New York's Central Park is the first urban landscaped park in the United States. It located in the heart of New York City. 
Central Park is one of the urban wonders of the world, a green oasis in the great concrete, high-rise landscape of New York City. It is so naturally part of the Manhattan environment that many people may not realize it is entirely man-made.
Central Park spans two and a half miles from 59th Street to 110th Street and half a mile from Fifth Avenue to Eighth Avenue. Central Park is  6% of Manhattan's total acreage.
It was conceived in the salons of wealthy New Yorkers in the early 1850's, the park project spanned more than a decade and cost the city ten million dollars. The purpose was to refute the European view that Americans lacked a sense of civic duty. New York high society could parade in their carriages, socialize, and "be seen," and in which the poor could benefit from clean air and uplifting recreation without lifting the bottle.
Thousands of Irish, German, and New England-area laborers toiled ten-hour days under the direction of architect-in-chief and head foreman Olmsted for between a dollar and a dollar fifty per day. In the winter of 1858, the park's first area was opened to the public; December of that same year saw New Yorkers skating on the twenty-acre lake south of the Ramble. The final stages of the park's construction began in 1863, with the landscaping and building of the newly acquired area from 106th to 110th Streets.
Today  the park hosts millions of visitors yearly engaging in such activities as roller blading, fine dining at the Tavern on the Green, watching free performances of Shakespeare in the Park, and relaxing and sunbathing in Sheep's Meadow. There are 8,968 benches, which would stretch 7 miles if placed end to end. 275 of the 800 species birds found in North America you can watch there. There are 1,700 American Elms. More than 20 million people visit Central Park each year.

The sculpture of Edward Kennedy Ellington at 110th Street and Fifth Avenue is the first monument in New York City dedicated to a black artist and the first memorial in the United States to Ellington. A composer, orchestra conductor, and musician, "Duke" Ellington elevated jazz to perhaps the most American of art forms. With Harlem and the Cotton Club as home base, Ellington began radio broadcasts and recorded for United States, English, and French labels. Between 1930 and 1942 he was at his most creative, composing such classics as "Take the A-Train," "Mood Indigo," "Sophisticated Lady," "In a Sentimental Mood," and "Don't Get Around Much Anymore." Increasingly recognized as a major American composer, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969.  Pianist Bobby Short conceived the project, headed fundraising efforts, and coordinated the selection of Robert Graham, a major sculptor of public art, to design the memorial. The result is a bronze tableau 25-feet high, with an eight-foot tall sculpture of Ellington standing next to a grand piano. Supporting Ellington and the piano are three 10-foot tall columns, each topped with three nude caryatid female figures representing the muses. 
Even after his death, Duke Ellington is still a dominant force in jazz. He was at once the greatest arranger, the greatest composer, the greatest "band" pianist, and the greatest bandleader in jazz.

The barque Peking represents the final chapter in the evolution of merchant vessels powered only by wind. Launched in Hamburg, Germany in 1911, she was used to carry manufactured goods to South America and to return via Cape Horn with nitrate. 
It has wood desks, rest is steel. Length -377 ft., breadth -47ft., gross tonnage 3100, net tonnage -2883, depth -26ft. 3in. , main mast height- 170 ft., sail area- 44,132 sq. ft., max speed- 16.5 knots (19 mph), passenger capacity-32. In 1932, she was retired and moored in England's Medway River where she served for over 40 years as a boys' school under the name Arethusa. In 1975, Peking was acquired by the museum and towed to her current home at Pier 16. With a steel hull as long as a football field, and masts as tall as an 18-story building, Peking is one of the largest sailing vessels ever built and the largest preserved by a museum.

It is a major center for the exhibition of paintings by Nicholas Roerich, and makes available many reproductions of his art and numerous books about his life and work. The Museum is also a cultural center, presenting a broad program of concerts and poetry readings.
Nicholas Roerich is known first and foremost as a Russian-born artist. His paintings, of which there are thousands around the world, explore the mythic origins, the natural beauty, and the spiritual strivings of humanity and of the world. The Museum displays approximately two hundred of these works, and keeps them permanently on display, for visitors who come from around the world. Indeed, for many of these visitors, the Museum is a destination of great importance.

This world famous steel suspension bridge is a monument to man's ingenuity and creativity. Many lives were lost constructing the first "hotlink" between Brooklyn and Manhattan. It was the first suspension bridge to use steel for its cable wire. It was the first bridge to use explosives in a dangerous underwater device called a caisson. At the time it was built, the 3,460-foot Brooklyn Bridge was also crowned the longest suspension bridge in the world.
Location: Manhattan and Brooklyn; Construction started: January 3, 1870; Open to traffic: May 24,1883; Cost: $18 million; Length: 3,460 feet; Total length of bridge and approaches: 6,016 feet; Width of bridge: 85 feet; Purpose: Roadway;  Number of traffic lanes: 6 lanes; Number of cables:4 cables; Materials: Steel, granite; Longest Single Span: 1,595 feet 6 inches; Height of towers above mean high water: 276 feet, 6 inches; Clearance at center above mean high water: 135 feet; Weight of suspended structure: 6,620 tons; Total weight of bridge: 14,680 tons; Engineer (s): John  Roebling, Washington  Roebling

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