The Museum of the City of New York, one of the most elegant museums in the city, looks like a Colonial American mansion; it is a large red-brick building with white stone columns accenting the entranceway and marble floors and stairways. It is way uptown, but the area is just as safe as the rest of the city.

MCNY is a large museum with four or five floors of exhibits. The fifth floor, which houses the Rockefeller rooms, a recreation of the houses of several famous Robber Barons, including Rockefeller, is open to the public intermittently. The other exhibits have just about everything you ever wanted to know about New York City and then some, including an exhibit devoted to New York’s history as a major seaport with ship models and a seven foot tall statue of the inventor of the steamship. Another gallery has recreations of living rooms from various time periods starting in the colonial era. Of course, there are plenty of paintings depicting scenes of New York.

The Museum of the City of New York is the place to go to find out more about the city. Plan on a fairly long visit, three to four hours, if you want to look through the whole museum.