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Manhattan is home to many of New York's premier tourist attractions. Following is a selection of the highlights / "must sees" - the remainder will be found within the articles for the various Manhattan districts and neighborhoods.
landmarks
With constant portrayals in every method of media known, Manhattan's landmarks are known around the world, and seemingly every visitor to the city will make an effort to glimpse these most famous of buildings and monuments. Every neighborhood of Manhattan has local landmarks, and in many cases the neighborhoods themselves are landmarks in their own right; this is just a summary of the very most monumental architecture on the island.
Starting where the city began in Lower Manhattan, you can view some of the most powerful and evocative landmarks of the city. Wall Street, the center of the financial world and the heart of Lower Manhattan, is home to the New York Stock Exchange and Federal Hall where George Washington was inaugurated as president. Just to the north of Wall Street is the City Hall area, flanked on the east by the Brooklyn Bridge and the west by the Woolworth Building the "Cathedral of Commerce", once the tallest building in the world. A different kind of landmark lies to the west, where the National September 11 Memorial sits at the site of the former World Trade Center towers. To the south, out in the harbor are the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, once the first impressions of many Americans-to-be.
Heading north across the "valley", the neighborhoods of shorter buildings separating the two major business districts, you'll come to Midtown Manhattan, a hub of activity non-stop. The Empire State Building dominates the surrounding area, while the iconic Chrysler Building stakes its ground nearby. In the midst of all these tall structures you'll also find Grand Central Terminal, the main branch of the New York Public Library, and the touristy Rockefeller Center. Facing the East River is the United Nations Headquarters, while to the west sits the insanely crowded tourist hub of Times Square.
museums
New York City is home to museums of every kind, and Manhattan is where the grandest and some of the most fascinating are.
Why not start at "Museum Mile", or 5th Avenue along Central Park in Uptown Manhattan? Here you'll find the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the largest and most important museums of art in the world. Nearby in the Upper East Side and the Harlem area sits the famous Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Jewish Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, the El Museo Del Barrio, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Across Central Park in the Upper West Side is the massive American Museum of Natural History, one of the largest science museums in the world. At the northern end of Manhattan sits The Cloisters, a medieval-themed extension of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In Midtown you'll find the Museum of Modern Art MoMA, one of the most popular collections of modern art in the world. Nearby is the Museum of Television & Radio and the American Folk Art Museum. Theodore Roosevelt's Birthplace is just to the south in Gramercy Flatiron, while the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum sits on the Hudson River to the west.
The neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan are home to a number of small, more specialized museums. Near the Financial District you'll find the African Burial Ground National Monument, the Museum of American Finance, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the South Street Seaport Museum. Just north in Chinatown is the Museum of Chinese in the Americas, while over in the Lower East Side is the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and the Museum at Eldridge Street Synagogue and the New Museum.
parks and gardens
Of course, no visit to Manhattan would be complete without a visit to Central Park, by far the largest and most famous park in this borough. Visit the park on a sunny day and join the many New Yorkers and other visitors relaxing on the park benches, biking, looking at the ducks on the pond, boating on the lake, visiting the small Central Park Zoo, sunbathing on the Sheep Meadow, iceskating at the Wollman Rink, or seeing a concert or play. But Central Park is far from the only green space to be found in Manhattan.
In Uptown Manhattan, Fort Tryon Park contains one of the highest points and some of the best views on the island, as well as the Cloisters Museum, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nearby at the northern tip of Manhattan is Inwood Park, the last remaining virgin forest on the island; many arrowheads and other Native American artifacts have been found here. Along the Hudson River is Riverside Park, a long stretch of parkland running from 59th Street all the way to 155th Street which makes for a lovely stroll or picnic overlooking the waters of the Hudson River and New Jersey on the opposite bank. Carl Schurz Park at East End Avenue and 86th Street is the home of the Gracie Mansion, the Official Residence of the Mayor of New York, and boasts wonderful views of Hell Gate and the East River and is extremely quiet compared to other New York parks.
Moving into the bustle of Midtown, the parks get smaller but are no less frequent. Here you'll find the social centers of New York life, like Bryant Park, a small and charming park behind the New York Public Library which has gone through a major renovation recently and has gained a hard-won reputation for being much better. Free movies on summer nights are incredibly popular. Just south of the canyons of Midtown is Union Square, a crowded social center and long the center for political protests, as well as the home of a popular greenmarket and resting visitors and locals alike. Madison Square Park, a lovely oasis in a bustling area, has beautiful flowering trees and bushes in the spring and boasts views of the Flatiron, Metropolitan Life, and Empire State buildings. On the western side of Manhattan is Hudson River Park, whose promenade, still in progress, will run along the Hudson River from 59th Street to the southern tip of the island. Nearby is the new High Line Park, built on a defunct railway that runs 30 feet above the street.
In Lower Manhattan, parks like Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, Tompkins Square Park in the East Village, and Columbus Park in Chinatown are excellent cosmopolitan spaces which are centers of neighborhood life. In the Financial District is City Hall Park, a small but delightful square most of the grass is fenced off for security which makes an excellent spot to rest after walking over the Brooklyn Bridge. At the very southern tip of the island, Battery Park is popular with tourists; famous for its great views of the New York Harbor, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty. The ferries to the Statue and Staten Island depart from here.