Queens

One of the oldest and largest nonprofit contemporary art institutions in the country, affiliated with MoMA since 2000 and housed in a converted 1892 public school building. It favors experimental, large-scale installations over a fixed permanent collection, and its courtyard hosts the long-running Warm Up outdoor music series every summer. One stop from Manhattan on the 7 train, making it an easy pairing with a Midtown day rather than a special trip — go for something stranger and less crowded than the main MoMA building.

7·E·M · Court SqBest: weekday, or Warm Up Saturdays in summer

A former industrial rail-barge site converted into a waterfront park directly across the East River from Midtown, its restored 1920s gantry cranes still standing as sculptural landmarks against the water. The straight-on view of the Manhattan skyline rivals Brooklyn's DUMBO with a fraction of the crowds, especially at sunset when the light hits the Midtown towers head-on. Fishing piers and lawns make it a good picnic stop, and the NYC Ferry landing here offers a scenic way back to Manhattan instead of the subway.

7 · Vernon Blvd-Jackson AvBest: sunset

An aerial cable car, opened in 1976 as a stopgap before the subway reached Roosevelt Island and kept ever since because people like it, that swings out over the East River from Second Avenue and 60th Street and lands four minutes later on a narrow island in the middle of the river. It costs the same as a subway swipe and works with the same card, making it the cheapest aerial view in the city by a wide margin. The island itself is quiet and mostly residential, with Four Freedoms Park, a formal granite memorial to FDR, at its southern tip. A good half-hour detour rather than a full destination.

F · Roosevelt IslandBest: 30-minute detour

Built for the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs and still marked by the Unisphere, a twelve-story stainless steel globe that is one of the more surreal landmarks in the city, sitting in the middle of a 900-acre park that's easy to forget is in New York at all. The USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and Citi Field sit at its edges, and the New York Hall of Science and Queens Museum — home to the Panorama of the City of New York, a scale model of all five boroughs built for the 1964 fair — are both worth the detour. Popular with the neighborhood's immigrant communities for weekend soccer and cricket.

7 · Mets-Willets PointBest: weekend afternoon

Housed on the former Kaufman Astoria Studios lot, where silent-era Paramount pictures and later Sesame Street were filmed, this is the only museum in the country dedicated entirely to film, television, and interactive media. Permanent exhibits cover behind-the-scenes production artifacts and a playable arcade of vintage video games, and revival screenings run most weekends in its restored theater. Pair it with a walk down Astoria's Greek and Middle Eastern restaurant strip along Broadway — a rainy-day pick more than a headline attraction.

M·R · Steinway StBest: weekend, pair with a screening

New York City's only real surf beach, a long barrier peninsula facing the open Atlantic with a boardwalk, food vendors, and a surf culture that feels nothing like the rest of the city. It's a proper trip — about an hour by subway from Midtown, longer by ferry — so it only makes sense as a full beach day rather than a quick stop, but summer weekdays keep it far less crowded than Coney Island. Board and wetsuit rentals are available if you want to try surfing yourself.

A · Rockaway BeachBest: summer weekday