- Statue of LibertyFrance's 1886 gift in the harbor, the first thing arriving ships saw — reached only by ferry, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.UNESCOLandmark
- Central ParkA designed landscape laid out from 1856 across the middle of Manhattan — lakes, meadows and bare rock, none of it accidental.Park
- Brooklyn BridgeA steel-wire suspension span with a wooden promenade raised above the traffic — the walk, not the crossing, is the point.Landmark
- Empire State BuildingThe 1931 tower that held the world's tallest title for forty years; two observatories still look out over the grid.Viewpoint
- Metropolitan Museum of ArtAn encyclopedic collection on Central Park's edge, open since 1870 — Egyptian temples, European painting and American rooms under one roof.Art Museum
- Museum of Modern ArtFounded in 1929 to collect what museums then refused: modern painting and sculpture, and also design, film and photography.Art Museum
- Times SquareThe crossroads where Broadway cuts Seventh Avenue, lit by advertising since the 1900s and now partly closed to cars.
- American Museum of Natural HistoryDinosaur halls, a blue whale hung overhead and a planetarium, in a museum that has been collecting since 1869.Science Museum
- National September 11 Memorial & MuseumTwo square voids on the footprints of the towers, the names of the dead cut through the bronze around them.History Museum
- Ellis IslandThe harbor station where arriving immigrants were inspected, registered, and admitted or sent back; the main building is now its museum.History Museum
- Grand Central TerminalA 1913 terminal whose main concourse carries a painted night sky on its ceiling, open to anyone walking through.Architecture
- High LineA freight viaduct saved from demolition and planted as a walkway, opened in 2009 above the West Side streets.Park
- Solomon R. Guggenheim MuseumFrank Lloyd Wright's spiral ramp on Fifth Avenue, where visitors descend past the art instead of walking room to room.UNESCOArt Museum
- One World Trade CenterCompleted in 2014 on the World Trade Center site; its observatory looks down the harbor toward the Statue of Liberty.Viewpoint
- Rockefeller CenterA private complex of Art Deco towers around a sunken plaza, with a rooftop deck that faces the Empire State Building.Landmark
- Greenwich VillageCrooked streets that ignore Manhattan's grid, long the address of the city's writers, folk singers and gay rights movement.
- SoHoCast-iron loft buildings raised for industry, taken over by artists when the industry left, and now a shopping grid.
- Whitney Museum of American ArtAmerican art only, in a collection begun in 1931 by a sculptor whose own gift the Metropolitan had declined.Art Museum
- ChinatownA dense quarter of shops, temples and restaurants that has been Manhattan's Chinese neighborhood since the 1870s.
- Staten Island FerryA commuter ferry running since 1817 and free to ride, passing the Statue of Liberty on every crossing.Viewpoint
- The Frick CollectionA steel magnate's Fifth Avenue house kept as a home: Vermeer, Bellini and Holbein hang in rooms with fireplaces.Art Museum
- Intrepid Sea, Air & Space MuseumAn aircraft carrier moored on the Hudson, carrying a space shuttle and a Concorde on and beside its flight deck.Science Museum
- The Met CloistersMedieval European cloisters taken apart in France, shipped across the Atlantic and rebuilt above the Hudson as one museum.Art Museum
- Tenement MuseumOne Lower East Side tenement, its apartments restored to the years particular immigrant families lived in them; entry is by guided tour.History Museum
- Washington Square ParkGreenwich Village's square under a marble arch, public since 1827 and still the neighborhood's stage for musicians and chess players.Park
- African Burial Ground National MonumentA colonial burial ground for free and enslaved Africans, found under Lower Manhattan during construction and made a national monument in 2006.Historical
- Federal HallThe site where Washington took the first presidential oath; the building standing there today is an 1842 customs house.Historical
- Trinity ChurchAn Episcopal parish at the head of Wall Street since 1698; its churchyard is older than the finance around it.Church