New York City evokes both high-rise luxury and savvy deals. But the best offer in town? The number of free attractions the Big Apple has to enjoy.
You could spend a lifetime here ticking off the best things to do – but have you seen the rental prices? Much better to squeeze in our favorite concerts, museums and tours that are always (rather than only occasionally) free.
1. See one of the world’s loveliest final-resting places at Green-Wood Cemetery
Once the nation’s most visited tourist attraction outside Niagara Falls, gorgeous Green-Wood Cemetery was built in 1838 and today is the eternal home to some 600,000 souls. The 478-acre cemetery is leafy and lovely and features Brooklyn’s highest point, Battle Hill – named after a skirmish during the Revolutionary War and now marked with a seven-foot statue of the Roman goddess of wisdom, Minerva. Watch for the squawking green parakeets at the cemetery’s Gothic-style entrance pavilion; according to local legend, these non-native birds arrived after a mishap at JFK Airport in the 1980s and have called the cemetery home ever since.
2. Visit the moving African Burial Ground National Monument
In 1991, construction workers uncovered a burial ground filled with more than 400 caskets containing the bodies of enslaved Africans from the 17th and 18th centuries – an age when New York had more people in bondage than any American city outside Charleston, South Carolina. Today, tucked among downtown skyscrapers, the African Burial Ground National Monument offers a space for visitors to contemplate the past and learn about the history of the African American community in early New York City.
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3. Discover unsung talent at the American Folk Art Museum
With objects ranging from photographs to quilts to weather vanes in its collection, the American Folk Art Museum is devoted to the appreciation and expressions of self-taught artists, spanning all eras. And perhaps appropriately for an institution devoted to the work of creators from outside the canon, admission is always free.
Seeing live jazz is an essential New York experience for music lovers © Matt Munro / Lonely Planet
4. Hear sizzling live jazz at Barbès
Having helped to launch the careers of legendary jazz artists like Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk, New York City’s club scene is enshrined into the pages of jazz history, and seeing a live show here is an essential NYC experience for music lovers. Iconic venues like the Village Vanguard and the Blue Note may be way out of your price range, but head across the bridge to Barbès in Brooklyn, and you can enjoy stellar nightly performances for free (tips for the band are always greatly appreciated).
5. Pay your respects at Grant’s Tomb
This imposing granite structure holds the remains of the Civil War hero and 18th president and his wife Julia. Built after a major fundraising campaign in the late 19th century, the General Ulysses S Grant National Memorial is the largest mausoleum in the USA and was inspired by Mausolus’ tomb at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
6. See haute stuff at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) Museum
It’s always Fashion Week at the FIT Museum, which features rotating exhibits by students and engaging exhibitions that draw on a collection of 50,000 garments dating from the 18th century to the present.
The Bushwick Collective celebrates graffiti as an art form © Christian Mueller / Shutterstock
7. Admire Brooklyn Collective’s curated street art in Bushwick
Curated by Bushwick native Joe Ficalora, the Brooklyn Collective is an unofficial graffiti museum that brings together top street artists from all around the world. Spanning multiple buildings over several blocks, the art you’ll see is all temporary, legal and a worthy rival to anything you’ll see in a museum with four walls.
8. Get a culture fix in the Boogie Down at the Bronx Museum of the Arts
A scrappy and vibrant institution on the historic Grand Concourse, the Bronx Museum of the Arts’ mission is to promote cross-cultural dialogue and make art accessible for diverse urban audiences. Founded in 1971 in New York’s northernmost borough, the museum collects and exhibits pieces of contemporary and 20th-century art spanning all mediums. The museum went free in 2012.
It won’t cost you a dime to see Central Park, one of NYC’s best sights © LeoPatrizi / Getty Images
9. Savor each of Central Park’s 843 acres
Even though the real estate surrounding this famous urban oasis is some of the most expensive in the world, access to Central Park is gloriously free for New Yorkers and visitors of all means. Since Frederick Law Olmsted’s layout of the park was intended to be pleasantly disorienting, we recommend spending a few hours wandering aimlessly through its alluring paths, lush groves and delightful water features. You probably won’t want to miss the Imagine mosaic at Strawberry Fields, just steps in from where John Lennon was shot in 1980. You can also retrace the steps of The Catcher in the Rye protagonist Holden Caulfield by checking out the ducks in the Pond at the park’s southeastern corner.
10. Gallery-hop in West Chelsea
New York’s most concentrated area for a gallery crawl is in Chelsea, in the West 20s between 10th and 11th Avenues. From small start-ups to established institutions like Pace and David Zwirner, all galleries are free to enter, with no pressure to buy. Check out the Art Dealers Association of America’s gallery guide, which has a comprehensive list of current shows, and create your own arty adventure.
Planning tip: Plan your tour for a Thursday evening, when most wine-and-cheese openings take place.
11. Hop on a boat to bike around Governors Island
The ferry to Governors Island is free on Saturdays and Sundays before noon (usually a $3 round trip). Entry to the 172-acre island, now open year-round, costs nothing either. An eclectic range of attractions includes a 2.2-mile bike path, artificial hills offering splendid harbor views, a program of live events and rotating art installations, plus former military sites such as the Admiral’s House and Fort Jay. Frequent (and free) guided tours depart from the Soissons Landing Welcome Center.
The views of the skyline and the Statue of Liberty from the (always free) Staten Island Ferry never get old © Drop of Light / Shutterstock
12. Admire Lady Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry
The Statue of Liberty is a must-see, but ferry tours to Liberty Island start at $18 for adults. Enter the Staten Island Ferry, which plies New York Harbor 24 hours a day, seven days a week, offering a stellar view of this iconic monument at no cost at all. Having been in service since 1905, the ferry shuttles some 19 million visitors and commuters back and forth across the harbor each year.
13. See how the magic happens during a Brooklyn Brewery tour
Free tours of Williamsburg’s Brooklyn Brewery run Saturday and Sunday every half hour starting at 1pm, with the last tour offered at 6pm. Linger a while after in the tasting room.
Every year, BRIC’s Celebrate Brooklyn! series draws top artists (like Youssou N’Dour) to Prospect Park, with a majority of the concerts free © a katz / Shutterstock
14. Catch a cool show at BRIC House and Celebrate Brooklyn!
In a part of Brooklyn humming with cultural activity, BRIC House is a leading presenter of no-cost multimedia programming, with free admission to two performance spaces and a gallery. In the summer, the organization curates the Celebrate Brooklyn! series in Prospect Park, with a majority of the concerts and performances – which in the past have sets from Chaka Khan, Janelle Monáe, the dancers of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and many others – free of charge, with no ticket necessary.
15. Promenade on the High Line
Technically a public park, the High Line has the feel of a runway, where New Yorkers and tourists (sometimes a lot of them) sashay for a stroll. Part of the slow, ongoing re-green-ification of Manhattan, this 1.5-mile-long elevated park, standing some 30 feet in the air, was created from an abandoned stretch of elevated railroad track. Connecting the Meatpacking District with Chelsea’s galleries before ending at gleaming Hudson Yards, it costs nothing to take a wander up here. En route, wonderful views open up of the Hudson River to the west, and of pedestrians on the sidewalks below. Keep an eye out for pop-up public art installations and numerous free events.
16. Explore Native American culture at the National Museum of the American Indian
Situated in the spectacular Alexander Hamilton U.S. Customs House (1907), the National Museum of the American Indian, a branch of the Smithsonian, offers one of the country’s finest arrays of Native American art. The focus of its million-item-strong collection, as well as its programs, is on culture rather than history; prepare for a visual feast.
The expansive and ornate Rose Main Reading Room in the New York Public Library will stop you in your tracks © Jiawangkun / Shutterstock
17. Get inspired to put down that phone at the New York Public Library
New York’s most famous library (today known as the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building) is situated in a grand, world-famous Beaux-Arts icon east of Times Square. Guarded by marble lions named Patience and Fortitude, it’s a jaw-dropper to walk through – particularly the Rose Main Reading Room, with space for 500 patrons to pore over tomes under the library’s original Carrère and Hastings-designed lamps. Exhibitions showcase the institution’s astonishing holdings, which include a copy of the original Declaration of Independence, a Gutenberg Bible and some 431,000 old maps. Free tours of the building and the Rose Main Reading Room take place throughout the week.
18. Attend a Shakespeare play
You can try your luck to win free tickets to Shakespeare in the Park, presented each summer in Central Park’s Delacorte Theater by the Public Theater, via the digital lottery and standby lines. You can also get your fix of the Bard – with some awfully romantic lighting – at Shakespeare at Sunset, produced by New York Classical Theatre at non-traditional public venues across the city, including Brooklyn Bridge Park.
19. See a work of art made from 140 tons of dirt
No frame would be big enough for this. The Earth Room, Walter De Maria’s 1977 installation, is a single room in a nondescript SoHo building filled with 280,000 pounds of dirt, combining the familiar confines of an urban space with the scent of a wet forest. Strange? A little. Memorable? Definitely.
You never know what you’re going to see among the frequently changed installations at Socrates Sculpture Park © LEE SNIDER PHOTO IMAGES / Shutterstock
20. Interact with the art at Socrates Sculpture Park
Overlooking Roosevelt Island and the Upper East Side on the East River, the site of a former landfill now hosts Socrates Sculpture Park, a playful and free outdoor museum and public park with large-scale interactive sculptures and multimedia art installations. On Wednesdays in the summer, free movie screenings take place, with an emphasis on foreign films, preceded by corresponding music and cultural performances.
21. Admire the world’s first LGBTIQ+ dedicated art space, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art
Featuring works by US and international artists, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art is the first museum in the world dedicated to LGBTIQ+ themes. As well as rotating exhibitions and regular retrospectives, most of the art on show is from the gallery’s vast collection. Lectures, performances and film screenings are also held here regularly. It’s free, but donations are welcome.
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