New York City Audio Tour

Highlights

• 
  Empire State Building

  High above you rises the building that became the world's definition of a skyscraper. The Empire State Building rose in just 410 days of construction, a pace so remarkable it still astonishes engineers: at its peak, fourteen floors were completed in ten days.

• 
  Brooklyn Bridge

  This entrance opens onto one of the great engineering achievements of the nineteenth century, ready for your crossing. When the Brooklyn Bridge opened on May 24, 1883, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, its main span of 1,595 feet nearly double the previous record.

• Chrysler Building

  Many call this the most beautiful skyscraper ever built, and your eyes may agree. The Chrysler Building was completed in 1930 in a secret race with the Bank of Manhattan at 40 Wall Street, whose developer boasted he would build the world's tallest structure.

• 
  The Metropolitan Museum of Art

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the largest art museum in the Western Hemisphere. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American businessmen and civic leaders who felt the United States needed a great public art museum comparable to the Louvre or the British Museum.

• 
  Times Square

  Times Square is the crossroads of the world, or at least of New York's mythology. Times Square was called Longacre Square until 1904, when the New York Times moved its offices here and convinced the city to rename it and build a subway station.

All 40 stops

• Battery Park & Castle Clinton (Lower Manhattan / Battery Park)

  Your walk begins at the southern tip of Manhattan, where the island meets New York Harbor.

• Bowling Green (Lower Manhattan / Financial District)

  New York's oldest public park spreads beneath your feet.

• Wall Street & the New York Stock Exchange (Lower Manhattan / Financial District)

  This is the street that gave global capitalism its address, and your walk starts here.

• Federal Hall (Lower Manhattan / Financial District)

  Notice the site of the most important inauguration in American history, an event that shaped your country.

• Trinity Church (Lower Manhattan / Financial District)

  This brownstone was once the tallest structure in North America, and your eyes can still find its spire.

• Fraunces Tavern (Lower Manhattan / Financial District)

  Fraunces Tavern is the oldest surviving building in Manhattan, or very nearly so.

• 9/11 Memorial & Museum (Lower Manhattan / World Trade Center)

  Your feet rest at the footprints of the Twin Towers.

• Brooklyn Bridge (Lower Manhattan / Civic Center)

  This entrance opens onto one of the great engineering achievements of the nineteenth century, ready for your crossing.

• City Hall (Civic Center / Lower Manhattan)

  America's oldest city hall still in use as a seat of local government is New York City Hall, right in front of you.

• Woolworth Building (Lower Manhattan / Civic Center)

  Picture the tallest building on earth, a title this tower held for seventeen years, one you can still see today.

• Haughwout Building (SoHo)

  Picture the building that made the modern skyscraper possible, the one now facing you.

• Washington Square Park (Greenwich Village)

  Washington Square Park, the heart of Greenwich Village, hides a darker history than it looks.

• Stonewall Inn (Greenwich Village / West Village)

  Your visit brings you to the birthplace of the modern movement for LGBTQ equality.

• The High Line (Chelsea / Meatpacking District)

  Freight trains once rumbled here, through the heart of Manhattan's meatpacking district, on tracks you can still walk.

• Hotel Chelsea (Chelsea)

  Picture the most storied residential hotel in American literary and artistic history, the one now facing you.

• Flatiron Building (Flatiron District)

  This may be the most photographed building in New York, and your camera will want proof.

• Empire State Building (Midtown South)

  High above you rises the building that became the world's definition of a skyscraper.

• New York Public Library (Midtown / Bryant Park)

  The New York Public Library is one of the great Beaux-Arts buildings in America.

• Grand Central Terminal (Midtown East)

  Grand Central Terminal was once the greatest train station in the world.

• Chrysler Building (Midtown East)

  Many call this the most beautiful skyscraper ever built, and your eyes may agree.

• Times Square (Midtown / Theater District)

  Times Square is the crossroads of the world, or at least of New York's mythology.

• Rockefeller Center (Midtown / Rockefeller Center)

  Rockefeller Center is the most ambitious private development in American history.

• St. Patrick's Cathedral (Midtown East / Fifth Avenue)

  St. Patrick's Cathedral is the largest Gothic Revival Catholic church in North America, built when the Irish were fighting their way up from the bottom…

• Bethesda Fountain & Terrace (Central Park)

  Bethesda Fountain is the spiritual center of Central Park and the only ornamental fountain that was part of the original park design.

• Strawberry Fields (Central Park / Upper West Side)

  Strawberry Fields is the memorial landscape dedicated to John Lennon, across the street from where he was shot.

• The Dakota (Upper West Side)

  Luxury apartment living was invented right here, at the Dakota.

• American Museum of Natural History (Upper West Side)

  Ahead of you is the largest natural history museum in the world.

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Upper East Side / Museum Mile)

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the largest art museum in the Western Hemisphere.

• Guggenheim Museum (Upper East Side / Museum Mile)

  Picture one of the most controversial and beloved buildings in New York, waiting just ahead of you.

• Apollo Theater (Harlem)

  On the Apollo's stage, Black America's greatest musicians proved themselves.

• Sugar Hill & Strivers' Row (Harlem / Hamilton Heights)

  During the 1920s and 30s, Sugar Hill was the cultural capital of Black America.

• Abyssinian Baptist Church (Harlem)

  Abyssinian Baptist Church is the most politically powerful Black church in American history.

• Orchard Street & the Jewish Lower East Side (Lower East Side)

  Orchard Street once ran through the most densely populated neighborhood on earth.

• Eldridge Street Synagogue (Lower East Side / Chinatown)

  Eldridge Street Synagogue was the first great synagogue built by Eastern European Jewish immigrants in America.

• Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum (Midtown West / Hudson River)

  Under your feet is the flight deck of the USS Intrepid, an Essex-class aircraft carrier that survived more damage than almost any other ship in…

• Gramercy Park (Gramercy)

  Gramercy Park is the only private park in New York City, and one of very few in the country.

• The High Line (Gansevoort Street) (Meatpacking District)

  At the southern entrance of the High Line you meet the elevated freight railroad where it begins its 1.45-mile journey north through the Meatpacking District…

• Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (Upper West Side / Lincoln Square)

  Lincoln Center is the world's largest performing arts complex.

• Harlem Hellfighters Memorial (Harlem / Lenox Avenue)

  On February 17, 1919, the 369th Infantry Regiment — the Harlem Hellfighters — marched home through these blocks, not far from where you are now.

• The Cloisters & Fort Tryon Park (Washington Heights / Inwood)

  Fort Tryon Park and the Cloisters occupy the northern end of Manhattan, one of the great secret corners of the city.

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