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Built in 1922, this is a monument to excess but fun to see nevertheless. The façade is said to have more columns than any other building in the world, and the vast lobby is a forest of marble pillars. Close by at 120 Broadway, the former Equitable Building, built in 1915, is of note for another excess: the immense bulk of the building was responsible for the nation’s first skyscraper zoning regulations.

Recreation of a 19th-century print shop with working printing presses.

When it was completed in 1883 linking Manhattan and Brooklyn, this was the largest suspension bridge in the world and the first to be built of steel. It took 600 workmen and 16 years to build, and claimed 20 lives, including that of the designing engineer, John A. Roebling. It is now a symbol of New York, and those who walk the 1-mile (1.8-km) span are rewarded with fabulous views of city towers seen through the artistic wire cablework.

The seat of city government since 1812, City Hall is considered one of the most beautiful early 19th-century public buildings in the U.S. The design, by architects Mangin and McComb, Jr., won a competition held in 1802. A statue of Justice, dating from 1887, crowns the top of the structure. The rear of the building, facing north, was not clad in marble until 1954, since the architects never expected the city to develop further north.

The 1885 schooner Pioneer offers 90-minute family sails and two-hour cruises in the afternoon and evening.

Seven classic ships, several open for boarding, include the 1885 square-rigger Wavertree, and the landmark, four-masted Peking, built in 1911.

Marvel at the skill of woodcarvers at work, creating model ships and figureheads.

This building dominating the Civic Center area, straddling Chambers Street, was the first “skyscraper” by McKim, Mead, and White, a 25-story structure completed in 1914. The top is a vertitable wedding-cake fantasy of towers and spires topped by Adulph Wienman’s famous statue, Civic Fame. The intricate terra-cotta vaulting above the street is modeled on the entrance of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, and the subway entrance at the south end, an arcaded plaza, is a dramatic vault of Guastavino tiles.

Ascend the wide staircase of the 1926 New York County Courthouse (adjacent to the 31-story, pyramid-topped U.S. Courthouse dating from 1933) and enter to admire the marble columned rotunda with Tiffany lighting fixtures. Note, too, the ceiling murals depicting Law and Justice. The hexagonal building has a courtroom in each of its six wings.

A pier with three floors of restaurants, food stands and sweeping views of the East River and Brooklyn Bridge.