A major attraction at 52-acre Brooklyn Botanical Garden, one of the finest in the country, is the beguiling Japanese Garden - complete with a blazing red torn gate and a pond laid out in the shape of the Chinese character for "heart".
Spanning the East River, the Brooklyn Bridge connected Manhattan Island to the then-independent city of Brooklyn; before its opening, Brooklynites had only the Fulton Street Ferry to shuttle them across the river.
Stretching from Orange Street to the north to Remsen Street to the south, Brooklyn Heights Promenade hangs above Brooklyn's industrial waterfront like one of Babylon's fabled gardens and offers enthralling views of the Manhattan skyline.
Coney Island was named Konijn (Rabbit) Island by the Dutch for its wild rabbit population. It features a boardwalk, a beach, a legendary amusement park, the city's only aquarium, and easy proximity to Brighton Beach.
Between 1892 and 1924, approximately 12 million of men, women, and children first set foot on U.S. soil at Ellis Island - federal immigration facility. The island's main building was reopened in 1990 as the Ellis Island Immigration Museum.
The Empire State Building may no longer be the world's tallest building (it currently ranks as the seventh), but it is certainly one of the world's best loved skyscrapers and a symbol of New York City and, perhaps, the whole 20th century.
On any given day about 30,000 people walk through the doors of the city's most famous department store. Covering a full city block, with 11 floors and over 2 million square ft of selling space, Macy's is a living retail legend.
This Botanical Garden is considered to be one of the leading botany centers in the world. This 250-acre garden built around the dramatic gorge of the Bronx River is one of the best reasons to make a trip to the Bronx.
The largest securities exchange in the world, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) nearly bursts from this relatively diminutive neoclassical 1903 building with an august Corinthian entrance - a fitting temple to the almighty dollar.
Conceived by John D. Rockefeller during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Rockefeller center complex - "the greatest urban complex of the 20th century," occupies nearly 22 acres of prime real estate.
Millions of American immigrants first glimpsed at their new land when they laid their eyes on the Statue of Liberty, which was sculpted by Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi and presented in 1886 to the United States as a gift from France.
Whirling in a chaos of dazzling light, Times Square is New York's white-hot energy center. It would take hours of fixed concentration to really see what's going on here, in the confusion of lights, billboards, people, stores, and traffic.
A park, meeting place, outdoor shopping area, and home to some of the city's trendiest restaurants, Union Square is the crossroad of two most important and significant roads - Broadway and 4th Avenue.
The United Nations Headquarters is officially an "international zone," not part of the United States. The 18-acre riverside tract, now lustily landscaped, was bought and donated by oil magnate John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1946.
With the whole area of 9,5 acre Washington Square started out as a cemetery, principally for yellow fever victims. In the early 1800s it was a parade ground and the site of public executions; in 1827 it was turned into a public park.
