New York is expensive in ways that are hard to avoid — the hotel, the food, the tickets — and free in ways that are easy to miss. What follows is not padding. Every item here is something people pay real money for in other cities.
Free views
1. The Staten Island Ferry. Twenty-five minutes across the harbour past the Statue of Liberty, every half hour, 24 hours a day, no ticket. The best free thing in the city and better than several paid harbour cruises.
2. The Brooklyn Bridge. Walk it from Brooklyn toward Manhattan at seven in the morning.
3. The Granite Prospect at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Wide stone steps facing the skyline. The best free view in New York.
4. Brooklyn Heights Promenade. A cantilevered walkway over the expressway with Lower Manhattan framed in front of you.
5. Gantry Plaza State Park, Long Island City. Directly across the East River from Midtown, with almost nobody on it.
6. The Whitney’s outdoor terraces — free only if you are 25 or under, which is a real policy at the Whitney.
Free buildings
7. Grand Central Terminal. The concourse, the ceiling and the whispering gallery.
8. The New York Public Library. Sit down in the Rose Reading Room. Take the free docent tour.
9. St Patrick’s Cathedral. Open every day, no ticket.
10. Trinity Church and its churchyard. Hamilton’s grave.
11. St Paul’s Chapel. The oldest church building in Manhattan and the 9/11 relief exhibition inside it.
12. The Oculus. A four-billion-dollar room you can walk through.
13. The Chrysler Building lobby, weekdays.
14. Federal Hall on Wall Street, run by the Park Service.
Free museums and art
15. The Chelsea galleries. Two hundred commercial galleries in the low 20s west of Tenth Avenue, all free, showing museum-standard work. Thursday evenings are opening nights.
16. The 9/11 Memorial plaza.
17. The Schomburg Center in Harlem — a research library of the Black diaspora with free exhibitions.
18. The National Museum of the American Indian in the old Custom House at Bowling Green. Free, Smithsonian-run, and in one of the most beautiful interiors downtown.
19. The Museum at FIT. Free fashion exhibitions of a seriousness that surprises everyone.
20. The Hispanic Society in Washington Heights — free, and it holds Goyas and Velázquezes.
21. The Bronx Museum, the Queens Museum’s panorama on some days, and MoMA PS1 for New York City residents.
Free entry windows
22. MoMA on Friday evenings, 4–8pm. Ticketed online in advance and gone within minutes of release.
23. The Whitney on Friday evenings 5–10pm and the second Sunday of each month.
24. The Guggenheim on Saturday evenings.
25. The Bronx Zoo all day Wednesday, pay what you wish.
26. Museum Mile Festival, one evening in June, when Fifth Avenue closes and every museum on it opens free.
Free parks and green space
27. Central Park, all 843 acres, and every path in it.
28. The High Line, a mile and a half of elevated park.
29. Prospect Park and the Long Meadow.
30. Green-Wood Cemetery, 478 acres of Victorian landscape with a colony of wild green parakeets.
Free things that happen at specific times
Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte in Central Park, June to August, tickets by same-day lottery.
SummerStage in Central Park and BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! at the Prospect Park bandshell — serious free outdoor music programmes all summer.
Bryant Park Movie Nights on Monday evenings in summer, on the lawn.
The New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera free concerts in the parks, one week each summer.
Juilliard student recitals, free or nearly, at a very high standard, all through term.
Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City, free outdoor concerts and a dance floor on the plaza.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and, better, the balloon inflation the evening before near the Natural History Museum.
The Village Halloween Parade on Sixth Avenue, which anyone in costume can join.
Free kayaking on the Hudson at Pier 26 and Pier 96, and on the Brooklyn side at Brooklyn Bridge Park, run by volunteers in summer.
Manhattanhenge, twice in May and twice in July, when the setting sun aligns with the crosstown streets.
Things that are cheap enough to count
The Roosevelt Island Tramway — a cable car over the East River for one subway fare. NYC Ferry — a full harbour crossing for slightly more than a subway fare. Governors Island — free on weekend mornings before the cutoff. A Yankees or Mets midweek ticket, often less than a cinema seat. A slice of pizza, which is a meal.