The Paley Center for Media

The Asia Society is a unique educational organization like no other in the area promoting relationships and understanding among and of leaders, people, and organizations of Asia. It features a vast array of Asian art including art, business, culture, and education, promoting collaboration and a new, progressive understanding of Asian relations. The opportunities for discovery here are endless, with lessons about art, calligraphy, language, literature, politics, and religion.

One of the Seven Sisters colleges, and is affiliated with Columbia University.

Another conservatory of music.

Dates back to 1680, and held an abortive peace conference during the Revolutionary War.

See the Rockettes, another show, or just tour the famous Art Deco masterpiece.

Supported by the Museum of Modern Art, this innovative (and cheap) contemporary art museum is in a former public school building. The conversion left most of the original features of the school - the large ex-classrooms are perfect for installations - and the bathrooms are a blast from the past. P.S.1 is a few blocks south on Jackson Avenue from the Citibank tower; the entrance is a concrete slab (how fitting) which occludes view of the school itself. P.S.1 also has a nice cafe and outdoor seats.

The former home of steel baron Henry Clay Frick, this sprawling mansion is filled with Frick's enormous personal art collection, displayed as he left it. It's worth a visit for the house alone, which is explained nicely in the audio tour. The collection is impressive, including works by Whistler, Corot, El Greco, Turner, Renoir and Rembrandt.

This beach is a pleasant place to relax. The water is safe enough to swim in, but it's not the best you can get (you'd get a better deal down the Jersey Shore or on Long Island). The boardwalk, one of the longest in the United States, is great for running or biking.

Built as a pavilion for the 1964 World's Fair, this science center is now full of hands-on exhibits for the public. Highlights include Sports Challenge, Rocket Park (featuring full sized Atlas and Titan tickets), and a science playground.

Probably the most famous of the Guggenheim foundations (others found in Bilbao and Venice), which hold avant-garde modern art by artists such as Kandinsky and Mondrian, the New York branch is housed in a unique and famous building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and rendered in a rounded, organic form and completed in 1959. Be sure to take the elevator to the top floor, then follow the spiral viewing floors downwards to the street level. One of eight buildings by Wright to be listed as a world heritage site.

Sitting on Vista Rock, one of the highest points in the park, the castle provides excellent views of Central Park, particularly to the north. It is a popular spot for photography and contains a visitor center and a nature conservatory. Just below the castle to the north is Turtle Pond, a small, swamp-like pond holding various fish, frogs, insects, and birds.

So named in 1981 in memory of John Lennon, the former Beatle, who was murdered close by outside his home in the Dakota building. Lennon's widow Yoko Ono, who still lives in the Dakota, subsequently donated $1 million to upgrade the area with hundreds of tree and flower species, including strawberries. The area serves as a Garden of Peace and includes a memorial floor mosaic (donated by the Italian city of Naples) that says simply "Imagine", referring to the title of one of Lennon's evocative songs.

The interior of this Episcopal church is a peaceful place, and both the exterior and interior are architecturally harmonious and worth looking at if you are walking nearby.

This beautiful park extends along the Hudson River north of Riverside Park and features wonderful views of the George Washington Bridge and New Jersey and a community feel.

One of the greatest and most popular collections of modern art, on a par with the Tate Modern in London or Paris's Centre Georges Pompidou. Exceedingly popular so be warned: queues for tickets start early and stretch long. To avoid the crowds, turn up at the door at least a half hour before opening, then take the elevator to the top floor and work your way down. The building is as much a draw as the outstanding collection; possessing arguably the best collection of modern masterpieces world-wide, MoMA houses important art works from Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, Matisse, Salvador Dalí, Paul Cézanne, Frida Kahlo, Piet Mondrian, and works by leading American artists such as Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, and Chuck Close. MoMA also holds renowned art photography and design collections. In addition to being the crown jewel of modern art museums, MoMA puts on a terrific repertory program in a nicely renovated theater below the museum.

Nature preserve on the South Shore with hiking trails and shoreline access. Fishing is permitted along the beach or the freshwater pond inside the area. Most of the land is minimally developed, and is an excellent place to observe wildlife. An abandoned orphanage on-site, after which the area was named, burnt down in 2000.

A 2011 addition to the Lower Manhattan skyline, this 76-story residential skyscraper by the noted Frank Gehry has a distinctive rippled, "wavy" facade that is quite eye-catching. It is best viewed from City Hall Park and the Brooklyn Bridge.