Things to Do in Manhattan

Each day, sports persons enter a brick façade on 39th Avenue with bow cases and leather quivers slung over their shoulders. Queens Archery was founded in 1967 and remains a clubhouse for the city's archers, offering a practice range, opportunity for organized competition, and a pro shop that stocks all manner of gear for the sport with a small but passionate following. In recent years, interest in the age-old discipline has surged—in part due to the popularity of the bow-and-arrow-wielding characters in The Hunger Games series—bringing an influx of beginners eager to learn the sport to Queens Archery. In addition to the resident eagle-eyed veterans, the facility is home to a coterie of young archers who take part in the Junior Olympic Archery Development program. The JOAD program is administered by Columbia University archery coach Al Lizzio and certified teacher Erin Vecino, who help youths cultivate the sharp eye and steady pull necessary to be competitive-level archers.

Miles into the Pacific Ocean, Harbor Breeze Cruises' captain tells a story. He speaks of Pacific gray whales making the journey from the Bering Sea in Alaska to Scammon's Lagoon in Baja California, Mexico, right when—as if on cue—a whale breaks the water's surface. Its blowhole fires a plume of water into the air as sightseers, spread across two decks, feast upon views of the majestic creature and their camera shutters snap furiously to capture the moment.

Up to 80-feet-long, Harbor Breeze's double-decker vessels allow groups to visit the habitats of a diverse group of marine wildlife; tours often spy whale species from blue to orca, dolphins as they leap into the air, and harbor seals as they sign traffic signals to passing boats. Aside from tours, Harbor Breeze Cruises also charters boats for weddings and memorials.

Since its creation in 1965, Buzz-A-Rama has hummed with the zooming melody of miniature slot cars, 1/24-scale replicas that race around turns and down straightaways at speeds ranging from 20 to 100 miles per hour. Eight at a time, these mini-racers whip around five different tracks that range from 80 to 100 feet in length, some featuring steep banks and sharp turns for an extra challenge. Owner Buzz Perri likes to say that his fast-paced racing menagerie—open on the weekends for general racing, weekdays for parties—is recommended for ages 5–95. Nothing proves his point better than the fact that past generations of racers now bring in their children and grandchildren to teach them a thing or two about leaving their blinkers on.

At The Bloomfield School, instructors Kerrie Yeung and Melissa J. Tyson love the process of jewelry making as much as the intricate outcomes. With experience at home and abroad crafting and displaying their own work, they have amassed a grab bag of tips and techniques capable of invigorating a simple ring design or transforming a pocketful of beads and molten silver into an elegant pendant. Together, they use their skills to expand the jewelry-crafting community, hosting classes that instill an understanding of how to take a design from a wax idea to a metal reality. Yet they aren't interested in letting students walk away with only surface knowledge. Their intensive courses delve into the theory and collective know-how to create competent artisans capable of expanding on their projects in the future and re-creating their pieces without traveling back in time.

In 1929, three highly regarded patrons of the arts joined forces to found an institution that would break away from the conservative archetype of an art museum. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan could hardly have guessed that their mutual brainchild—The Museum of Modern Art, or MoMa—would someday transform into an archetype all its own. The museum’s original director, Alfred H. Barr Jr., moved to create the first-ever multidepartmental structure, with various departments devoted to architecture and design, film and video, and photography. These were in addition to the standard painting, sculpture, and visual-arts exhibits found in nearly every other museum to date. The public's response was overwhelmingly positive. After outgrowing two spaces, MoMA moved to its Midtown location, where it stands to this day. MoMA's initial gift of eight prints and one drawing has exploded to encompass a collection of more than 150,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photos, and design pieces. This collection continues to offer a wide-angle view into modern art and has spilled over into a massive library that houses more than 300,000 volumes. Every day, art lovers from around the world make their way through the museum’s structure, stopping at galleries that house iconic works by Picasso, Bourgeois, Warhol, Rauschenberg, and others. A constant influx of exhibitions keeps MoMA's many walls alive in the spirit of its progressive founders.

Over the past 140 years, boating around The Lake in Central Park has transformed from a popular pastime to an enduring tradition. In 1872, a small Victorian-style structure was built to meet the need for housing the boats. Replaced in 1924 by a rustic wooden structure that remains largely mysterious to historians, by the 1950s, the boathouse was in dire need of repair. It was then that investment banker and philanthropist Carl M. Loeb and his wife contributed a sizeable donation to help create The Loeb Boathouse. The structure, officially opened in March of 1954, still stands and today it houses the famous New York landmark, Lakeside Restaurant, immortalized in When Harry Met Sally. The Boathouse, of course, still rents out rowboats during the warmer months, and has also recently begun offering bicycles for cruising about Central Park.