum added its first associate curator of art and technology to promote artists working with technology. 

Wright's design was criticized by some who believed that the distinctive building detracted from the art, but the design allows artworks to be viewed from different angles and distances. On permanent display, the museum's Thannhauser Collection is made up primarily of works by French impressionists and postimpressionists van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cézanne, Renoir, and Manet. Escape the crowded lobby by taking the elevator to the top and working your way down the spiral. The Cafe Rebay offers snacks and sandwiches.

Housed in a French-Gothic, chateau-style mansion dating from 1908 that was once the home of German-Jewish immigrant and businessman Felix Warburg, the Jewish Museum draws on an impressive collection of art and ceremonial objects to explore Jewish identity and culture spanning more than 4,000 years. The wide-ranging artifacts include the world's largest collection of menorahs (ritual candelabras used during Hanukkah), a 3rd-century Roman burial plaque, 20th-century sculpture by George Segal, and works by such artists as Camille Pissaro, Deborah Kass, Lee Krasner, and Kehinde Wiley. Scenes from the Collection, occupying the entire third floor, contains roughly 600 pieces from ancient to contemporary. The space is divided into seven thematic sections complemented by interactive media; displays rotate at least annually. The museum's changing exhibitions are well curated and lively.

Perched on a wooded hill in Fort Tryon Park, near Manhattan's northwestern tip, the Cloisters museum and gardens houses part of the medieval collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is a scenic destination in its own right. Colonnaded walks connect authentic French and Spanish monastic cloisters, a French Romanesque chapel, a 12th-century chapter house, and a Romanesque apse. One room is devoted to the 15th- and 16th-century Unicorn Tapestries, which date from 1500 and are must-see masterpieces of medieval mythology and craftsmanship. The tomb effigies are another highlight, as is the Reliquary containing silver and gold religious objects. Two of the three enclosed gardens shelter more than 250 species of plants similar to those grown during the Middle Ages, including flowers, herbs, and medicinals; the third is an ornamental garden.

Concerts of medieval music are held regularly, and there are holiday concerts in December. Concert tickets include same-day admission to the museum, and tickets to either the main Met on 5th Avenue or to the Met Cloisters include same-day admission to the other. The outdoor Trie Café is open during museum hours, rain or shine, May through October, with a light menu of sandwiches, desserts, and coffee.

If Manhattan had no museums other than the colossal Metropolitan Museum of Art, you could still occupy yourself for days—even a week—roaming its labyrinthine corridors. It is the largest museum in the Western Hemisphere, with more than 1.5 million works of art representing 5,000 years of history, so plan ahead and be selective. The famous Egyptian collection (including the Temple of Dendur) is reason enough to visit. Other don't-miss sections include the extensive European Paintings galleries, the magnificent Islamic Galleries, the impressive collection of impressionist paintings, the American Wing, the Anna Wintour Costume Center (within the collection of the Costume Institute), and tons (literally) of ancient Greek and Roman statues. Kids love the Arms and Armor displays.

Be aware of ongoing renovations. A three-year rebuild of the Ancient Near Eastern and Cypriot Art galleries will continue into early 2026; check the website and museum map to plan your visit around gallery closures. Take a break at the Cantor Roof Garden, open May to September, or at one of four cafés and lounges offering light bites and cocktails. Admission includes same-day entry to Met Cloisters, the medieval art collection in Inwood, at the northern tip of Manhattan. Download a free audio guide to make the most of your visit (with your own headphones), or take advantage of a tour with a docent.

The Renzo Piano–designed museum welcomes visitors with a lively plaza, bold works of contemporary and modern American art, plenty of terraced outdoor spaces, and expansive windows. There are eight floors (not all open to the public), with a restaurant on the ground floor and a café on the eighth floor. The galleries house rotating exhibitions from the permanent collection of postwar and contemporary works by artists such as Jackson Pollock, Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Mark Rothko, Chuck Close, Cindy Sherman, and Roy Lichtenstein. Notable pieces often on view include Hopper's Early Sunday Morning (1930), Bellows's Dempsey and Firpo (1924), Calder's beloved Circus, and several of O'Keeffe's dazzling flower paintings.

The Whitney experience is as much about the setting as the incredible artwork. The outdoor terraces on floors six, seven, and eight are connected by exterior stairs that provide a welcome reprieve from crowded galleries as well as stunning skyline views. After 7 pm on Friday, the price of admission is pay-what-you-wish.  Skip the long lines, and buy tickets in advance, but note that you cannot buy same-day tickets online. They must be purchased the day before.

The focus of this museum near Lincoln Center is its incredible collection of work by folk and self-taught artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, including the single largest collection of reclusive Chicago artist Henry Darger, known for his painstakingly detailed collage paintings of fantasy worlds. The gift shop has an impressive collection of handcrafted items.

The Asian art collection of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III forms the core of this museum's holdings, which span territory from Pakistan to Java; date from as far back as the 11th century BC; and include Hindu stone sculpture, Buddhist paintings, Vietnamese ceramics, ancient Chinese bronzes, and Japanese woodblock prints. A growing contemporary collection features video, animation, ink art, photography, and new media art by artists from Asia and the Americas. Founded in 1956, the society has a regular program of lectures, films, and performances, in addition to changing exhibitions of traditional and contemporary art. Trees grow in the glass-enclosed, skylighted Garden Court Café, which serves an eclectic Asian lunch menu and weekend brunch. Timed tickets are available online. A free audio tour is included with admission, or you can take a free guided tour at 2 pm daily.

El barrio, Spanish for "the neighborhood," is the nickname for East Harlem, a largely Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican and Dominican community; the museum, on the edge of this neighborhood, focuses on Latin American and Caribbean art. Some 10% of its collection is concentrated on works by self-taught artists from New York, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and Latin America. The permanent collection of more than 6,500 objects includes over 400 pre-Columbian artifacts, ceremonial masks from Mexico and Guatemala, sculpture, photography, film and video, and traditional art from all over Latin America. One highlight is the 360 santos, carved wooden folk-art figures from Puerto Rico. The museum's El Teatro, formerly the Heckscher Theater, dates to 1921 and has stunning murals; it's used for cultural programs. El Museo hosts performances, lectures, films, and cultural events, including a monthlong Día de los Muertos celebration.

The New York outpost of the Swedish photography museum, Fotografiska, took over the landmark Church Missions House, a historic, Renaissance-Revival building with a stunning medieval-inspired limestone and granite facade. There are three floors of somewhat cramped galleries, with a top-floor multipurpose exhibition space. The first floor has a gift shop and a casual café, plus access to the sultry Chapel Bar in the former chapel space. The exhibition floors are open 'til 11 pm Wednesday to Saturday (9 pm Sunday to Tuesday) and if you buy a drinks ticket, you can take your beverage (alcoholic or not) along with you, so it makes for a fun date-night cultural attraction.

Occupying almost an entire city block between Broadway and Riverside Drive East on 155th Street in upper Manhattan, the Hispanic Society Museum & Library, a repository of an extraordinarily rich collection of more than half a million items relating to the art and cultures of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world, opened to the public for the first time in six years in early 2023. Founded in 1904 as a museum for Spanish and Portuguese art, with Goya’s Dutchess of Alba (1797) as a major draw of the collection, the museum reopened with a mission to connect the Society to the art of the 20th and 21st centuries and to its Latino neighborhood of Washington Heights. The Dutchess of Alba is still here, still a big draw in the arcaded, Spanish Renaissance--style Main Court, which features luscious terra-cotta details. Other highlights include the Sorolla Vision of Spain Gallery housing 14 monumental paintings from the Valencian master painter Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, and the Upper Terrace, an open-air space that looks out over the bronze equestrian statue of El Cid and other fine sculptures.

Founded in 1974 by photojournalist Cornell Capa (photographer Robert Capa's brother), ICP continues to put on exhibitions that explore the timely social and political aspects of photojournalism. The institution, which has moved its collection of more than 150,000 original prints—spanning the history of photography, from daguerreotypes to large-scale pigment prints—several times, finally has a permanent home with both education and exhibition spaces. The new building's spacious, second- and third-floor galleries really allow the exhibits to shine. There's a gift shop and small café on the ground floor. It's pay-what-you-wish on Thursday night 6 pm–9 pm.

Atop Lighthouse Hill sits this replica of a tranquil Tibetan monastery so impressive, it's listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Founded by an American collector of Tibetan art, it's partly a museum comprising a temple and a garden, holding her formidable collection of Tibetan and Himalayan sculpture, paintings, and artifacts. It's also an active community center for visitors to mediate, practice yoga or Tai Chi, or attend other events posted on their website's calendar. Views from their terrace truly transport you to another place, far from an urban center.

Founded in 1969 in a basement on Prince Street, the museum has its roots in the collection of its founders, Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman, two lifelong champions of LGBTQ+ artists. The well-curated exhibits in the spacious first-floor galleries are usually photographic (and sometimes sexually charged), though the museum's impressive archive leads to new exhibitions in various media as often as six times a year.

Founded in 1901, the museum of the Society of Illustrators presents its annual "Oscars," a juried international competition, from January to March; the best in children's book illustration is showcased October through December. In between are eclectic exhibitions on comics, science fiction, fashion, animation and 3-D, and historic illustrations from the permanent collection, which also includes the holdings of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA). In addition, there are lectures, arts education programs for K–12, and an indie comics festival (in April; MoCCA Fest).

Housed in a glass and glazed–terra-cotta building on the rim of Columbus Circle, the museum is an epicenter of experimental and innovative craft, art, and design, with a focus on contemporary jewelry, glass, ceramic, fiber, wood, and mixed-media works. Pieces are human-scale, with many neatly housed in display cases rather than hanging on walls. Exhibitions offer new ways of thinking, experiencing, and telling stories about art and design. Exit through the gift shop, with its incredible housewares, jewelry, and other artful items unseen anywhere else. Free docent-led tours are offered Friday to Sunday at 11:30 and 2:30. The top floor houses Robert at MAD, a full-service restaurant with glorious views of Central Park through floor-to-ceiling windows.

Early-20th-century German and Austrian art and design are the focus here, with works by artists Gustav Klimt, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, and Egon Schiele, as well as Josef Hoffmann, Kolomon Moser, and other designers from the Wiener Werkstätte. The Neue Galerie was founded by the late art dealer Serge Sabarsky and cosmetics heir and art collector Ronald S. Lauder. It's in a 1914, wood- and marble-floored mansion that was designed by Carrère and Hastings and was once home to Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt III. One famous work here is Klimt's portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, known as Adele Bloch-Bauer I or Woman in Gold, stolen from the family by the Nazis and returned to a descendant after a legal battle, then purchased for the museum. (There are books and a film, Woman in Gold, about the painting's story.) Children under 12 are not admitted, and teens 12–16 must be accompanied by an adult. A digital audio tour, available for free on the Bloomberg Connects App, offers guided insights on the collection (download to your phone in advance of your visit). Café Sabarsky, in an elegant space on the first floor, is a destination for Viennese coffee, cakes, and Sacher tortes. If Café Sabarsky is full, see if the basement-level Café Fledermaus, which has much the same menu, is open.

Noted American artist and sculptor Walter De Maria's 1977 avant-garde installation consists, quite simply, of 280,000 pounds of gently sculpted soil filling 3,600 square feet of a second-floor loft maintained by the Dia Art Foundation since 1980. You can't touch or walk on the dirt, nor can you take photos, but looking at it is quite peaceful. De Maria's equally odd and impressive work The Broken Kilometer, an 18.75-ton installation that consists of five columns of a total of 1,000 meter-long brass rods covering the wooden floors of an open loft space, is a few blocks away (  393 W. Broadway) and is a good complement. The two installations have the same hours.

An 1898 Upper West Side town house contains this small, eccentric museum dedicated to the work of Russian artist Nicholas Roerich, who immigrated to New York in the 1920s and quickly developed an ardent following. About 150 of his paintings hang here—notably some vast canvases of the Himalayas. 

Between the zoo and the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park lies the Queens Museum. Don't miss the astonishing Panorama of the City of New York, a nearly 900,000-building model of NYC made for the 1964 World's Fair, and the world's largest scale model. There are also rotating exhibitions of contemporary art, a massive map of the NYC water supply system, and a permanent collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass. Parking is free but limited.

A crowd-pleasing Basquiat show in 2019 marked the inauguration of this East Village art space, and subsequent shows have proved that the privately owned Brant Foundation isn't a one-trick pony. That's not surprising since Peter Brant's own collection includes a vast selection of works by such contemporary artists as Andy Warhol, David Altmejd, Carl Andre, John Chamberlain, Urs Fischer, Dan Flavin, Dash Snow, and the aforementioned Basquiat, just to name a few. The four-level space was once a power station (it later became the studio of conceptual artist Walter De Maria), and it's towering ceilings and giant windows are the perfect setting for large-scale artworks. There’s a quiet garden and a gift shop, too. Call or check the website to confirm opening times and price of admission.

At this nonprofit organization, the focus is on drawings—contemporary and historical. The frequently changing exhibits often push the envelope on what's considered drawing so there's usually some thought-provoking material. Many projects are commissioned by the center.

In 1985, the Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904–88) transformed this former industrial plant into a showcase for his modernist and earlier works. A peaceful central garden is surrounded by galleries, showing a comprehensive selection of Noguchi’s sculptures in stone, metals, paper, and ceramics, as well as architectural models, drawings, designs, and photographs. Temporary exhibits explore his collaborations with contemporaries such as Martha Graham, and his enduring influence on artists and designers working today. The museum is about a mile from subway stops, but less than half a mile from the Astoria stop on the NYC Ferry; check the website for complete directions.