Building sights in New York City
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New York Stock Exchange
Home to the world’s best-known stock exchange (the NYSE), Wall Street has become the widely recognized symbol for US capitalism. Before it closed to the public due to stepped-up security measures, more than 700,000 visitors a year passed behind the portentous Romanesque facade to see where about a billion shares valued at around $44 billion change hands daily. Feel free to gawk outside the building, though, where you’ll see dozens of brokers dressed in color-coordinated trading jackets popping out for lunch or a smoke; luckily for you, the street scene outside is often more entertaining than the money-swapping within. (Also feel free to visit the online shop, www.stweed-n…
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Municipal Building
Built between 1913 and 1918, this massive, Federal-style skyscraper houses various city government agencies, from the city’s Marriage Bureau and Office of the Comptroller to the local NPR affiliate public-radio station, WNYC. The U-shaped, 25-story behemoth sits over an open-sided, column-ringed plaza that’s about three stories tall, and walking through here will surely have you rubbing elbows with all manner of government employees (an interesting, if motley, crew). The building is best admired from a distance, though, and walking or cabbing it across Chambers St, especially at night when it’s all lit up, gives you such a sense of its grand immensity that you’ll feel as …
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Poe’s Cottage
On Kingsbridge St is Poe’s Cottage, where the author lived from 1846 till his drunken death in 1849.
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Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Attention, money worshippers: the best reason to visit the Federal Reserve Bank is to get a chance to ogle the facility’s high-security vault – more than 10,000 tons of gold reserves reside here, 80ft below ground. You’ll only see a small part of that fortune, but signing on to a free tour here (the only way in) will also teach you a lot about the US Federal Reserve System. You can also browse through an exhibition of coins and counterfeit currency. Beware that your passport or other official ID, as well as reservations – which the Fed suggests you make an annoying full month in advance – are required for the comprehensive tour.
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Theodore Roosevelt’s Birthplace
This National Historic Site is a bit of a cheat, since the physical house where the 26th president was actually born was demolished in his own lifetime. But this building is a worthy reconstruction by his relatives, who joined it with another family residence next door. If you’re interested in Roosevelt’s extraordinary life, which has been somewhat overshadowed by the enduring legacy of his younger cousin Franklin D, visit here, especially if you don’t have the time to see his spectacular summer home in Long Island’s Oyster Bay. Included in the admission price are half-hour house tours, offered on the hour from 10am to 4pm.
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Colonnade Row
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Ravenite Social Club
In Little Italy, take a gander at what was once the Ravenite Social Club to see how things have really changed around here, as these days it’s host to a rotating roster of legit businesses, including clothing and gift shops. It was once an organized-crime hangout (originally known as the Alto Knights Social Club), where big hitters such as Lucky Luciano and John Gotti (as well as the FBI, who kept raiding the place) logged time.
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New York Mercantile Exchange
Frantic buying and selling by those familiar red-faced traders screaming ‘Sell! Sell!’ goes on at the New York Mercantile Exchange, near Vesey St. This exchange deals in gold, gas and oil commodities, but no longer with tourists; like the New York Stock Exchange, it’s closed to visitors, although you can check out the NYMEX exhibit that’s on view at the nearby Museum of American Finance.
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Harlem YMCA
The Harlem YMCA, dating from 1919, provided rooms for many newly arrived African Americans who were denied a room in segregated hotels elsewhere (including James Baldwin, Jackie Robinson and Malcolm X). Note the ‘YMCA’ in neon atop the tower. Just past the Y there are public b-ball courts with a mural that claims that ‘Harlem plays the best ball in the country.’
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Arsenal
Built between 1847 and 1851 as a munitions supply depot for the New York State National Guard, the landmark brick building was designed to look like a medieval castle, and its construction predates the actual park. Today the building houses the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation and the Central Park Wildlife Center. The reason to visit here is not to see the building, though, but to view Olmsted’s original blueprint for the park, treasured here under glass in a 3rd-floor conference room.
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Jacob Javits Convention Center
NYC’s sole convention center is a four-block construction located way on the outer reaches of Manhattan’s west side. Designed by IM Pei, the behemoth of glass and steel – either loved or reviled by most New Yorkers – hosts hundreds of events each year, from auto shows and dentist conventions to travel expos and an annual Gay Life Expo (in November).
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Physical Graffiti Cover
6 Physical Graffiti cover Cross Second Ave at 6th St and head down the block-long strip of Indian restaurants and curry shops. At First Ave, turn left, rejoin St Marks Place and turn right. The row of tenements is the site of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti cover, and where Mick and Keith sat in 1981 in the Stones’ hilarious video for ‘Waiting on a Friend.’
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Citicorp Building
A scrubby ’hood of unused warehouses not that long ago, Long Island City is eyed by many professionals seeking the ‘new Brooklyn.’ The boom sprang from the unlikely 48-story Citicorp Building, built in 1989, and – more importantly – its growing devotion to art, particularly evidenced by the PS1 Contemporary Art Center.
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Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club
A mass of Harleys is lined up outside the New York chapter of the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club. For heaven’s sake, don’t go inside; but know that drunken carousing still goes on here, prompting occasional busts by the police. Who says the East Village is sanitized?
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Modulighter
Modernist architect Paul Rudolph's need for independent, situational lighting created the Modulighter company, dealing in, of course, lights. It's also spawned this fantastic house on the East Side, built in Le Corbusier's modular style and best seen at night when lit from inside.
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Dakota Building
A turreted, gabled building described in 1884 as so far uptown it was in 'the Dakotas,' this sand-colored gem quickly became the epitome of cool, housing Boris Karloff, Rudolph Nureyev, Lauren Bacall and, most famously, John Lennon, who was fatally shot at its gated entrance.
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Charlie Parker’s Home
Facing Tomkins Square Park is jazz-sax great Charlie Parker’s home. The gifted performer died at 34 in 1955 and is remembered today through the annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival each August (www.summerstage.org).
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Truman Capote’s Home
The leafy, brownstone-filled streets of Brooklyn Heights, ‘America’s first suburb,’ are perfect for a stroll. Perhaps detour to Willow St to see Truman Capote’s home, where he wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's.
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Ebbets Field
The former site of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ ballpark is Ebbets Field. The stadium closed in 1957 when the team moved to Los Angeles, and was replaced by the uninspiring Ebbets Field Apartments in 1960.
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Tom’s Diner
You can get a glimpse of locations made famous from appearances in TV shows and movies, including Tom’s Diner, the facade of which was used regularly in Seinfeld.
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