Castle Garden, today known as Castle Clinton National Monument, is the major landmark within The Battery, the 23 acre waterfront park at the tip of Manhattan. From 1855 to 1890, the Castle was America's first official immigration center, a pioneering collaboration of New York State and New York City.

Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden will kick off its roster of 2013 events on January 12 with a concert by the Vincent Ruggieri Jazz Quartet and an exhibition of the work of two unique artists from the Snug Harbor Artist Residency Program (SHARP). The jazz concert, the first in the Island Sounds Music Mash-Up series will be from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Main Hall, Building C. The SHARP exhibition will be from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art in Building G. Refreshments will be served. Admission to both events is free. The Snug Harbor campus is at 1000 Richmond Terrace in Staten Island.
A short ferry ride away from Manhattan's powerful downtown financial district sits one of New York City's best kept secrets, The Staten Island Botanical Garden. Nestled within the grounds of the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, The Staten Island Botanical Garden with its Victorian charm and stately elegance is a "must visit" that should be on every tourists' list.

Operating since 1905, the Staten Island Ferry is one of the oldest continuously operating ferry systems in the United States. The ferries operating on this route are equipped with services such as refreshment points, rest areas and toilets. The journey from one terminal to the other takes about 25 minutes. The ferry is also an alternative to the car as it offers a convenient and reliable way to travel between the two parts of the city without traffic jams. Additionally, the ferry is an important part of New York City's transportation infrastructure and helps reduce congestion on the area's freeways.
The Staten Island Ferry is a unique and distinctive feature of New York City that continues to play an important role in the city's transportation network.

The Queens Zoo, also known as the New York City Wildlife Conservation Center, is a wildlife park in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, New York. It was inaugurated in 1992 and covers an area of ​​18 hectares. Dedicated to showcasing the animals and habitats of the Americas, Queens Zoo features species native to the Americas, including Andean bears, moose, cougars, and emerald tree boas, among others. The zoo is the Chilean flamingo exhibit, home to a large flock of these distinctive birds. In addition to exhibiting a variety of animals, Queens Zoo is also dedicated to educating visitors about wildlife conservation and animal behavior. The zoo offers a variety of educational programs, including animal encounters and behind-the-scenes tours, as well as interactive exhibits and hands-on activities. Overall, the Queens Zoo is a unique and educational destination that offers visitors the opportunity to learn more about America's animals and habitats. It's a great place for families and visitors of all ages to explore and discover the wonders of wildlife.

The Brooklyn Bridge, one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States, stretches 5,989 feet over the East River connecting the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. On completion, it was the largest suspension bridge in the world and the first steel-wire suspension bridge.
The Brooklyn Bridge has a center lane open to bicycles and pedestrians, just above automobile traffic. While the bridge has always permitted the passage of pedestrians across its span, its role in allowing thousands to cross takes on a special importance in times of crisis and becomes a symbol of New Yorkers' resilience.

Located at Rockefeller Center in New York City, the NBC Experience Store brings you an innovative retail attraction with interactive features, a Sweet Shop and DVD Café, and a state-of-the-art high-definition theater, and more. The NBC Experience Store offers walking tours behind the scenes of NBC's New York studios and of New York's most recognizable landmark, Rockefeller Center. The 20,000 square foot facility is conveniently located directly across from Studio 1A, home of the TODAY Show, on the corner of 49th Street and Rockefeller Plaza. It's a one-stop visit to the world of NBC.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, called “the premier horticultural attraction in the region” by The New York Times, is New York City’s natural wonder, where no matter what the season, something is always in bloom. Stroll the many gardens within the Garden. Enjoy the serenity of the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden, tour the fragrant Cranford Rose Garden, bring the family to explore the children’s Discovery Garden, or visit the Steinhardt Conservatory, containing the world famous C.V. Starr Bonsai Museum. Visit the Terrace Café and Garden Gift Shop.

In 1960, the Perkins-Freeman family deeded Wave Hill to the City of New York; Wave Hill, Inc., was formed in 1965 as a non-profit corporation. Today, as one of 33 City-owned cultural institutions, Wave Hill provides an oasis of serenity and offers programs in Horticulture, Environmental Education, Woodland Management and the Visual and Performing Arts. Through the arts and sciences, Wave Hill seeks to foster connections between people and nature.

Wolfe’s Pond Park contains mature upland woods, swamp forest, open marsh, ponds, and shoreline on Raritan Bay, making it one of the most diverse parks in the city. This large park is a refuge for scores of native plants and animals in a rapidly developing area of the city. The beach is part of the shoreline strand that runs continuously from Ward’s Point in Conference House Park, north through Mount Loretto and Lemon Creek Preserve, to Wolfe’s Pond Park.

An open space with a tradition of nonconformity, the park's fountain area has long been one of the city's popular spots for residents and tourists. Washington Square has been a center of the cultural life in New York since the middle of the 19th century. Artists of the Hudson River School, the country's first prominent school of painters, settled around Washington Square at that time. Samuel Morse and Daniel Huntington were tenants of the old University Building. (New York University once rented out studio space and residential apartments within the "academic" building.) Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Herman Melville and Walt Whitman contributed to the artistic climate, having notable interaction with the cultural and academic life of the university.

Prospect Park is a public park located in Brooklyn, New York. The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who also designed Central Park in Manhattan. Prospect Park covers 526 acres and offers a wide range of recreational opportunities for visitors. The park features several notable attractions, including the Long Meadow, a 90-acre meadow that is popular for picnics and sunbathing; the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, a 52-acre garden that features a variety of plants, flowers, and trees; and the Prospect Park Zoo, which is home to over 300 species of animals. The park also has several lakes and ponds, including the Lullwater, which is popular for boating and fishing. Prospect Park also offers a variety of recreational activities for visitors, including bike and boat rentals, horse-drawn carriage rides, and ice skating in the winter. The park is also home to several playgrounds, sports fields, and courts for basketball, soccer, and handball. The park is also home to several cultural institutions such as the Lefferts Historic House, the Prospect Park Carousel and the Brooklyn Museum, which is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country. The park also hosts various events throughout the year, including concerts, festivals, and outdoor movie screenings.
Prospect Park is easily accessible by public transportation, with several subway and bus lines stopping at the Prospect Park station, which is located at the park's main entrance. The park also has several parking lots for those who choose to drive.
Prospect Park is a great place to spend a day with family and friends, with something for everyone to enjoy, and is considered as one of Brooklyn's most popular and important public spaces.

From its inception, Bargemusic has been committed to attracting local audiences and enhancing the cultural life of New York by offering frequent, year-round performances of chamber music in a fittingly intimate setting—the type of setting in which chamber music is meant to be heard. To make that unique musical experience available to as many people as possible, Bargemusic presents 220 chamber music concerts annually—four days a week, 52 weeks a year—and offers free tickets to a variety of groups every week, plus a monthly free concert open to the community.

Citi Field is located on Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing, The stadium is conveniently accessible by subway and Long Island Railroad. You can also take the bus, ferry or drive.

Family Fun and Open Skate Hours

2013 Winter/Spring Season. Based on The Suit by Can Themba, Mothobi Mutloatse, and Barney Simon Direction, adaptation, and music by Peter Brook, Marie-Hélène Estienne, and Franck Krawczyk The renowned Peter Brook—whose 1987 production of The Mahabharata inaugurated the BAM Majestic Theater (now the BAM Harvey Theater)—returns with a music-filled adaptation of South African writer Can Themba’s piercing tale of simmering resentment and tragedy, The Suit. A wife caught in the act, her lover fleeing the scene, a suit left behind. It’s the perfect recipe for a husband’s punishing, humiliating decree: go on with business as usual, he says to his spouse, but take your lover’s suit everywhere you go as a ghostly reminder of your betrayal. Using an innovative staging that integrates live musicians directly into the action, Brook makes Themba’s volatile work sing. A hummed “Strange Fruit,” African melodies, and Schubert lieder thicken the tense, poisoned air of this apartheid-era summer in which a shared wound was not allowed to heal.
Dating from its first performance in 1861, BAM has grown into a thriving urban arts center that brings international performing arts and film to Brooklyn. The first BAM facility at 176-194 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights was originally conceived by the Philharmonic Society of Brooklyn as a home for its concerts. It housed a large theater seating 2,200, a smaller concert hall, dressing and chorus rooms, and a vast "baronial" kitchen. BAM presented both amateur and professional music and theater productions. Performers included Ellen Terry, Edwin Booth, Tomas Salvini, and Fritz Kreisler.

The Bronx is a microcosm of the story of America. The only one of New York City's five boroughs that is actually part of the mainland. The Bronx is home to 1.2 million people with a rich diversity of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Since colonial days, The Bronx has stood at the crossroads of American History.
The Bronx County Historical Society was founded in 1955 to preserve the heritage of this thriving community. The Society administers the colonial era Valentine-Varian House, which serves as the Museum of Bronx History; The Bronx County Archives; an extensive Research Library; and Poe Cottage, the final home of America's great 19th century poet and author, Edgar Allan Poe. Both historic houses are listed in the National Register of Historic Places

The New York Botanical Gardens is a premier educational institution. Located just a brisk 25 minute bicycle ride from Sound View Park via Dr. Theodore Kazimiroff Blvd, this NYC attraction is surprisingly bicycle accessible and encourages travel as such. The Gardens offers many educational programs including the opportunity to graduate with certificates in botany, floral design and horticulture, just to name a few. Ongoing hands-on gardening activities for the whole family are also available, so check their schedule online, or just give them a call. The Everett Children’s Adventure Garden is a year-round world of its own, boasting mazes, larger than life flowers, and many real time activities for your curious explorer. A prize bloom in the collection of Bronx attractions, it also actively participates in community outreach programs that expand nutritional education. Make sure you check out the Green Market, which carries a variety of produce available for purchase. Health-related screenings offered the 2nd Wednesday of every month by staff from both Montefiore Medical Center and St. Barnabas Hospital are another of the services that demonstrates their involvement in the surrounding communities. Their dedication to the conservation of the plants and fungi of the world through various scientific research associations places them on the world map.

The best way to connect to nature in New York City is by visiting the Bronx Zoo, the world’s largest urban zoo. With world-class exhibits such as the Wild Asian Monorail, the Tiger Mountain, the Congo Gorilla Forest and the newest exhibit, Madagascar, the Bronx Zoo features more than 600 different species, including mammals, birds, reptiles & amphibians and insects. Check the daily schedule of feedings and enrichment demonstrations and then customize your trip with their interactive trip planner. Find your inner animal on the Animal Activity Trail; watch amazing aerial tricks at the World of Birds; experience a very unique form of New York City transit when you ride a camel around Wild Asia Plaza; feed and watch Magellanic penguins come out of their dens and bob for fish; watch one of the most popular attractions, the Sea Lion feeding and training demonstration; visit the Butterfly Garden, a wild meadow and spacious greenhouse where you can identify different butterflies, smell the flowers and learn how to plant a nectar-rich garden. No matter how you plan your trip to the Bronx Zoo.

Socrates Sculpture Park was an abandoned riverside landfill and illegal dumpsite until 1986 when a coalition of artists and community members, under the leadership of artist Mark di Suvero, transformed it into an open studio and exhibition space for artists and a neighborhood park for local residents. Today it is an internationally renowned outdoor museum and artist residency program that also serves as a vital New York City park offering a wide variety of public services.