OUTDOOR NYC
Stay safe in the urban outdoors.
Also see our guides to museums, pop-ups and adventures beyond NYC in Westchester, Long Island & New Jersey.
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MANHATTAN
Kobra Street Art Gandhi & Mother Teresa Mural
MeatpackingHumanitarians Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi Brazilian are depicted facing each other in street artist Eduardo Kobra’s colorful harlequin-pattern mural.
Kobra Street Art Albert Einstein
ChelseaAlbert Einstein is a NY-loving graffitist in street artist Eduardo Kobra’s colorful harlequin-pattern mural.
imagiNATIONS Activity Center
DowntownSolve 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.
Conservatory Gardens
Central ParkEnter the magnificent 1894 Vanderbilt Gate to Central Park’s only formal garden, a six-acre oasis within an oasis with European charm.
Climb onto the wisteria pergola in the Italianate Center Garden overlooking a yew hedges-bordered large lawn and 12-foot jet fountain. To the north, the French-style garden offers spectacular seasonal displays of tulips and Korean…
Gilded Lady Mural
Flatiron/GramercyThe myriad of details in this colorful 97 by 40-foot mural by famed street artist Tristan Eaton on the side of a residential building on Fifth Avenue in reference the rich history of the NoMad neighborhood from the Gilded Age onward. The woman’s face is based on early 20th-century model, chorus girl and catalyst for…
XO World & XO Play
FidiXO WORLD (outside One World Trade Center) features a giant globe and 12 foot “Jack” from the game of Jacks (the “X” with crossed arms attached to the spoke to represent love).
Created by Daniel Anderson, an internationally recognized artist inspired by children’s natural acceptance of others regardless of race, gender, age, or religious…
Dubuffet Sculpture
FidiAn office tower plaza features a dynamic Jean Dubuffet sculpture and a peaceful Noguchi rock garden fountain.
Little Island
ChelseaExplore nature and art on a unique floating green space on the Hudson River.
* Enjoy diverse horticulture, welcoming seating lawns, winding paths leading to spectacular views, and a variety of spaces for performing arts, relaxation and play. Make music on a variety of percussion installations and play with a spinning optical illusion.
* Restrooms…
High Line
ChelseaTake a stroll on the unique public park built on a historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side.
* Look for of nature and cool design incorporating elements of the original rail line. See our guide to the always-changing art installations.
* Look for interesting architecture and watch taxis…
Art Walk at Brookfield Place
FidiLook 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 Rashid Johnson’s Untitled Broken Crowd, a monumental tile mosaic composed of handmade…
Cathedral of St. John the Divine & Peace Fountain
HarlemThe largest Cathedral in the world, built in 1892, is open for visitors Monday-Friday 9:30 am–3 pm and Saturday–Sunday 9:30 am-5 pm. Timed tickets strongly encouraged.
Explore rotating art exhibitions that span centuries, celebrating the creativity of 17th century weavers to modern painters and everything in between. 48 relief panels on the giant bronze…
DVF x Ashley Longshore Gallery
MeatpackingSee Ashley Longshore’s paintings of inspirational women including Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Jackie Kennedy, Marlene Dietrich, Cleopatra, Oprah, Gloria Steinem, Nina Simone, Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks and Jane Goodall in a photogenic gallery at the Diane von Furstenberg store.
The New York Public Library’s Treasures
Midtown-40sSee some of the most extraordinary items from the 56 million in the New York Public Library’s collections of the last 125+ years. Encounter manuscripts, artworks, letters, still and moving images, recordings, and more that bring vividly to life voices of the past. Highlight’s include the stuffed inspiration for Winnie-the-Pooh and Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten copy…
Koneko
Lower East SidePlay with roaming (adoptable) cats in three cat-centric spaces: the sunlit Upper Cattery, the warm and cozy Lower Cattery, and a first-of-its-kind outdoor Catio. Food from a Japanese- influenced menu, house-made desserts, plus beer, wine, and sake available for purchase.
Central Park Zoo
Central ParkVisit sea lions, snow monkeys, red pandas, turtles, bears and other animals at the cozy Central Park Zoo.
* Watch crowds of penguins and puffins swim and waddle in the indoor Polar circle.
* Warm up with colorful birds and playful monkeys in an indoor rain forest.
* Look for snow leopards, cute red pandas,…
MoMA First Floor & Sculpture Garden
Midtown-50sNo ticket is needed to visit MoMA’s first floor including a lovely Sculpture Garden with a range of interesting statues (and a Paris Metro station entrance). Wander across marble stairs and bridges, throw a penny in the fountain, and bring a picnic or get ice cream and snacks from a stand in the…
Trinity Church
FidiAn active Episcopal church, built in 1846 on the site of a congregation founded in 1697, welcomes visitors of all faiths to a Gothic Revival style building where Founding Fathers worshiped. Peek in at lovely stain-glassed windows.
In the picturesque graveyard, visit the final resting place of notable early Americans including Alexander Hamilton, Eliza Hamilton…
Wilson NYC Flagship
SohoPlay in a 6,400-square-foot atrium in the new Wilson NYC Flagship store. Hit tennis balls, shoot hoops on an indoor court and test out products among cool design.
In-store services include racket stringing, leather ball customization, and glove personalization.
Mon-Sat 11 am–8 pm
Sun 11 am–6 pm
Never Alone: Video Games and Other Interactive Design
Midtown-50sExplore notable examples of interaction design, the points of contact between objects—whether machines, apps, or entire infrastructures—and people. Watch video games such as Tetris and Pac-Man, to immersive explorations of the natural world, like Flower, and records of indigenous traditions and culture, like Never Alone. Works ranges from the iconic and universal @ sign, a symbol dating back to…
Ancestor
Central ParkArtist Bharti Kher connects New Delhi and New York City with this nearly eighteen-foot-tall bronze universal mother figure, an enlargement of a miniature assembled by recomposing broken clay figurines. This colossal sculpture reflects Kher’s cross-cultural identity and her appreciation for India’s rich material culture. Every meaning-laden detail and distressed surface of the original hand-crafted object…
Boundless: 10 Years of Seeding Black Comic Futures
HarlemCelebrate the tenth anniversary of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture’s Black Comic Book Festival with photographs, memorabilia, creator highlights, comic book reading stations, and clips from past festival programs. Drawn from the Schomburg Center’s archival collections, this exhibition illuminates the long history of Black comics and sequential art creators and their motivations…
Kobra Street Art: Warhol, Kahlo, Haring & Bastiquiat
ChelseaArtists Andy Warhol, Jean Michelle Basquiat, Keith Haring and Frida Kahlo come together in street artist Eduardo Kobra’s colorful mural that incorporates each artists’ unique style.
High Line Art
ChelseaSee world-class art projects on and around the High Line, in dialogue with the nature and city scape of the unique park
Current highlights include:
* You know who I am (16th St), the Statue of Liberty recreated by Paola Pivi, wearing a playful emoji-inspired masks that changes every few months.
* NYC LOVE…
Refik Anadol’s Unsupervised
Midtown-50sSee what a machine might dream about after seeing the art in MoMA’s collection in a trippy, vibrant large-scale digital video in the museum’s lobby produced by artificial intelligence.
Artist Refik Anadol trained a sophisticated machine-learning model to reimagine more than 200 years of arts. Site-specific input from the environment —changes in light, movement, acoustics,…
Shahzia Sikander: Havah…to breathe, air, life
Flatiron/GramercyWalk through forty-nine haunting Atlantic white cedar trees evoking the outsized impact of a looming environmental calamity in Maya Lin’s installation in Madison Square Park
Listen to Lin’s Ghost Forest Soundscape from your phone to hear native species of animals once common to Manhattan. A series of public programs focused on nature-based solutions to climate change, including planting 1,000 trees and shrubs in collaboration with Natural Areas Conservancy, are planned throughout the run of the exhibition.
Geo
FidiWalk through a dazzling 30-by-10-foot dome is filled with brightly colored corridors made of rope intended to echo the towering urban landscape. Explore winding, playful avenues made of steel frames and over five miles of fluorescent paracord.
Created by design studio Hou de Sousa, also responsible for the colorful climbable installation Ziggy.
Hippo Ballerina & Friends
Midtown-40sSee a smaller version of Danish artist Bjørn Okholm Skaarup’s whimsical Hippo Ballerina previously seen in Dante Park and Pershing Square, along with Hippo Ballerina, pirouette and Rhino Harlequin, pirouette. These outdoor installations are part of his Commedia dell’arte series.
BROOKLYN/QUEENS
Green-Wood
This historic cemetery (founded in 1838) is a lovely place to wander, with 478 spectacular acres of hills, valleys, glacial ponds and paths, plus gorgeous views of the Manhattan skyline and extraordinary 19th- and 20th-century statuary and mausoleums.
* Honor famous permanent residents such as Leonard Bernstein, Boss Tweed, Charles Ebbets, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louis Comfort…
J.J. Byrne Playground & Old Stone House
Enjoy lots of modern climbing equipment juxtaposed with colonial themes inspired by the adjacent Old Stone House, site of the 1776 Battle of Brooklyn. Explore a submarine periscope and interactive panels depicting the historic battle among natural stone and rustic pavement, then attack your enemies with water cannons.
A gated toddler area features bucket swings,…
Domino Park
Find cool design and amazing bridge/Manhattan views at a large waterfront park on the site of a former Domino Sugar factory.
* The playground, designed by the artist Mark Reigelman, has fun features like spinning valve wheels cast from Domino Sugar originals and a 26-foot-high silo with ladders, webbing and slides pay homage to the…
Brooklyn Bridge Park Playgrounds
This expansive park has great attractions and a gorgeous only-in-NYC view. Explore refurbished piers, most of which host playgrounds (our favorites are at Pier 6 including giant Slide Mountain, Sandbox Village, Swing Valley and the splashy Water Lab). Play in the sand and admire tide pools at Pier 4 Beach (no swimming/wading).
Find a variety of yummy concessions throughout the park and restrooms at Piers 2,5 & 6.
Gantry Plaza State Park/Hunter’s Point Park South
Visit two Long Island City playgrounds within walking distance of each other set in a large riverside oasis with spectacular Manhattan views.
Lots of places to climb and spin (and splash in the summer) at the playground at Gantry Plaza State Park with a cushioned rainbow floor and groovy design. Stroll along the park’s four…
Jurassic & Triassic Playground
Dino lovers can climb and play on an dino-inspired equipment at two playgrounds on opposite sides of Meadow Lake created to commemorate the Sinclair Oil “Dinoland” exhibit at the 1964-65 World’s Fair. In addition to swings and jungle gymes, find dinosaur footprints and art throughout the playground. Learn about flora and fauna from the Triassic…
Zucker Natural Exploration Area
Strategically placed branches and stumps of trees damaged by storms and other materials from within Prospect Park invite engagement nature and unstructured play in this magical playground. several areas to explore including sand for digging and water features for pumping and splashing.
Industry City Food Hall
From Korean comfort food to an avocado-focused cafe, Industry City hosts a huge range of Brooklyn-based purveyors. BBQ, pizza, bao buns, French pastries, artisanal ice cream, tacos, Mediterranean mezzes – whatever you’re craving you’ll probably find it here. Most of the vendors or in a central Food Hall but other shops can be found…
Queens County Farm Museum
Visit 47-acres of the longest continuously farmed site in New York State (since 1697). See historic farm buildings, a greenhouse complex, farm vehicles and implements, planting fields, an orchard and herb garden and livestock including cattle, sheep, chickens and llamas.
Pick up the scavenger hunt in the Farm Store to learn about the farm’s plants, animals…
Queens Botanical Garden
Explore lovely gardens in a 39-acre oasis in one of New York City’s most bustling and diverse neighborhoods.
Look for site-specific art throughout the garden including a reflective, life-sized kaleidoscope and a beautiful mural ‘Wonder Garden’ outside the Education Building.
Closed Mondays (except holidays).
Queens Zoo
This intimate zoo in Flushing Meadows houses wildlife native to the Americas including more than 4,000 Puerto Rican crested toads, Andean Bear Cubs, American bison and rare breeds of domestic animals including Flemish giant rabbits, Texas longhorn cattle, and Jacob’s four-horned sheep.
See our guide to Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
Prospect Park Zoo
This former menagerie is designed to allow up-close animal viewing, perfect for families with young children who want to learn about wildlife.
Explore a Discovery Trail and encounter 400 animals of 150 species including red pandas, dingos, procupines and a host of beautiful birds. Visit unique small cats, sea lions and Chinese-big headed turtles.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Explore a 52-acre urban botanic garden with a variety of plants and habitats.
* Don’t miss the lovely Japanese Garden’s pond, home to turtles, carp, ducks and its small Shinto shrine guarded by two stone fox statues (and gorgeous cherry blossoms in the spring).
* Download a kids field journal and see tips…
Art at Industry City
Find sparkly disco-inspired installations in the courtyards and buildings of this happening design hub.
Also take a photo in the arty elevators, go on a colorful hunt with a printable art map and see pretty decor (and tasty food) at Japan Village.
See our guides to eating, arcade games and more…
Open Hours at Environmental Education Center
Get to know Brooklyn Bridge Park with monthly educational themes, a 250 gallon aquarium filled with critters from the East River, a 10’ scale model of Brooklyn Bridge Park, crafts, a reading corner, and much more.
Drop-in hours offer the opportunity for self-led investigation with guidance by expert educators to reveal the hidden stories…
Ice Theatre of New York Pop Up Concerts
Ice Theatre of New York presents a free ice dance show and a one-hour Pre-Olympic skating clinic taught by ITNY teaching professionals and junior apprentices. The age-appropriate works performed include both repertory and new works performed by ITNY professional ensemble members, young apprentice performers ages 6-16, and guest artists.
See our guide to LeFrak…
Green Meadows Farm Easter Egg Hunt
Join Green Meadows Farm for a fun-filled day with Whiskers, the Easter Bunny, and all his friends at the farm, including alpacas, llamas, sheep, goats, pigs, rabbits, chickens, and ponies. Search for colorful eggs filled with treasures, explore the Bunny House, take photos with flowers, sit on 10 different tractors, take a hayride, discover the…
Barnyard Egg Hunt
Spread out on the grass and enjoy 47 egg-cellent acres of outdoor space.
Join a spacious Easter egg hunt, take photos with Whiskers the Bunny, try Bunny Hop dancing and play outdoor kids’ games. Enjoy a farm-wide scavenger hunt and local food vendors.
Visit with the farm’s animals and enjoy a hayride. BYOB (bring your…
Family Service Corps: City Community Farming
Join Repair the World at Bushwick City Farm as we learn about environmental justice and help out a local farm with chicken feeding, composting, and more.
Suggested for families with children ages 3-7, but open to all.
Spring Break in Prospect Park
Join the Prospect Park Alliance during Spring Break for family-friendly activities at the Prospect Park Audubon Center and the Carousel.
Pick up Discovery Packs, a ready-to-go kits filled with nature activities for families. At 2 pm, join Alliance Naturalists to learn more about the animals in the Audubon Center’s collection. At 3 pm, join a…
Family Discovery Days at Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Experiment, learn, and play at hands-on activity stations throughout the Discovery Garden that encourage families to explore science and nature together. Pot up a plant or create a nature craft to take home alongside volunteer Discovery Docents.
Drop-in program for families with children of all ages. Free with Garden admission.
All programs are outdoors and…
Art in Dumbo Open Studios
Artists in DUMBO open their doors to the public, giving visitors a look into studios and workspaces across the Brooklyn waterfront. Interactive guides to help you decide where to start, written by the staff at DUMBO arts organizations including A.I.R. Gallery, Higher Pictures Generation, Undercurrent, and more. Known for its high density of artist studios,…
Sheep Shearing Festival
Celebrate Spring on the longest continuously farmed site in New York State. Join Queens Farm for NYC’s only sheep shearing festival. Farmer-led tours and sheep shearing demonstrations connect visitors to life on the farm. See where vegetables come from. Learn about wool processing, natural dyes and visit with fiber artists as they showcase their craft.…
BRONX
Playground for All Children Pelham Bay Park
Pelham Bay ParkThis playground is one of several throughout the city aimed at providing a recreation area that all children, able bodied and disabled. Colorful play equipment and handrails that can be reached by children using crutches or wheelchairs, textured pavement and Braille signs to help guide the blind, and swings are accessible to all.
All can explore a fun spray shower, a natural area with accessible boardwalk and activity stations, a shallow pond with wetland plantings, a sensory corner, adjustable basketball hoops, bleachers with shade covers, benches, game tables, picnic tables and more.
Bronx Zoo
BronxSee tigers, bears, gorillas and over 650 other species of awesome animals at this 265 acres+ zoo. Tons of indoor and outdoor attractions – expect lots of walking, but strollers welcome (and available for rental). The roads are scenic with pretty trees, waterfalls – and some bold peacocks.
Different sections of the zoo correspond to…
Wave Hill
BronxExplore 28-acre of gardens and woodlands with more than 4,000 varieties of trees, shrubs, vines, and herbaceous plants and dramatic views of the Hudson River.
🎨 Join nature-inspired family art projects on Saturday & Sunday mornings, plus special events featuring live animals
🖼 Visit indoor rotating nature-inspired multimedia art exhibits in the Glyndor…
The Orchid Show: Natural Heritage
BronxBe enveloped in artist Lily Kwong’s fantastical vision in The Orchid Show’s 20th year. Thousands of vibrant orchids enfolded into rolling mountains create a meditative and captivating design inspired by her ancestral connections to the natural world
* The show itself is in the Haupt Conservatory and climate-controlled, but there is a bit of a…
Bronx Zoo Treetop Adventure Reopens
BronxHangout in the treetops at the Bronx Zoo’s sustainably created aerial ropes course. Ride a 400-foot-long zipline over the Bronx River and/or swing from rope to rope, skateboard high above the ground, and navigate your way through the trees i seven courses of varying difficulties.
Make a day of it with a visit to the…