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This Beaux Arts building was used as the drill hall and offices of a military unit privately formed in 1848. In 1913, the controversial exhibition of modern art known as the Armory Show was held here, including works by Van Gogh, Duchamp, and Brancusi. The show was widely panned in the press, but it brought modern art to New York on a large scale and had a profound and lasting effect on American art.

The city’s most eclectic emporium, two landmark buildings that are part flea market, part antiques fair, and part Middle Eastern bazaar. Offerings include fancy French or rugged Mexican furniture, antiques and reproductions, fabrics and accessories, linens, bedding, flowers, foods, and a whole building for rugs. There are two dining places: Lucy and Pipa.

Though dwarfed by countless taller structures today, this unusual building – its shape conforming to a triangular plot of land – remains striking, a symbol of the beginning of the skyscraper era. Its slim, rounded façade is as proud as a ship’s prow sailing up the avenue. Completed in 1902, it anchored the north end of the prestigious Ladies’ Mile shopping district, located between Union and Madison squares. The designer, famous Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, included detailed Italian Renaissance decoration on the building from top to bottom, much of it in terra-cotta.

Samuel Ruggles laid out this neighborhood around a private park in the 1830s. It remains the city’s only private park and a desirable place to live. Stanford White remodeled No. 16 in 1888 for Edwin Booth, who founded the Players Club here. His statue stands in the park.

The square opened in 1847 at the center of a fine residential area where politician Theodore Roosevelt and writer Edith Wharton were born. The original Madison Square Garden was here, at Madison Avenue and 26th Street. Later office development brought distinguished sites such as the Flatiron and Metropolitan Life buildings. Today the statue-filled park is being renovated and the area rediscovered.

This 54-story tower, built along the east side of Madison Square in 1909, was the world’s tallest building at that time, an appropriate corporate symbol for the world’s largest insurance company. Designed by Napoleon Le Brun and Sons, the tower follows the form of the campanile in the Piazza San Marco in Venice. Although it was altered in the 1960s, when the entire structure was renovated, the ornate four-faced clock and crowning cupola remain, a familiar landmark on the New York skyline.

Originally the home of Samuel Tilden, a governor of New York and opponent of the notorious Boss Tweed (see William “Boss” Tweed). The Gothic Revival brownstone was designed by Calvert Vaux, of Central Park fame. The National Arts Club, whose members have included leading American artists since the 1800s, bought the building in 1906. Each member is asked to donate a work to the club. Its galleries are open to the public.

The boyhood home where the colorful 26th President was born in 1858 has been reconstructed. Exhibits trace his political career as well as his explorations, displaying everything from toys to campaign buttons, and emblems of the trademark “Rough Rider” hat Roosevelt wore in the Spanish-American war. The house offers a rare glimpse of a privileged 19th-century New York lifestyle.

Herbs and berries, miniature vegetables, fresh flowers and home-baked pastries, newly woven yarns, hams, honey – all of these and more can be found at the bountiful Greenmarket that fills Union Square each Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. More than 200 regional farmers take part in the market, each offering only goods that they have grown or made. A colorful New York scene not to be missed.

Despite changes around it, this three-block corridor just south of Murray Hill remains filled with Indian shops selling saris and gifts, and is lined with restaurants that are a boon for diners (particularly vegetarians) in search of interesting food at reasonable prices. Kalustyan’s, 123 Lexington Avenue, is a treasure trove of fragrant spices and grains and features some 31 different kinds of rice.