Free things to do in New York City
Ten things across all five boroughs that cost nothing at all — a free ferry past the Statue of Liberty, the best skyline view in the city, two great parks, a medieval-to-modern art survey in gallery form, and a beach at the end of the subway.
New York is expensive. Hotels, restaurants, theater, observation decks — the city is built to separate visitors from money, and it is good at it. But the best things in it are mostly free, because they are public: the parks, the bridges, the ferry, the streets, the water. This list is ten of them, one or two per borough, picked not because they are free but because they are among the best things in the city and happen to cost nothing.
Two rules for the list. It only counts things that are free all the time or on a published schedule — not "free if you are a resident", not "suggested donation", not "pay what you wish" (those are on the borough pages, where the conditions get explained). And it skips anything you can see for free but can only really do for money: the Met is on the Manhattan list with its conditions; it is not here.
The order is rough preference, not a route. For a day built from these, the itineraries are the pages to use.
The list
The Staten Island FerryFree
St. George / Whitehall · Staten Island
Free, twenty-five minutes each way, every fifteen to thirty minutes around the clock, and it passes within photographing distance of the Statue of Liberty with the whole Lower Manhattan skyline behind you on the return. Nothing else in the city gives this much for nothing. Ride it at dusk.
Walking the Brooklyn BridgeFree
DUMBO / Civic Center · Brooklyn
A mile and a bit of the most famous bridge in America, on foot, with the skyline in front of you if you start in Manhattan — free, no ticket, and the best half-hour of a first visit if you go before nine and have it to yourself.
Central ParkFree
Upper West Side / Upper East Side · Manhattan
Eight hundred and forty-three acres and every one of them free; the zoo and the boat rental are the only things in it that charge. At nine on a weekday morning it is the best version of itself, and the route on its page gets you the highlights in about three hours.
Gantry Plaza State ParkFree
Long Island City · Queens
The best skyline view in New York, straight across the East River at Midtown, one subway stop from Grand Central on the 7. People pay for observation decks to see less than this. Go at sunset with food from Vernon Boulevard.
The High LineFree
Chelsea / Meatpacking District · Manhattan
An elevated freight line turned into a planted walkway thirty feet above the West Side, a mile and a half long, free end to end, and the one piece of contemporary New York everyone should see. Walk it early or late; the middle of a summer day is a queue.
The Chelsea GalleriesFree
Chelsea · Manhattan
Two hundred commercial galleries in the West 20s, all free, all open to the public, and collectively a survey of contemporary art that beats most museums — they are under the High Line, so the two are one afternoon. Closed Sundays and Mondays, mostly.
Prospect ParkFree
Park Slope / Prospect Heights / Flatbush · Brooklyn
The park Olmsted and Vaux built after they had learned from Central Park, with Brooklyn's only forest, a ninety-acre meadow and a free concert series every summer at the bandshell. Less famous than its Manhattan sibling and, many Brooklynites will tell you, better.
Coney IslandFree
Coney Island · Brooklyn
A public beach, a two-and-a-half-mile boardwalk and Friday-night summer fireworks, all free, at the end of four subway lines for one fare. The rides charge; nothing else does. Walk fifteen minutes east to Brighton Beach for the cheapest and best food on the coast.
The Grand ConcourseFree
Concourse · The Bronx
Four and a half miles of Art Deco apartment buildings on a boulevard modelled on the Champs-Élysées, with the B and D running underneath so you can start and stop anywhere. The best self-guided architecture walk in the city, and almost nobody does it.
The Staten Island GreenbeltFree
Todt Hill / Egbertville · Staten Island
Two thousand eight hundred acres of real forest with thirty-five miles of marked trails — the only place inside the city limits where you are genuinely hiking rather than walking in a park. Free, reached by the free ferry and a bus, and empty on a weekday.
Free on a schedule
Several of the best paid things in the city have honest free windows, and they are on the borough lists with their conditions: the Bronx Zoo's free Wednesday (reserve ahead), the New York Botanical Garden's Wednesday grounds hours, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's weekday mornings, the Bronx Museum (always free), Wave Hill's free mornings, the Noguchi Museum's first Sunday. None of them is "free" in the way the ferry is free — you have to be there on the right day — which is why they are not on this list and are on those.
Common questions
- Is the Staten Island Ferry really free?
Completely. No ticket, no booking, no catch — you walk on at the Whitehall terminal in Lower Manhattan and walk off at St. George twenty-five minutes later. It runs twenty-four hours a day. The only thing it costs is the subway fare to get to the terminal, and if you want to see more of Staten Island than the boat, the buses on the far side take the same tap.
- What about the museums?
The Bronx Museum of the Arts is free, full stop, and the Chelsea galleries are free because they are shops. The Met is pay-what-you-wish only for New York State residents and students from nearby states; everyone else pays, and the sign at the desk is clear about it. Several others have a free evening or a free day — the borough pages list them with the conditions, because the conditions are the whole story.
- Which of these should I do first?
If you have one evening: the ferry. If you have one morning: the Brooklyn Bridge, early, from the Manhattan side, and then down into the park under it. If you have one afternoon: the High Line into the Chelsea galleries. Those three are the city's free greatest hits, and they are each on a different one of the itineraries here.
Who should skip this
Anyone who wants to be told the best things in New York are paid experiences you book in advance — some are, and they are not on this page.