FIDI
Find gorgeous views, public art, and lots of history in oldest part of Manhattan.
Also see our guide to nearby Seaport.
EVENTS
Gustav Klimt: Gold in Motion
Sep 24, 10:00 amHall des Lumières
Take a multi-sensory journey through the golden, sensuous and revolutionary art of the Viennesse painter Austrian painter Gustav Klimt. Be immersed in his iconic works, projected on marble walls, towering columns, stained glass skylights and coved ceilings of a historic former bank using unique, cutting-edge mapping technology, synchronized to an original soundtrack.
The first exhibit of a new permanent digital art center. Tickets include other shorter, complementary digital experiences: Friedensreich Hundertwasser: In the Wake of the Vienna Secession featuring a successor of Klimt, 5 Movements following five dancers across five musical movements and Recoding Entropia, an immersive film experience reflecting on the vastness of the mind’s possibilities.
The experience lasts about one hour; guests can stay as long as they like.
🌳 Run around non-digital trees and find giant comb sculptures at nearby City Hall Park.
🍽 Keep the Austrian vibe going with schnitzel & strudel at nearby Schilling Restaurant & Bar.
Sunday-Wednesday 10 am – 7 pm
Thursday-Saturday 10 am – 10 pm
The Skyscraper Museum Family Program: The Architecture of Trees
Sep 24, 10:30 amThe Skyscraper Museum
Engage with a Skyscraper Museum educator to explore the principles of urbanism, architecture, and engineering through hands-on activities. On a guided walk in Battery Park City, observe and draw trees to understand how they are like skyscrapers. Learn about how trunks and branches support their leaves or needles and how roots create strong foundations.
Free, but online registration required. Walk-in spots sometimes available.
Longines Global Champions Tour
Sep 24, 11:00 amGovernors Island
Olympic, international and national equestrian jumping champions compete with stunning views on Governors Island. Cheer on the GCL home city team, New York Empire competing with the top teams in the world.
Free admission to a public tribune with first-come-first-served seating and an Exhibition Village at the showground with variety of shops, food and beverage and public seating with a direct view of the arena.
See our guide to Governors Island.
Art and Poetry in Battery Park City
Sep 24, 2:00 pmBattery Park
In celebration of Climate Week 2022, join an art walk & poetry reading led by Art Historian Dorothea Basile and Poet Jon Curley. Perched where the urban world meets the natural, BPC celebrates this juxtaposition with its unique Public Art and exploration of poetry at 2 pm. Stay for a reading featuring local poets Michael Heller, Barbara Henning, and Burt Kimmelman at 3 pm.
The Skyscraper Museum Family Program: “Subway” Storytime
Oct 8, 10:30 amThe Skyscraper Museum
EXplore forms of transportation and New York City’s subway system through a read-aloud of Christoph Niemann’s picture book “SUBWAY,” where kids spend a rainy day taking the subway all around the city.
Free, but online registration required. Walk-in spots sometimes available if sold out.
See our guide to the Skyscraper Museum.
Family Farm Volunteer Day at The Battery Urban Farm
Oct 15, 9:00 amBattery Urban Farm
Join The Battery Urban Farm for some projects for all ages in the vegetable farm. A fun and active event for families looking to get outside and get dirty.
Farm staff will lead participants in the tasks needed to set up our farm for the spring – this could include planting, weeding, spreading mulch, harvesting, and more. No experience necessary. Gloves provided. Bring a water bottle and wear closed-toe shoes, layers and sun protection.
Recommended for ages 5 and up with adult supervision and participation; younger siblings welcome.RSVP is required, though you are welcome to arrive and leave at any time during the morning.
City of Forest Day
Oct 15, 9:30 amGovernors Island
Learn what it takes to effectively manage the unique urban forest on Governors Island at Forest for All NYC’s first-ever City of Forest Day, featuring a volunteer project and a tree tour.
From 9:30 – 11am, promote root health and support our urban forest through mulching, weeding, and raking projects throughout the Island. Tools and gloves provided.
At 12 pm, Tree Tour, join Malcolm Gore, Arborist at the Trust for Governors Island, for a walking tour to learn about the Island’s collection of 3,000+ trees and the Trust’s Horticulture team’s efforts to support this diverse urban canopy.
See our guide to Governor’s Island.
The Skyscraper Museum Family Program: Spooky Castle Yoga
Oct 29, 10:30 amThe Skyscraper Museum
Wear Halloween costumes to the Skyscraper Museum, to learn about the different parts of a castle. Then, stretch bodies and imagination with yoga poses inspired by the spooky holiday.
Free, but online registration required. Walk-in spots sometimes available.
TO DO
Staten Island Ferry
Take a free ferry ride from Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan to Staten Island and back for great views of The Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan & Brooklyn skylines. 25 minute trips (1 hour round trip) depart every half hour (every fifteen minutes during rush hour). Masks required.
For a quicker trip, take the…
Battery Playscape
Explore a new playground with five ecology zones—Bluff, Marsh, Dune, Meadow, and Riverbed– in resilient design, post-Superstorm Sandy when the park survived the full force of the 15-foot storm surge and became a focal point of sea level rise. Lyrical patterns of water illuminate the portal, fence, and custom seating. Daylight filters through the punctuated…
Nelson A. Rockefeller & Teardrop Park
Frolic on wide waterfront lawns and explore multiple playgrounds plus gardens, public art pieces, and a sheltered pavilion.
In Rockefeller Park, climb large jungle gyms with swinging bridges, netting, slides, poles and more. Ride a pedal-powered merry-go-round and dig in multiple sandboxes and a handicapped-accessible sand table. In warm weather, be sprayed by an elephant…
Seaglass Carousel
Spin under the sea in an aquatic carousel in historic Battery Park. Sit within iridescent fiberglass fish that glide through a (covered) spiraling nautilus of glass and steel. LED color-changing lighting combined with “water effect” light projectors and oceanic music create a magical underwater atmosphere for kids of all ages.
Purchase tickets at the carousel…
The Statue of Liberty
Take a ferry to Liberty Island, home of the iconic statue. After a lovely 15-minute boat ride with amazing views and no crowds. Walk among paved, stroller-friendly paths and relax in shady grassy areas. Reserve tickets in advance to guarantee access to the Statue of Liberty Pedestal (crown tours not currently available)
At the Statue…
Governors Island
Oasis-with-a-view Governors Island is just a short ferry ride away. Lots of room to roam, bike and play on this 172 acre former military post with historic architecture. Look for public artworks plus rotating arts, culture and science programs in and around the historic houses of Nolan Park and Colonels Row.
Relax in Hammock Grove’s…
Longines Global Champions Tour
Olympic, international and national equestrian jumping champions compete with stunning views on Governors Island. Cheer on the GCL home city team, New York Empire competing with the top teams in the world.
Free admission to a public tribune with first-come-first-served seating and an Exhibition Village at the showground with variety of shops, food and beverage…
ART/HISTORY
imagiNATIONS Activity Center
Solve puzzles, perform experiments, play state-of-the-art computer simulations and find out how corn is like a dog in this interactive, family-friendly space. Explore scientific principles behind Native innovations and technologies that are so ingenious, many remain a part of our daily lives.
See our complete guide to National Museum of the American Indian –…
Dubuffet Sculpture
An office tower plaza features a dynamic Jean Dubuffet sculpture and a peaceful Noguchi rock garden fountain.
WTC Street Murals & Memorial
Street artists from around the world vibrantly transformed the streets surrounding 3 World Trade Center with fun, colorful murals, bringing love and joy to a place of mourning.
At the 9/11 Memorial, two 1-acre pools with the largest man-made waterfalls in the United States comprise the footprints of the Twin Towers, symbolizing the loss of…
Art Walk at Brookfield Place
Look for works ranging from oil on canvas to handmade ceramics throughout the 40-foot palms and glass atrium in this shopping and office complex.
In addition to a permanent collection on view, new artists exhibit their work throughout the year. Right now see vibrant oversized geometric landscapes by artists Jessie and Katey and nine photographs…
National Museum of the American Indian–New York
All ages can learn about the culture and contributions of Native Americans at the engaging New York branch of this DC museum.
Solve puzzles, perform experiments, play state-of-the-art computer simulations and find out how corn is like a dog in the interactive, family-friendly imagiNATIONS Activity Center. Pick up a fantastic family guide and find…
Wall Street: Fearless Girl & Charging Bull
Historic sites and high finance mingle on the narrow cobblestone streets of Manhattan’s original neighborhood, named after wall that erected by the Dutch in the mid-1600s to mark the northern boundary of their settlement.
Find the bronze Charging Bull statue just north of Bowling Green, on Broadway, below the intersection at Morris Street. On the…
Fraunces Tavern
Get a pot pie (one of George Washington’s favorite meals) and other traditional and modern American dishes at New York’s oldest and most historic bar and restaurant. Established in 1763, this favorite drinking spot of Alexander Hamilton and the site of Washington’s famous farewell address to soldiers after the Revolutionary War now is part restaurant,…
The Skyscraper Museum
Celebrate NYC’s rich vertical architectural heritage in a small but very cool stainless-steel space. See mini-Manhattan models, dramatic photographs, scale models of the tallest buildings throughout world and history and rotating exhibits. Explore tall buildings as objects of design, products of technology, sites of construction, investments in real estate, and places of work and residence.
…
Wyatt Kahn: Life in the Abstract
Seven monumental sculptures fabricated in Cor-Ten steel by New York artist Wyatt Kahn juxtaposes components abstract forms with “readymade” items like eyeglasses, clock, comb, hand, foot and other elements from domestic life. The artist translated seventeen line drawings into large welded steel blocks and arranged them in ways that suggest imaginative narrative compositions. Good for…
Hymn to the Big Wheel
Walk through a rainbow and explore the illusion and physicality of color and natural light in space in Liz West’s giant sculptural work, Hymn to the Big Wheel.
See our guide to Brookfield Place
Gustav Klimt: Gold in Motion
Take a multi-sensory journey through the golden, sensuous and revolutionary art of the Viennesse painter Austrian painter Gustav Klimt. Be immersed in his iconic works, projected on marble walls, towering columns, stained glass skylights and coved ceilings of a historic former bank using unique, cutting-edge mapping technology, synchronized to an original soundtrack.
The first exhibit…
TO EAT
Eataly NYC Downtown
The 40,000 square feet outpost of Italian marketplace Eataly is focused on bread, but you can also find delizioso pizza, fresh mozzarella, prosciutto, pasta, rotisserie chicken, chocolate, gelato and (post-pandemic) weekend kids cooking classes.
Choose from five restaurants, nine take-away counters (including gelato), two caffès, and one wine bar. Shop more than 10,000 high-quality…
Greek From Greece Bakery &Cafe
Feast on authentic Greek pastries both sweet (backlava, kataifi, walnut cake) and savory (spinach pies & a variety of cheese pies) plus soups, salads, sandwiches, house-made Greek yogurt and more at this friendly bakery/cafe.
Le District
Mangez on freshly made croissants, crepes, frites and more delicious treats in a French shopping district within happening Brookfield Place. Take your treat to the terrace for a view of the French-in-origin Lady Liberty.
Adrienne’s Pizza Bar
Eat thin-crust square pies (plus classic round pies, salads, pastas and more) on indoor and outdoor seating overlooking historic, cobbled Stone Street at this casual yet classy pizzeria.
Hudson Eats
Choose from over a dozen fast-casual chef-driven eateries including Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar, Umami Burger and Dos Toros Taqueria at this upscale foodcourt on the second floor of Brookfield Place (upstairs from French market Le District).
Counter service; eat at fancy-feeling seating throughout the 30,000-square-foot space featuring soaring ceilings and window walls with…
Fraunces Tavern
Get a pot pie (one of George Washington’s favorite meals) and other traditional and modern American dishes at New York’s oldest and most historic bar and restaurant. Established in 1763, this favorite drinking spot of Alexander Hamilton and the site of Washington’s famous farewell address to soldiers after the Revolutionary War now is part restaurant,…
Portside
Admire the harbor at an al fresco lounge on Brookfield Place’s Waterfront Plaza inspired by coastal charm and nautical traditions. Light bites and bevs including avocado, burrata and nutella tartines are available for grab-and-go at The Shack by Tartinery (11 am – 9 pm), or get food inside at the Le District or…