Student & Group Attractions
1. American Museum
2. Art Appreciation
3. Famous Buildings
4. Parks & Botany
5. Places to See
6. Multicultural Studies
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American Museum
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American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History, in Midtown Manhattan, offers permanent and changing exhibits covering Asian, American Indian, Pacific islanders, South American, Aztec and Mayan cultures. It also features one of the world’s largest fossils displays, including a Tyrannosaurus Rex and Apatosaurus, plus other exhibits ranging from human body to animals and minerals.
Jewish Museum
The Jewish Museum, in Upper Manhattan, is the largest such museum in the world outside Israel, with exhibitions covering 4,000 years of Jewish art, history and culture.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the world’s great museums, features Egyptian, Greek and Roman art collections, as well as European and Oriental paintings and sculptures, antiques, plus other art forms from around the globe.
Brooklyn Children’s Museum
Open since 1899, Brooklyn Children’s Museum is the world’s first for youngsters, with nearly 27,000 cultural objects and natural history specimens. The Museum's first home was in Adams Building, a Victorian mansion in Brooklyn’s Bedford Park, in 1923 renamed Brower Park. Parlor rooms and halls held exhibits, with workshops and a library upstairs. Youngsters were encouraged to participate, not just look. Driving force Anna Billings Gallup becoming curator in 1904, and invented ways for children to use the Museum. During the 1930s Depression, federal WPA workers made improvements, while the Museum expanded its take-home program, now called the Portable Collections. After WWII, the BCM helped children prepare for the "space age." By 1967, the expanded BCM’s Adams and Smith mansions were deemed beyond repair. Temporary space, called “The Muse,” in a renovated pool hall and auto showroom opened in 1968, leading to experiments with dance and music classes. In 1977, BCM's Brower Park building opened on the Smith mansion site with other building structures recycled into the architecture. Visitors enter through a trolley kiosk from the 1900's. A "People Tube" -- a huge sewer pipe -- connects four exhibit floors, and a corn oil tank serves as "The Tank" -- an amphitheater.
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New York City Police Museum
From Colonial beginnings to official establishment in 1845 to the present, the New York City Police Museum, in historic Lower Manhattan, captures the rich history of the New York Police Department (NYPD), providing abundant insider glimpses. Permanent exhibits include turn-of-the-century mug shots, photos of notorious criminals and “tools of the trade,” a display of police vehicles, and a model of a jail cell. The museum also pays tribute to every NYPD officer killed in the line of duty throughout departmental history.
Museum of American Financial History
Tracing growth, opportunity and entrepreneurship, the Museum of Financial History, showcases Wall Street activity, the role of capital markets as engines of progress, and American business achievements. The Museum occupies the site of Alexander Hamilton's law office and the former headquarters of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company, directly opposite the famous "Charging Bull" statue. Collection items include ticker tape from the 1929 crash, a working model stock ticker, and the earliest photograph of Wall Street. As the 35th affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum’s message is how a democratic free market economy creates growth and opportunity -- the story of the American dream. The Museum serves as a good starting point for visits to the Financial District. |
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Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the world’s great museums, features Egyptian, Greek and Roman art collections, as well as European and Oriental paintings and sculptures, antiques, plus other art forms from around the globe.
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art in Midtown Manhattan displays 20th century paintings, sculptures, drawings, and more.
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Empire State Building
Midtown’s famed Empire State Building, at 1,454 feet tall, was built in 1931 in Art Deco style with 2 million square feet of office space and an observation tower on the 102nd floor. Construction took one year and 45 days including Sundays and holidays with 7 million man hours. The cost ($24,718,000) was halved by onset of the Depression, with the total cost ending at $40,948,900, including land.
The New York Public Library
Origins of the New York Public Library, housing more than six million volumes, date to when one-time governor Samuel J. Tilden (1814-1886) bequeathed most of his fortune -- about $2.4 million -- to establish and maintain a free library and reading room. New York already had the Astor and Lenox libraries, the Astor created through John Jacob Astor (1763-1848), a German immigrant who became the wealthiest man in America and left $400,000 for a reference library. James Lenox left his personal collection of rare books (including the first Gutenberg Bible to come to the New World), but it was intended for bibliophiles and scholars. By 1892, both the Astor and Lenox libraries were in financial straits, and a plan was devised to consolidate Astor, Lenox, and Tilden resources to form The New York Public Library. The system now includes 85 libraries, with collections totaling 6.6 million items, providing free information on a scale unmatched by any other institution. In 1995, The New York Public Library celebrated the centennial of its founding. One-hour building tours of the landmark facility begin at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m, with groups of 10 or more by appointment..
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center, with 24 acres of underground shops, changed the form of Midtown Manhattan, becoming one of the most successful urban planning projects in history. The vast project provided thousands of jobs during the Depression and restored the image of New York as the premier American city. Rockefeller Center is an art deco marvel consisting of 19 commercial buildings covering 11 acres from 49th to 52nd Streets, Fifth to Seventh Avenues. Thirty Rockefeller Plaza, the RCA headquarters, was the largest and first built, and stands as the centerpiece, and now General Electric’s initials brighten the rooftop for the home of NBC. Hour-long studio tours include production areas of various TV shows. The NBC Store also has souvenirs from shows such as "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and "Saturday Night Live."
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
St. Patrick's Cathedral, one of the nation’s largest houses of worship, is in Midtown Manhattan with seating for 2,400, and a pipe organ with more than 7,380 pipes.
Shea Stadium
Home of the New York Mets, Queen’s Shea Stadium was originally to be called Flushing Meadow Park. It ended up named after William Alfred Shea, an attorney instrumental in acquiring a new team after the departure of the Giants and Dodgers. Proximity to LaGuardia Airport makes Shea Stadium the noisiest outdoor ballpark in the Majors. Site selection was done in winter, according to lore, when flight paths were different than during baseball season. When a Met hits a homer at Shea, a red Big Apple rises out of a black top hat, although some say it looks more like a big kettle. |
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Chrysler Building
Built for auto tycoon Walter Chrysler in “Style Moderne,” the building exemplifies the machine age in architecture, symbolic of 1920s New York. In the summer of 1929, Chrysler was battling Wall Street’s Bank of Manhattan Trust Company for the title of world's tallest building. In spring, 1930, just when it looked like the bank would prevail for the coveted title, Chrysler’s crew jacked a needle-thin spire through the top of the crown to claim the title of world's tallest at 1,046 feet. Since Chrysler wanted not only the world's tallest structure, but also a bold structure, he decorated his skyscraper with hubcaps, mudguards, and hood ornaments, just like his cars, hoping such a distinctive building would make his car company a household name. The Chrysler Building is now recognized as New York City's greatest display of Art Deco, characterized by sharp angular or zigzag surface forms and ornaments. Four months after completion of the Chrysler Building, the new Empire State Building claimed title of the world’s tallest.
New York Stock Exchange
Lower Manhattan’s New York Stock has a visitor's gallery and self-guided tours. A tree outside symbolizes the buttonwood where traders once gathered to exchange stocks.
Radio City Music Hall
Upon the 1929 market crash, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. held a $91 million, 24-year lease on a midtown Manhattan tract in the “speakeasy belt" with plans dashed for a new Metropolitan Opera House. Rockefeller boldly decided to build an entire complex targeting commercial tenants, although Manhattan was awash in vacancy and despair. Partnering with fledgling Radio Corporation of America, whose NBC radio and RKO studios boomed despite bad times, Rockefeller also brought in S.L. "Roxy" Rothafel, a theatrical genius using razzle-dazzle décor to revive struggling theaters across America. Resulting was a theater unlike any other within the "Radio City" part of the Rockefeller Center complex. Radio City Music Hall, a palace for the people with quality entertainment at ordinary prices, has since attracted more than 300 million for shows, movies, and special events. It still looms large, and over 75 years its Radio City Rockettes have kicked their way into icon status. The restored Music Hall reflects original grandeur of opening night, 1932, with behind-the-scenes upgrades. Stage Door Tour guests explore the Great Stage and its ‘30s vintage hydraulic system. See Roxy’s renowned private suite with 12-feet high gold leaf ceilings, and meet a Rockette. One-hour walking tours depart from the Music Hall lobby. |
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