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111 Front Street Galleries
You'll know this building immediately thanks to the arresting orange banner at the front door. More than 11 independent artists and art organizations are housed inside - each one maintains a distinct office or atelier. Visitors are welcome to browse through and check out the work going on in each one, but hours vary.
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Abrons Art Center
This venerable cultural hub has three theaters, the largest being the Harry De Jur Playhouse (a national landmark), with its own lobby, fixed seats on a rise, a large, deep stage and good visibility. A mainstay of the downtown Fringe Festival, Abrons Art Center is also your best bet to catch experimental and community productions. Not afraid of difficult subjects, Abrons sponsors plays and dance and photography exhibits that don't get much play elsewhere.
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American Museum of Natural History
Founded in 1869, this museum is a classic for kids. Its halls are fascinating wonderlands of more than 30 million artefacts, and the thrilling Rose Center for Earth & Space was added in 2000. Plan to spend most of a day here so you and your littlies can see as much as possible. The museum is most famous for its three large, dinosaur halls, as well as for the enormous (fake) blue whale hanging from the ceiling of the Hall and Ocean Life.
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Artists Space
One of the first alternative spaces in New York, Artists Space was founded in 1972 to support contemporary artists working in the visual arts, including video, electronic media, performance, architecture and design. It offers an exhibition space for new art and artists, and tries to foster an appreciation for the role artists play in communities.
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Barbara Gladstone Gallery
The curator of this eponymous gallery has learned a thing or two after 27 years in the Manhattan art world. Ms Gladstone consistently puts together the most talked-about and well-critiqued displays, and artists such as Shirin Neshat, Magnus von Plessen and Anish Kapoor are frequently shown.
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Cheim & Read
Sculptures of every shape, size and material abound at Cheim & Read, and monthly changes keep the exhibits fresh. If the timing is right, you might catch William Eggleston's bouncy color photographs hanging on the wall, or a Jenny Holzer light installation blazing over the front door.
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Chelsea Art Museum
One of many new additions to the art scene here, this museum occupies a three-story red brick building dating from 1850 and stands on land once owned by writer Clement Clarke Moore. Its focus is on post-war abstract expressionism, especially by national and international artists; its permanent collection includes works by Antonio Corpora, Laszlo Lakner and sculptor Bernar Venet.
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Children's Museum Of Manhattan
A favorite for area mommies, this museum features discovery centers for toddlers, a media center where technologically savvy kids can work in a TV studio and the Inventor Center, where cool tech stuff like digital imaging and scanners are available. Expect the kids' stuff to be filtered through a sophisticated city lens, as recent exhibitions shaped interactive art projects around the works of William Wegman, Elizabeth Murray and Fred Wilson.
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Children's Museum Of The Arts
No looking allowed! This is a museum of direct participation. Fabulous multisensory activities are educational and fun, and conducted under the watchful eyes of facilitators, all trained artists themselves. Warning: children will leave knowing how to make Flubber at home.
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Drawing Center
Here since 1977, this is the only non-profit institute in the country to focus solely on drawings, exhibiting work by masters as well as unknowns. Historical exhibitions have shown the work of masters including Michelangelo, James Ensor and Marcel Duchamp, while contemporary shows have focused on Richard Serra, Ellsworth Kelly and Richard Tuttle.
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Dumbo Arts Center
One of Washington Street's best galleries, this collective also puts together the D.U.M.B.O. Arts Festival each year. It offers a great overview of the neighborhood - who is working on what, and showing where - and maintains a rotating exhibit of various artists.
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El Museo del Barrio
This museum began as a celebration of Puerto Rican art and culture in 1969. It has since expanded into the premiere Latino cultural institution in the city, with a dizzying collection that includes 2000 pre-Columbian ceremonial objects, 900 traditional objects from countries including Brazil and Haiti, and more than 3000 Puerto Rican prints and posters.
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Ellis Island
Ellis Island is an icon of mythical proportions for the descendants of the millions of immigrants who passed through here. The process involved medical checks, being issued new names if their own was too difficult to spell or pronounce, and basically getting the green light to start their new, hopeful and often frighteningly difficult lives.
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Federal Hall
Federal Hall stands on the site of the original City Hall, where Washington took the oath of office on 30 April 1789. After that structure's demolition this Greek Revival building gradually rose in its place between 1834 and 1842. Considered one of the country's premier examples of classical architecture, it served as the US customs house until 1862.
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Federal Reserve Bank
The only reason to visit the Federal Reserve Bank is to ogle the facility's high-security vault - more than 8928 tonnes (10,000 tons) of gold reserves reside here, 24m (80ft) below ground. You'll only see a small part of that fortune, but you'll learn a lot about the US Federal Reserve System on the informative tour.
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Forbes Collection
These galleries house curios from the personal collection of the late publishing magnate Malcolm Forbes. Located in Greenwich Village, the galleries are housed within the lobby of Forbes Magazine's headquarters. There is an eclectic mix of objects on display, including Fabergé eggs, toy boats, early versions of Monopoly and tin soldiers.
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Frick Collection
This spectacular collection sits in a mansion built by businessman Henry Clay Frick in 1914, one of the many such residences that made up 'Millionaires' Row'. Most of these mansions proved too expensive for succeeding generations and were eventually destroyed, but the wealthy and wily Frick established a trust to open his private art collection as a museum.
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Gagosian
International works dot the walls at both the Gagosian in Chelsea and uptown. The ever-revolving exhibits feature greats like Julian Schnabel, William de Kooning, Andy Warhol and Basquiat.
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Gallery Onetwentyeight
A small gallery with emphasis on contemporary drawing and painting. Onetwentyeight also likes to turn its space over to local dabblers for impromptu, one-night only shows that are promoted only through word of mouth. If you stumble onto one, consider yourself lucky.
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Hispanic Society Of America
Preparing for a move downtown, the Hispanic Society hopes to draw more attention to its outstanding collection of Goya, Velazquez, Sorolla and El Greco masterpieces. Until it finds a new home, you can survey the Spanish masters in relative solitude way uptown.
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Historical Society
Built in 1881 and renovated in 2002, this four-story Queen Anne-style landmark building (a gem in its own right) houses a library (with some 33,000 grainy digitized photos from decades past), auditorium and museum devoted to the borough. The society also leads several Brooklyn walking tours (some free), and an occasional bus tour of the riverside Navy Yard.
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International Center of Photography
Consolidated from two locations at this expanded Midtown space, the ICP remains the city's most important showcase for major photographers, especially photojournalists. Its past exhibitions have included works by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, Matthew Brady, Weegee and Robert Capa.
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Lehmann Maupin
Still one of the most influential galleries around, Lehmann Maupin shows Korean sculptor Do-Ho Suh, as well as British bad girl Tracey Emin, David Salle and many others.
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Louis Meisel Gallery
Specializing in photorealism, the works at this gallery are strikingly full of color, and the eye-catching cityscapes of Staten Island and local fire trucks are among the best of the bunch.
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Matthew Marks Gallery
The trendsetter that started the push into Chelsea, Matthew Marks' two galleries were once factories. Now they are high-falutin' art houses with shows by the likes of Nan Goldin and Andreas Gursky.
