The Ultimate Guide to Must-See Places in New York City
After visiting New York for the first time, we can ensure that it is one of our favorite cities of the world. And that, NY has sooooo many attractive places that you can always be doing activities and not getting bored, and it lives up with the nickname “the city that never sleeps” due to the environment and movement that it has during the whole day.
We could visit it for 7 days, enough to know the majority of the must-see places in New York. Obviously, it has so many places to visit that we could have done a longer list, but for the moment, we wanted to summarize it in this 20 points, as for as they form a very complete list of experiences and places of the city.
If you want to see the route we did during our visit to New York in 7 days, we leave you here another post with all the information by day, useful if you want to do a similar route.
With that being said, we leave you our list of must-see places in New York!
1. Feeling small in Times Square
Times Square is the most famous square of New York and one of the more iconic in the world. It receives this name as it’s located near the headquarters of one of the most important newspaper of the city, the New York Times. It’s also known for being surrounded by skyscrapers with illuminated advertising panels that makes you feel tiny. This place is located in the center of Manhattan island, near one of the most famous entertainment districts of the world, Broadway.
Even if you don’t want, you will visit this place one or more times in your visit to New York as it’s the neuralgic center of Manhattan and one of the most important areas. We visited it both during day and night, and it’s fair to say, that it changes and it’s worth to visit it at least twice.
2. Crown the Empire State Building
Another of the most important icons and that has to be in a list of must-see places in New York is the Empire State Building. It is a skyscraper of 443 meters of height that was inaugurated in 1931 and that was the world’s highest building for 40 years. This building is algo on of the city icons as it appeared in lots of films and series recorded in NYC. It’s also important to mention that it was built in a record time, just one year and a half after starting it. The building is in the central area of Manhattan.
The building view has an initial part where you will see some rooms that explain the construction process in the 30s, some curiosities of it and some films and series where the building appears. Then, you will be guided to the main viewpoint and you will be able to enjoy one of the best views in the Big Apple.
To visit this place there are some options:
- We opted to buy a New York City Pass that included the visit to the Empire State with other 4 visits in the city. You can book one New York City Pass in this link.
- The entrance to the building is also included in some other city cards like Go City New York or Sightseeing Day Pass.
- Another option if you don’t want to buy any of these cards is to buy an individual entrance via online or in the building box office. This is the official Empire State website, where you can choose among different packs they have that allow you to go to different viewpoints.
The schedule is from 10 to 23h.
3. Visit Saint Patrick's Cathedral
Another must-see places in New York is Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, a catholic cathedral of neo-gothic style. After some unstable periods in the construction, it ended in 1879 and it’s located in one of the most important Manhattan streets, the 5th avenue.
This cathedral has some curious elements. The first one is the outdoor scene. Who would imagine to find a catholic neo-gothic building in the middle of a skyscraper’s forest in the center of Manhattan? This contrast is one of the most special things of this place, as it gives a different touch to all the places you will visit in the city. Another interesting aspects can be found inside, as it’s amazing. Special mention to the giant organs that it has, one with 3920 pipes and the other with 5918.
We strongly recommend to visit this place as you will walk near for sure at some point of the visit and the entrance is free. If you want to have further information, you can visit the official website of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.
4. Walk through Central Park
Central Park is one of the must-see places in New York and one of the top city icons. It is a park located in Manhattan island with approximate dimensions of 4 km x 800 meters. It’s one of the most visited parks in the world.
We recommend to visit Central Park calmly, to do it in a whole morning. There are two main ways of visiting it, walking or by bike. We believe that the second one is better in case of having few time to visit or if you want to visit the northern area of the park, the one in Harlem. The park is completely adapted to bikes and it’s easy to leave it locked in case that you want to visit something. In our case, as we wanted to dedicate the full morning to the park, we decided to visit it by food and it was a great experience, as we achieved to cover a big area of the park in a calm way, stopping in the most important places and taking some photos. For us, the key places are:
- The Mall
- La Bethesda Terrace and the famous fountain,
- The Lake and Bow Bridge,
- Conservatory Watey lake
- Alice in Wonderland statue,
- Strawberry Fields,
- Sheep Meadow
- Belvedere Castle
5. Discover Rockefeller Center
The Rockefeller Center is another of the must-see places in New York, and it totally deserves it. It is a 19 commercial building complex property of the Rockefeller family since 1920 and it’s the place where some of the most luxury stores can be found.
This place completely impresses in all senses. It’s a big skyscraper with a very compact appearance that in the top has one of the most important viewpoints of the city with a 360º panoramic view and one of the best views of the Empire State.
To access this viewpoint, called Top of the Rock, you have some options:
- As we said, we booked the New York City Pass. This is another of the activities that can be selected. You can book a New York City Pass in this link.
- The entrance to the building is also included in other cities like Go City New York or Sightseeing Day Pass.
- Another option is to directly buy the entrance to the building online or in the Top Of The Rock ticket box. Here you have the official Top Of The Rock website to buy the tickets.
El horario es de 9h a 23h.
6. Go in the 11S Memorial
As we all know, the 11S of the 2001, it happened one of the worst terrorist attacks of the human history, the Twin Towers attack. 3000 people died on this day, and two of the most iconic buildings in the city and in the World Trade Center were knocked down.
After a reconstruction period, the area is now a memorial to all these people that died in this episode. The area can be visited and see the two big holes and waterfalls where the skyscrapers were located and it also has a complete museum and memorial, where they explain all that happened in this day and they remember the victims. It’s a really impacting museum that leaves you thinking and with sadness, but it’s worth to visit it and understand all that happened on this day. The approximate time in the museum is 1.30h -2h.
The entrance can be obtained in:
- New York City Pass
- Go City New York
- Sightseeing Day Pass
- Directly in the official website
- Tickets box in the memorial
7. Get lost in the Grand Central Station
Did you know that in New York you can find the world’s biggest station as per number of platforms?
A place that it is always worth to visit and that we add in our must-see places in New York is the Grand Central Terminal. It is a really crowded place in the center of Manhattan but it is totally recommended to go to the central hall and admire the famous watch and the stairs, scenery of films and series.
It is a completely free visit and you can walk in the Terminal and realize about how big it is and the amount of people that can take a transportation in this place of the city daily.
8. Relax in Bryant Park
Another place that we didn’t expect to enjoy and we did was Bryant Park. This is a park located in the middle of Midtown in Manhattan. That means that in the middle of lots of skyscrapers we find a green oasis where you can relax. This park was opened in 1843 and you can find a nice Wifi connection there as it was the first wireless park in the city. You can also find the New York Public Library with free entrance and a very interesting building to visit.
Our advice here is to buy some food and drinks and sit in the park observing the activities they are doing. We could see from people playing chess to ping pong tournaments, table games, conversations and two guys made us an interview for a startup they were creating!
9. Go to one of the big museums
As it’s logical for being one of the most important cities in the world, New York has some very interesting museums to visit. We are not very art geeks, but we have some friends that are and from their feedback we believe that these are the most interesting museums in the city:
- MoMa (Museum of Modern Art)
- MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
- Guggenheim
- American Museum of Natural History – We visited it and we found it impressing!
10. Admire Manhattan from the top of a skyscraper
An activity that must be in a list of must-see places in New York is to reach the top of a skyscraper. We were able to do it twice, as we had two of them included in the New York City Pass, the Top of the Rock and the Empire State and it’s really worth it. You can get an incredible view from the top of these buildings that will allow you to have a different view of the city and admire it from the air.
Our recommendations after gathering information and see them in-situ:
- Summit One Vanderbilt: One of our frustrated activities and one of the most fashionable viewpoints of the city. If you search for images of this place, it’s incredible and has a different aspect from the others. It’s composed by 3 different floors with glass floor that makes the experience even more exciting as you can see hundreds of meters below you.
- Empire State: As mentioned before, it is a great place to visit due to the relevance of the building and also due to the viewpoint. You can reach the antenna height by paying an extra so if you want to avoid the crowd, you can use this option.
- Top of the Rock: This viewpoint has the particularity that gives you the best Empire State views as it’s in front of it and it allows you to see it from the air. We could enjoy a sunset there and it’s a really incredible experience to see the sun falling in Manhattan.
- The Edge: One of the newest viewpoints of the city. It is located in Hudson Yards and their biggest particularity is that it’s a ledge coming from one of the top floors of the building so you feel there’s nothing below you. Another special thing is that you can pay an extreme activity that is to climb one of the parts of the building with a guide, a really brave people activity 🙂
11. Book a contrasts tour
One of the best tours you can do if you visit New York is the Contrasts Tour. You will normally spend the most of your time in Manhattan, but New York has other 4 big districts with things to offer. If you go with limited time, the best option to have an idea of the attractions of this places is to do a contrast tour. This tour will show you during 5 hours the key places of The Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn.
We did this activity with Contrastes de Nueva York (it’s in Spanish, but you can find something similar in English) and we really recommend it a lot as the guide was very professional and he explained us lot of things. The activity was done in a 12 people car and they stopped in some key places of each district. We could see:
- Apolo Theater and main Harlem streets
- The Joker stairs (The Bronx)
- Yankees Stadium (The Bronx)
- Street paintings (The Bronx)
- Malba neighbor (Queens)
- Flushing Meadows and Open USA stadium (Queens)
- Roosevelt Avenue (Queens)
- Orthodox jewish neighbor (Williamsburg, Brooklyn)
- Dumbo (Brooklyn)
12. Get surprised in Williamsburg
One of the areas that surprised us the most was the Williamsburg neighbor in Brooklyn. For us, the entrance to this area was in the contrasts tour to see their famous Jewish orthodox neighbor. This place is recommended no matter you do a tour or not, it’s a real cultural shock and one of the most interesting places to see in the city. This jewish community came from Hungary after the II World War and they installed in this place. They are unmistakable people with their long tunics, their hairstyles, the flashy hats and that they live the same way as 100 years ago. You will be surprised for sure.
But Williamsburg is not just this neighbor, it has more attractive places. In the nearest area of the river, you will find a young environment and some good places to have a drink lie Brooklyn Brewery or Brooklyn Bowl. It’s also a great place to walk through the river banks as you have excellent views of Manhattan and places to relax like Domino Park or Brushwick Inlet Park.
13. Visit Hudson Yards and the Highline
A place that we want to add to the must-see places in New York as we didn’t expected too much and we got surprised by is the area of Hudson Yards and the curious park of Highline.
Hudson Yards is a new neighbor created in the west area of Manhattan just above Chelsea. It’s built in an industrial area and they have invested lots of money to make this new area, full of skyscrapers and incredible new buildings. You could see that it is still an area under construction, there are several skyscrapers that are being built, so the area will be even more spectacular in a future. Some good places to go in the area are:
- The Edge, a new viewpoint that is now one of the most fashion in NY.
- Hudson Yards mall, a new mall to lunch and do some shopping. We would remark Little Spain, a Spanish food market property of the chef Jose Andrés.
- The Vessel, an incredible building / monument in front of the mall that is really worth it as it’s an incredible architecture piece.
Highline deserves an special mention. It is an aerial park that goes from the Hudson Yards mall to Chelsea, built in an old train railway. It’s a really narrow park, with some urban art points that are really good. We really enjoyed our walk there, in the middle of high buildings and with the cars driving below us. We would really recommend this place.
14. Go shopping
Few people visits New York and don’t go shopping. This city has lots of places where you can do this activity and get lost in several shops and buy something you need (or not :)). We went to some different areas and malls that we really enjoyed to go shopping like:
- 5th avenue: One of the main city streets and, as it’s a logical thing, has all the big brands where you can buy clothes or other stuff. We would recommend the area that goes from Central Park south to Bryant Park.
- Soho: A really cool area to go shopping. It has a main street where you can find the main clothes brands and also some less known design stores that are really interesting.
- Chelsea: It is a shopping area but mainly of local and alternative stores that are really curious and interesting. We would strongly recommend this area no matter if you want to buy or not as it has a good environment, places to have a drink and an interesting bohemian air.
- Macy’s: It’s a mall with many floors where you can find almost all products you can find. We could fins some Levi’s jeans with 30% discount (even though you can find them all around the city).
15. Visit the Afro-American area, Harlem
One of the most authentic neighbors of the city is Harlem, located in the north of Manhattan and known as the Afro-American neighbor of the city as it represents the great majority in the city, given that at the beginning of XX century, all the black people were relocated in this area.
We really think that is a neighbor that must be known, one of the must-see places in New York. It’s worth to get lost in their streets and observe the life of the people in the area, different to other places in the city. We also recommend to visit the Apollo Theater, place that saw the beginnings of Michael Jackson or Whitney Houston.
Different mention deserves the main activity of this area, done by the Christian people of the area, the Gospel Mass. This mass is done in the Sunday mornings (and some Wednesday) and have place in the majority of church in the area. Almost all of them accept tourist presence, so it’s a good option to walk in the neighbor and go inside any church that you like. This mass are based on music and dance, all dedicated to God and religion. It is a real show that is not likely any other thing we have ever seen. We visited Bethel Gospel Assembly and, even though we think it was really oriented to the tourism, we enjoyed it a lot and we think it is a must in New York.
16. Cross the Brooklyn Bridge
How many times we have seen the Brooklyn Bridge in the TV! That was one of the places we most wanted to see and one of our must-see places in New York.
This bridge joins the districts of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Built between the 1870 and 1883, it made history as it was the longest bridge in the world, surpassed 10 years later by the Forth Bridge. Also it was an engineering icon as it was a very innovative as it’s using steel in all the construction, cables included.
We visited it after being in the modern neighbor of Dumbo in Brooklyn district and going to Manhattan. Normally it’s one of the most crowded places in the city, but if you find the correct place, you can get a good viewpoint to make photos in the bridge.
17. Transport to another country
New York is super characteristic as it has lots of areas where there is plenty of people of a country, that fill the streets with posters, restaurants and stores from their origin country. We could visit some of them and it’s really like you have been trasported to another country, so we strongly recommend to go to any of this places at some point during your trip, and specially, eat in a typical restaurant to try their food:
- Chinatown: The most famous area. You will walk through streets, street markets and Chinese restaurants and we really ensure that it’s like being in China.
- Little Italy: Just beside Chinatown, you can find the Italian neighbor. It’s a place with lots of Italian restaurants where you can try their incredible food. It’s also a good option to have a dessert like the Cannolos!
- Koreatown: It’s a street beside the Empire State with lots of posters and Korean Restaurants and it’s really curios as it’s just an street and it looks weird to go from an American place to a Korean one in just 3 minutes.
- Little Colombia and Ecuador: We visited this area in Queens (Roosevelt Avenue) in the Contrasts Tour and we stopped there to have our breakfast. It’s an street with lots of South-American people, mainly from Colombia and Ecuador where you can find lots of places of this kind of food.
18. Analyze Flatirons Building shape
If you love strange buildings and architecture, Flatiron will be one of your must-visit places in New York. It is an historical building of the city, built in 1902. During some time it was one of the tallest buildings of the city and it’s biggest particularity is the triangular shape that makes it a very curious building.
It is in front of Madison Square Park, a cool place to relax and have a drink, so we recommend to get close to the area and observe this amazing construction.
19. Take a Ferry to see the Liberty Statue
The Liberty Statue is the most representative monument of the city of New York. It’s strange to go to the city and don’t dedicate any moment to visit this place, that is located in a small island in the south of Manhattan called Liberty Island.
This statue was a present from France in 1886 to commemorate the 100 years of the Independence of the USA. It represents a symbol of liberty respect to the oppression that Americans suffered during the Great Britain domain.
To visit the monument you have several options:
- Circle line: We used this one. It is a ship that departs from Manhattan (more or less in Hudson Yards) where you can select among several options depending on the length you want to be in the ship. We took the 2h30 option that was surrounding the whole Manhattan area and they reached the Statue island to see it from the water, in a great panoramic. You can buy the tickets in the official Circle Line website or with the activity cards of the city, New York CityPass, Sightseeing Pass, Go New York and New York Pass.
- Statue City Cruises, the only company that can stop in the island. It is the only option in case you want to visit the island, go inside the statue or even go to the top. You can check the prices and condition in the Statue City Cruises website.
- Staten Island Ferry. You can see the Liberty Statue for free by taking a ferry that departs from Battery Park and it’s a free transport to visit the district of Staten Island. It takes 25 minutes and you will have a great panoramic of the statue for free.
- If you don’t want to see it from the water as you don’t want o take a ferry, you can always observe it from Battery Park, in the financial district. It’s not the best view, but it’s a good option in case you don’t want to spend money.
20. Walk through the Financial District
It’s well known that USA is one of the most powerful economies of the world with some stock index and companies that are among the biggest of the world. It is because of that, that in our list of must-see places in New York you should visit this area where the World economy is moved. This are is located in the South of Manhattan and you can visit it stopping in the World Trade Center.
The interesting places to visit apart from the 11S memorial are:
- One World: The tallest building of the area and the 7th in the World with a heigh of 541 meters. It is a new building that was built in 2006, in the place were the Twin Towers were located.
- Charging Bull: One of the area icons. The Charging Bull is a steel bull that has a curious tradition, that is that if you touch bulls balls you will have economic prosperity, so you will see a queue of people to do this.
- Fearless Girl and New York Stock Exchange: It is the NY Stock Exchange, one of the main economic points of the city and it has a curious statue in front of the building of a girl that is looking bravely to it.
- Federal Hall: A free place that is nice to visit inside due to the dome and that has a real historical power as it was the first capitol of the United States and the place where George Washington was vested.
Map
We are not discovering anything if we say that this city is a true jewel and a place to visit at least once in your lifetime if you enjoy traveling. We hope that this list of must-see places in New York can be helpful and that you can use it.
As we always say, ask us via social media or comments if you want any further information and we will help you with pleasure.
