Top historic sites in New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially the Met, is the largest art museum in the United States. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 Fifth Avenue, along the Museum Mile on the eastern edge of Central Park in Manhattan"s Upper East Side, is by area one of the world"s largest art galleries. A much smaller ...
Founded: 1870 |
Location:
New York, United States
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment center, and neighborhood in the Midtown Manhattan, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue. One of the world"s busiest pedestrian areas, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world"s entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world"s most visited tourist attractions, dra ...
Founded: 1904 |
Location:
New York, United States
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. It was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. The building has a roof height of 380 m and stands a total of 443.2 m tall, including its antenna. The Empire State Building stood as the world"s tallest building until the construction of the World Trade Center in 1970; following the latter"s collapse in 20 ...
Founded: 1930-1931 |
Location:
New York, United States
National September 11 Memorial & Museum
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum commemorates the September 11, 2001 attacks, which killed 2,977 people, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six. The memorial is located at the World Trade Center site, the former location of the Twin Towers that were destroyed during the September 11 attacks. It is operated by a non-profit institution whose mission is to raise funds for, program, and opera ...
Founded: 2011 |
Location:
New York, United States
The Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of the largest and most influential museums of modern art in the world. MoMA"s collection offers an overview of modern and contemporary art, including works of architecture and design, drawing, painting, sculpture, photog ...
Founded: 1929 |
Location:
New York, United States
St. Patrick's Cathedral
St. Patrick"s Cathedral was constructed starting in 1858 to accommodate the growing Archdiocese of New York and to replace St. Patrick"s Old Cathedral. Work was halted in the early 1860s during the American Civil War; the cathedral was completed in 1878 and dedicated on May 25, 1879. The archbishop"s house and rectory were added in the early 1880s, both by James Renwick Jr., and the spires were added i ...
Founded: 1858 |
Location:
New York, United States
New York Stock Exchange Building
The New York Stock Exchange Building (NYSE Building) is a structure in the Financial District of Manhattan, serving as the headquarters of the New York Stock Exchange. It is composed of two connected structures occupying two-thirds of the city block bounded by Wall Street, Broad Street, New Street, and Exchange Place. The central third of the block contains the original structure at 18 Broad Street, designed in the neocla ...
Founded: 1901 |
Location:
New York, United States
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island. The copper statue, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and its metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue is a figure of Libertas, a robed Roman liberty goddess. She holds a torch above her h ...
Founded: 1886 |
Location:
New York, United States
Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum is an American military and maritime history museum in New York. The museum showcases the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, the cruise missile submarine USS Growler, a Concorde SST, a Lockheed A-12 supersonic reconnaissance plane, and the Space Shuttle Enterprise. On the lower deck there is also a reproduction of a World War I biplane. The museum opened in 1982 at Pier 86 ...
Founded: 1982 |
Location:
New York, United States
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River. It was also the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time of its opening, with a main span of 486.3 m and a deck 38.7 m above mean high water. The span was originally called the New York and Brookl ...
Founded: 1869-1883 |
Location:
New York, United States
St. Paul's Chapel
St. Paul's Chapel, built in 1766, it is the oldest surviving church building in Manhattan, and one of the nation's finest examples of Late Georgian church architecture. A chapel of the Parish of Trinity Church, St. Paul's was built on land granted by Anne, Queen of Great Britain. Construction on the building's main body began in 1764 and was completed in 1766. The church's spire was added between 1794 and 1796. Built ...
Founded: 1764-1766 |
Location:
New York, United States
New York City Hall
New York City Hall is the seat of New York City government, located at the center of City Hall Park. Constructed from 1803 to 1812, the building is the oldest city hall in the United States that still houses its original governmental functions, such as the office of the Mayor of New York City and the chambers of the New York City Council. While the Mayor"s Office is in the building, the staff of thirteen municipal ag ...
Founded: 1803-1812 |
Location:
New York, United States
Chrysler Building
The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper in the Turtle Bay neighborhood on the East Side of Manhattan. At 319 m, it is the tallest brick building in the world with a steel framework, and was the world"s tallest building for 11 months after its completion in 1930. Originally a project of real estate developer and former New York State Senator William H. Reynolds, the building was constructed by Walter Chrysl ...
Founded: 1930 |
Location:
New York, United States
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum located at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan. It is the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. The museum was established b ...
Founded: 1937 |
Location:
New York, United States
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan. Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, it is one of the most prestigious venues in the world for both classical music and popular music. Carnegie Hall has its own artistic programming, development, and marketing departments and presents about 250 performances each season. It is also rented out to performing groups. C ...
Founded: 1889-1891 |
Location:
New York, United States
Museum of the City of New York
The Museum of the City of New York (MCNY) is a history and art museum in Manhattan. It was founded by Henry Collins Brown in 1923 to preserve and present the history of New York City, and its people. The red brick with marble trim museum was built in 1929–30 and was designed by Joseph H. Freedlander in the neo-Georgian style, with statues of Alexander Hamilton and DeWitt Clinton by sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman fac ...
Founded: 1923 |
Location:
New York, United States
Fort Jay
Fort Jay is a coastal bastion fort and the name of a former United States Army post on Governors Island in New York Harbor. It was built in 1794 to defend Upper New York Bay, but has served other purposes. From 1806 to 1904 it was named Fort Columbus, presumably for explorer Christopher Columbus. Fort Columbus played an important role in the military life of New York City as the largest army post defending the city. The ...
Founded: 1794 |
Location:
New York, United States
Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings
Photo from Flickr, copyright larrywkoester
Historic Site of the week
Monte d'Accoddi
Monte d"Accoddi is a Neolithic archaeological site in northern Sardinia, located in the territory of Sassari. The site consists of a massive raised stone platform thought to have been an altar. It was constructed by the Ozieri culture or earlier, with the oldest parts dated to around 4,000–3,650 BC.
The site was discovered in 1954 in a field owned by the Segni family. No chambers or entrances to the mound have been found, leading to the presumption it was an altar, a temple or a step pyramid. It may have also served an observational function, as its square plan is coordinated with the cardinal points of the compass.
The initial Ozieri structure was abandoned or destroyed around 3000 BC, with traces of fire found in the archeological evidence. Around 2800 BC the remains of the original structure were completely covered with a layered mixture of earth and stone, and large blocks of limestone were then applied to establish a second platform, truncated by a step pyramid (36 m × 29 m, about 10 m in height), accessible by means of a second ramp, 42 m long, built over the older one. This second temple resembles contemporary Mesopotamian ziggurats, and is attributed to the Abealzu-Filigosa culture.
Archeological excavations from the chalcolithic Abealzu-Filigosa layers indicate the Monte d"Accoddi was used for animal sacrifice, with the remains of sheep, cattle, and swine recovered in near equal proportions. It is among the earliest known sacrificial sites in Western Europe.
The site appears to have been abandoned again around 1800 BC, at the onset of the Nuragic age.
The monument was partially reconstructed during the 1980s. It is open to the public and accessible by the old route of SS131 highway, near the hamlet of Ottava. It is 14,9 km from Sassari and 45 km from Alghero. There is no public transportation to the site. The opening times vary throughout the year.