Booking Ahead

What needs a ticket

The great surprise of Manhattan for many visitors is how much of it costs nothing and needs no planning at all. You can walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, spend a day in Central Park, stroll the High Line, stand in the Main Concourse of Grand Central, sit on the red steps in Times Square, visit the 9/11 Memorial and ride the Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty without a single ticket.

A handful of things are different, because space inside them is limited or the demand is enormous. The inside of the Statue of Liberty, the 9/11 Memorial Museum, the observation decks, Broadway and the opera are the ones that sell out. This page goes through them in the order you are likely to need them, and ends with the things you should never pay a middleman for.

The Statue of Liberty

Everyone who visits Liberty Island and Ellis Island travels on the same ferry, run by Statue City Cruises, which is the only authorized ticket seller for the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island and the only company whose boats land on the islands. The National Park Service strongly encourages buying ferry tickets before the day you plan to visit, and every ticket includes the Statue of Liberty Museum and the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration.

The general admission ticket does not take you inside the statue. To enter the pedestal or climb to the crown, you need a pedestal or crown ticket, and these are limited for reasons of safety and security, so they must be bought well in advance; when they are gone, general admission is the only ticket left. The Park Service also recommends an early ferry if you want to see both islands in one day. Buy only from the official seller; other companies selling Statue tours along the waterfront cannot land you on the island. See the Statue of Liberty.

The 9/11 Memorial and Museum

The 9/11 Memorial, the two great pools in the footprints of the Twin Towers, is free and open to the public every day of the week, and needs no ticket. The museum beneath it is different: it requires an advance ticket purchase, and it opens six days a week, plus a few select days, so check the calendar before you plan around it. A free audio guide is available in the Bloomberg Connects app.

The observation decks

The five big decks, the Empire State Building, Top of the Rock, One World Observatory, Summit One Vanderbilt and Edge, each sell their own tickets. The Empire State Building's observatories are reached through their own entrance at 20 West 34th Street, not the famous Fifth Avenue lobby, and some four million people a year go up. Book ahead for the hour before sunset, which is the most popular slot on all of them, and for any day in the holiday season.

On a cloudy day the view can vanish, so if your plans allow it, wait for a clear forecast and book a day or two ahead rather than weeks. The views compares the five and explains which to choose.

Broadway and the opera

Broadway means the forty-one professional theaters, each with five hundred or more seats, in the Theater District around Times Square and at Lincoln Center; only three of them actually stand on Broadway. For the most popular shows, book as far ahead as you can. For everything else, the TKTS booth under the red steps at Duffy Square, run by the nonprofit Theatre Development Fund, sells reduced-price tickets for Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, and there is a second booth at Lincoln Center. See Times Square.

The Metropolitan Opera, founded in 1883, first performed in a purpose-built house at 39th Street and Broadway, the Old Met, and has performed at Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side since 1966. It stages about eighteen operas a season, from late September to early June, with evening performances and matinées on Saturdays and some Sundays. Book ahead for new productions and famous singers.

The museums

The Metropolitan Museum of Art sells tickets online, which let you walk straight to a gallery entrance, but it does not require them in advance, and every ticket includes same-day entry to the Cloisters. New York State residents and students from the tri-state area pay what they wish. The Guggenheim recommends reserving online but also sells tickets at the museum.

Special exhibitions at any museum may have their own timed tickets. The Met and the Guggenheim pages describe what to see.

Free tours and free theater

Some of the best things in the city that do need planning cost nothing. The High Line offers free docent-led public tours on select days, and the Met runs free tours of its collection with an art expert. In Central Park, the Public Theater presents free open-air theater at the Delacorte Theater each summer, including Shakespeare in the Park; read the theater's own instructions on how the free tickets are given out, well before the day you hope to go.

Several sights also offer free digital guides in the Bloomberg Connects app, among them the 9/11 Memorial, the Met and the Guggenheim. Download them before you go, when you have a good connection. The Guggenheim also accepts New York CityPASS, a combined ticket to several attractions, which can be worth comparing if you plan to see many of the paid sights in a few days.

A few rules

Buy from the official seller whenever you can: the Park Service's ferry company for the Statue, the museums and decks themselves, and the theaters' own box offices or authorized agents for shows. A ticket bought anywhere else may cost more, may not be valid for the day you want, and for the Statue may not even get you onto the right boat.

Keep the free things free. No one needs a ticket to walk the Brooklyn Bridge, enter Grand Central, see the Charging Bull, visit St. Patrick's Cathedral, or ride the Staten Island Ferry. Itineraries shows how to fit the booked sights and the free ones into the same days.

Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you book through one we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It does not affect what is recommended here, and no sight page on this site carries one.

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