Brooklyn

Opened in 1883 as the longest suspension bridge in the world, its Gothic stone towers and web of steel cable make it as much a sculpture as a crossing. A wide elevated promenade separates walkers and cyclists from car traffic and delivers, about halfway across, the classic view back at the Manhattan skyline framed by the bridge's cables. Walk from the Manhattan side near City Hall toward Brooklyn in the late afternoon, arriving in DUMBO in time for dinner and another angle on the same view from the waterfront park below. Go early morning or after sunset — midday on a summer weekend the promenade can feel more crowded than the subway.

4·5·6 · Brooklyn BridgeBest: early morning / sunset

Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass gives the neighborhood its name and its single most photographed spot: stand on Washington Street between Front and Water and the Manhattan Bridge frames dead-center down a row of cobblestoned brick warehouses. Brooklyn Bridge Park runs along the waterfront just beneath both bridges, with a restored 1922 carousel in its own glass pavilion, lawns for picnicking, and the best straight-on view of the Lower Manhattan skyline anywhere in the city. Walk over from Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge and you arrive right in the middle of it, ideally timed for a sunset picnic.

F · York StBest: golden hour

New York's original seaside amusement district, operating in some form since the 1880s, still centers on the Wonder Wheel (1920) and the Cyclone, a wooden roller coaster from 1927 that's a designated city landmark and still runs. The boardwalk, beach, and Nathan's Famous original hot dog stand — host of the annual July 4th eating contest — round out a day that feels deliberately unpolished compared to the rest of Manhattan-centric tourism. Best from late spring through early fall, when the rides and beach are actually open; it's fairly bleak and shuttered in deep winter. About an hour from Midtown by subway.

D·F·N·Q · Coney IslandBest: late spring–early fall

A 478-acre Victorian garden cemetery, founded in 1838 and so popular as a scenic destination in its first decades that it's credited with helping inspire the movement to build Central Park. Rolling hills, ponds, and elaborate 19th-century mausoleums make it one of the best skyline viewpoints in Brooklyn from its highest point, and it holds the graves of Leonard Bernstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and a long list of Civil War generals and Gilded Age industrialists. Free maps at the main gate on 25th Street lay out self-guided walking routes; a resident flock of wild monk parakeets nesting in the gatehouse spires is a genuine, unplanned local landmark of its own.

R · 25 StBest: quiet weekday