Museum of the City of New York Entry Ticket with Drop-in Tours

If you want to understand the city you are walking around in, this is the museum for it. The Museum of the City of New York was founded in 1923 and has been in its building on Fifth Avenue since 1932, at 103rd Street, at the top of Museum Mile and across from Central Park. It collects New York itself: its streets and skyline, and above all the people who have lived here. The ticket covers general admission and the museum's exhibitions, both the permanent displays and the rotating shows. Expect maps, photographs, objects and film rather than old masters, all of it about how New York grew and changed and who did the changing. The documentary Timescapes is the best place to begin. It runs through the city's history from its founding to the present in one sitting, and gives you a timeline to hang everything else on. Free headsets translate the soundtrack into Spanish, French and Chinese. You can also join one of the museum's drop-in tours at no extra cost. They are in English only, and they are an easy way to see the highlights with someone who knows the collection, before wandering off to whatever caught your eye. The museum is around twenty blocks north of the Met on the same stretch of Fifth Avenue, so it slots into a Museum Mile day without any extra travel planning. This ticket is for the Museum of the City of New York only; the Met is separate, and it is closed on Wednesdays. Book once your plans are firm: this ticket is non-refundable.