Historical Sites Near Me in Mahopac
Rockefeller State Park Preserve
125 Phelps Way, Pleasantville, NY
Rockefeller State Park Preserve offers quiet countryside walks of all lengths through forested hills and valleys surrounding sunlit pastoral fields. Thirty miles north of New York City, the property is the former Pocantico Hills and Rockwood Hall country estates of John D. Rockefeller family and William Rockefeller. Since 1983, the Rockefeller Family has generously donated over 1771 acres to the State of New York to safeguard these lands for present and future generations. Managed by New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, the Preserve is open to the public year-round, sunrise to sunset.
The trails of the Preserve are crushed stone carriage roads laid out by John D. Rockefeller Sr. and Jr. in the first half of the 20th century. Designed to complement the landscape, the 45 miles of scenic carriage roads are wide and easy to walk. Popular for walking, riding, jogging, and carriage driving, combinations of trails lead through varied landscapes and past natural and historical features, such as Swan Lake, the Pocantico River with its wood and stone bridges, gurgling streams, colonial stone walls and rock outcroppings. Trail maps of the carriage roads are available at the Preserve Office.
The Preserve is primarily hardwood forest dominated by huge oak, tulip poplar, maple, and beech trees. The forests, fields, streams, and wetlands support a high diversity of native species of resident and migratory birds, mammals, insects, amphibians, reptiles, fish and aquatic species, some of which are in decline and now uncommon in Westchester County. With 202 recorded species of birds and its Important Bird Area designation by the National Audubon Society, the Preserve is a must-visit area for birders. Over 100 species of native wild bees frequent spring and summer wildflowers. In the fall, Monarch butterflies stop to feed and lay eggs during their southward migration. An on-going environmental stewardship is underway to favor native biological diversity.
Rockwood Hall is a distinct bucolic section of the Preserve with commanding views of the Hudson River and Palisade Cliffs. Between 1886 and 1922, William Rockefeller's estate was 1000 acres with a 202-room mansion, a working farm, and a landscape designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, father of American landscape design. While the house and buildings are now gone, massive rock walls around the former house site and extensive grassy fields with magnificent specimen trees harken back to the heyday of the estate during the gilded age.
While in the preserve, stop in the Preserve's Gallery by the entrance where rotating exhibits feature contemporary art and natural history exhibits. In the entrance courtyard between the Gallery and Preserve office is the Tree Peony Garden.
Amenities:
Equestrian Trails
Fishing
Hiking
Hunting
Sledding
-Rockwood Hall Only
Snowshoeing/X-Country Skiing
Visitor Center (Accessible)
-Gallery
Harriman State Park
Seven Lakes Dr / Bear Mountain Circle, Ramapo, NY
Harriman State Park, located in Rockland and Orange counties, is the second-largest park in the parks system, with 31 lakes and reservoirs, 200 miles of hiking trails, two beaches, two public camping areas, a network of group camps, miles of streams and scenic roads, and scores of wildlife species, vistas and vantage points. Harriman State Park's major facilities include Lakes Welch, Sebago, Tiorati and Silvermine, the Anthony Wayne Recreation Area, Sebago Cabins and Beaver Pond Campgrounds.
Activities:
Biking
Fishing
Hiking
Ice Fishing
Ice Skating
X-Country Skiing
Amenities:
Boat Launches
Boat Rentals
Cabins
Campsites
Dumping Stations
Food
Gift Shop
Grills
Group Camping
* Organizations only (i.e. Churches, Schools, Scout troops). For details, please call 845-429-8257
Museum/Visitors Center
Picnic Tables
Playing Fields
Scenic Views
Showers
Swimming Beach
* At Tiorati and Welch beaches
Tent/Trailer Sites
Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library And Museum
4079 Albany Post Road, Hyde Park, NY
The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library is the first of the presidential libraries. It was conceived and built under President Roosevelt's direction during 1939-40 on 16 acres of land in Hyde Park, New York, donated by the President and his mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt. The library resulted from the President's decision that a separate facility was needed to house the vast quantity of historical papers, books, and memorabilia he had accumulated during a lifetime of public service and private collecting.
The Library's museum contains extensive displays on the lives and careers of both President and Mrs. Roosevelt. Through the use of documents, photographs, historic memorabilia, and multimedia technology, the exhibits document that turbulent period of our nation's history from the Great Depression through World War II.
The New York Botanical Garden
2900 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, NY
Mission
The New York Botanical Garden is an advocate for the plant kingdom. The Garden pursues its mission through its role as a museum of living plant collections arranged in gardens and landscapes across its National Historic Landmark site; through its comprehensive education programs in horticulture and plant science; and through the wide-ranging research programs of the International Plant Science Center.
History
Distinguished by the beauty of its landscape, collections, and gardens as well as the scope and excellence of its programs in horticulture, education, and science, The New York Botanical Garden is unique among museums and public places in America. The illustrious history of the Garden began during the 19th-century civic movement in New York City to create a cosmopolitan world capital. City officials, prominent financiers, and corporate citizens created an impressive roster of great cultural institutions, including public libraries, museums, zoos, and this botanical garden.
Inspired by an 1888 visit to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, near London, eminent Columbia University botanist Nathaniel Lord Britton, and his wife, Elizabeth, also a botanist, determined that New York should have one of the world's great botanical gardens. Upon their return home, they launched a public campaign to establish this institution as a private, non-profit corporation in partnership with New York City and State, and their new botanical garden was chartered by New York State in 1891.
Because of its highly picturesque terrain, the freshwater river in a rock-cut gorge, and 50 acres of old-growth forest, Britton chose this City-owned property as the future home of The New York Botanical Garden in 1895. Calvert Vaux, co-designer of Central Park, laid out the Garden's first schematic design. Many of Vaux's plans, including roadways and paths, are prominent features today. Later the Olmsted Brothers firm developed the roadway and circulation plan, and since those early years many distinguished American landscape and garden designers have contributed significant elements. Many historic landscapes have been restored in recent years.
This has always been a botanical garden with a three-fold mission - to conduct basic and applied research on the plants of the world with the goal of protecting and preserving them where they live in the wild; to maintain and improve the gardens and collections at the highest horticultural standard; and to use the Garden itself as a venue for teaching the public about plant biology, horticulture, and the natural world generally.
Driven by this mission, the Garden's Board and staff have created one of the world's most comprehensive plant research and conservation programs, which includes fieldwork to discover new species, active collaborations to promote forest and habitat protection, and plant molecular biology. In the course of a century-long effort, the institution has amassed over 7,300,000 plant specimens in the research herbarium, now among the four largest in the world; built the world’s most important research library about plant science and horticulture; continued to steward this important American landscape; and taught millions of visitors to love and respect the world's flora.
Minnewaska State Park Preserve
5281 Route 44-55, Kerhonkson, NY
About Us:
Located in Ulster County, NY Minnewaska State Park Preserve is situated on the dramatic Shawangunk Mountain ridge, which rises more than 2,000 feet above sea level and is surrounded by rugged, rocky terrain. The park features numerous waterfalls, three crystalline sky lakes, dense hardwood forests, incising sheer cliffs and ledges opening to beautiful views, clear streams cut into valleys, world-class rock climbing and 35 miles of carriage roads and 35 miles of footpaths on which to bike, walk, hike and simply enjoy. And, all this within an hour and a half drive from New York City.
Visitors can also enjoy hiking, biking, swimming, picnicking, scuba-diving, rock-climbing, bouldering, boating and marveling at the scenery. Horseback riding and cross-country ski trails are available as well. Technical Rock Climbing permitted.Â
Museum Of The City Of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, New York, NY
About Us:
The Museum of the City of New York fosters understanding of the distinctive nature of urban life in the world’s most influential metropolis. It engages visitors by celebrating, documenting, and interpreting the city’s past, present, and future.
History:
The Museum of the City of New York was founded in 1923 by Henry Collins Brown, a Scottish-born writer with a vision for a populist approach to the city. The Museum was originally housed in Gracie Mansion, the future residence of the Mayor of New York. Hardinge Scholle succeeded Henry Brown in 1926 and began planning a new home for the Museum. The City offered land on Fifth Avenue on 103rd-104th Streets and construction for Joseph H. Freedlander’s Georgian Colonial-Revival design for the building started in 1929 and was completed in 1932. During the next few decades, the Museum amassed a considerable collection of exceptional items, including several of Eugene O’Neill’s handwritten manuscripts, a complete room of Duncan Phyfe furniture, 412 glass negatives taken by Jacob Riis and donated by his son, a man’s suit worn to George Washington’s Inaugural Ball, and the Carrie Walter Stettheimer dollhouse, which contains a miniature work by Marcel Duchamp. Today the Museum’s collection contains approximately 750,000 objects, including prints, photographs, decorative arts, costumes, paintings, sculpture, toys, and theatrical memorabilia.
The Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Avenue (at 92nd Street), New York, NY
Queens County Farm Museum
73-50 Little Neck Parkway, Queens, NY
Mission Statement:
The mission of the Queens County Farm Museum is to preserve, restore, and interpret the site. Through educational programs, events, and museum services, we educate the public as to the significance of Queens County's agricultural and horticultural past and heighten awareness of present-day agricultural and horticultural practices.
The Metropolitan Museum Of Art - The Met Fifth Avenue
1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
Mission Statement:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded on April 13, 1870, "to be located in the City of New York, for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said city a Museum and library of art, of encouraging and developing the study of the fine arts, and the application of arts to manufacture and practical life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and, to that end, of furnishing popular instruction.
This statement of purpose has guided the Museum for over 140 years.
American Museum Of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY
Mission Statement:
To discover, interpret, and disseminate-through scientific research and education-knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe.
Since its founding in 1869, the American Museum of Natural History has collected more than 32 million specimens relating to the natural world and human cultures. The Museum showcases its amazing treasures in the exhibit halls, and behind the scenes more than 200 scientists are at work making new discoveries. Millions of people from around the world visit the Museum each year.
The Metropolitan Museum Of Art - The Met Breuer
945 Madison Avenue, New York, NY
Mission Statement:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded on April 13, 1870, "to be located in the City of New York, for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said city a Museum and library of art, of encouraging and developing the study of the fine arts, and the application of arts to manufacture and practical life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and, to that end, of furnishing popular instruction.
This statement of purpose has guided the Museum for over 140 years.
The Museum Of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street, New York, NY
Mission Statement: Founded in 1929 as an educational institution, The Museum of Modern Art is dedicated to being the foremost museum of modern art in the world.
Through the leadership of its Trustees and staff, The Museum of Modern Art manifests this commitment by establishing, preserving, and documenting a permanent collection of the highest order that reflects the vitality, complexity and unfolding patterns of modern and contemporary art; by presenting exhibitions and educational programs of unparalleled significance; by sustaining a library, archives, and conservation laboratory that are recognized as international centers of research; and by supporting scholarship and publications of preeminent intellectual merit.
Central to The Museum of Modern Art's mission is the encouragement of an ever-deeper understanding and enjoyment of modern and contemporary art by the diverse local, national, and international audiences that it serves.
To achieve its goals The Museum of Modern Art recognizes:
-That modern and contemporary art originated in the exploration of the ideals and interests generated in the new artistic traditions that began in the late nineteenth century and continue today.
-That modern and contemporary art transcend national boundaries and involve all forms of visual expression, including painting and sculpture, drawings, prints and illustrated books, photography, architecture and design, and film and video, as well as new forms yet to be developed or understood, that reflect and explore the artistic issues of the era.
-That these forms of visual expression are an open-ended series of arguments and counter arguments that can be explored through exhibitions and installations and are reflected in the Museum's varied collection.
-That it is essential to affirm the importance of contemporary art and artists if the Museum is to honor the ideals with which it was founded and to remain vital and engaged with the present.
-That this commitment to contemporary art enlivens and informs our evolving understanding of the traditions of modern art.
-That to remain at the forefront of its field, the Museum must have an outstanding professional staff and must periodically reevaluate itself, responding to new ideas and initiatives with insight, imagination, and intelligence. The process of reevaluation is mandated by the Museum's tradition, which encourages openness and a willingness to evolve and change.
In sum, The Museum of Modern Art seeks to create a dialogue between the established and the experimental, the past and the present, in an environment that is responsive to the issues of modern and contemporary art, while being accessible to a public that ranges from scholars to young children.
The Paley Center for Media
25 West 52 Street, New York, NY
The Paley Center for Media seeks to preserve the past, illuminate the present, and envision the future through the lens of media. With the nation's foremost public archive of television, radio, and internet programming, the Paley Center produces programs and forums for the public, industry professionals, thought leaders, and the creative community to explore the evolving ways in which we create, consume, and share news and entertainment. In an era of unprecedented change, the Paley Center advances the understanding of media and its impact on our lives.
Ripley's Believe It or Not! Times Square
234 West 42nd Street, New York, NY
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Times Square invites guests of all ages to experience the unbelievable mysteries of our world. Home to rare artifacts and thrilling interactive exhibits, our one-of-a-kind attraction in NYC is perfect for those who want to immerse themselves in the unusual, the unexpected and the unbelievable. Only at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Times Square will families rediscover wonder around every corner.
The Morgan Library And Museum
225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY
Mission:
The mission of The Morgan Library & Museum is to preserve, build, study, present, and interpret a collection of extraordinary quality, in order to stimulate enjoyment, excite the imagination, advance learning, and nurture creativity.
A global institution focused on the European and American traditions, the Morgan houses one of the world's foremost collections of manuscripts, rare books, music, drawings, and ancient and other works of art. These holdings, which represent the legacy of Pierpont Morgan and numerous later benefactors, comprise a unique and dynamic record of civilization, as well as an incomparable repository of ideas and of the creative process.
Vision:
The Morgan Library & Museum celebrates creativity and the imagination, with the conviction that meaningful engagement with literature, music, history, and art enriches lives, opens minds, and deepens understanding.
Fotografiska New York
281 Park Avenue South at 22nd Street, New York, NY
Fotografiska New York
Located at 281 Park Avenue South, the six-floor, 45,000 sq ft. historic landmark is home to an unexpected mix of world-class art, vibrant cultural programming, and exceptional dining experiences. The restaurant, Verōnika, and cocktail lounge, V Bar, are operated by award-winning STARR Restaurants and designed by Roman and Williams (currently closed, re-opening date to be announced in accordance with city and state regulations).
The New York location opened in December 2019 with work from Ellen von Unwerth, Tawny Chatmon, Helene Schmitz, Adi Nes, and Anastasia Taylor-Lind in partnership with TIME Magazine.
Fotografiska is anything but an ordinary museum. There is no permanent collection, and none of the work is for sale. Due to this unique model, Fotografiska is able to respond quickly to ever-changing societal issues, movements and themes, which is reflected in the immersive, representative, and relevant exhibitions.
Art League Of Long Island
107 East Deer Park Road, Dix Hills, NY
About Us:
The Art League of Long Island is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to broad-based visual arts education, providing a forum and showcase for artists of all ages and ability levels. Since its inception in 1955, the mission has focused on enhancing Long Island's cultural life by promoting the appreciation, practice and enjoyment of the visual arts. ALLI offers a wide selection of classes, workshops, exhibits, lectures, museum tours, fine art and craft shows. Collaborative events and outreach programs spread the joy of creativity among every segment of the population.
Whitney Museum of American Art
99 Gansevoort Street, New York, NY
About Us:
As the preeminent institution devoted to the art of the United States, the Whitney Museum of American Art presents the full range of twentieth-century and contemporary American art, with a special focus on works by living artists. The Whitney is dedicated to collecting, preserving, interpreting, and exhibiting American art, and its collection arguably the finest holding of twentieth-century American art in the world—is the Museum’s key resource. The Museum’s signature exhibition, the Biennial, is the country’s leading survey of the most recent developments in American art.
Innovation has been a hallmark of the Whitney since its beginnings. It was the first museum dedicated to the work of living American artists and the first New York museum to present a major exhibition of a video artist (Nam June Paik in 1982). Such figures as Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, and Cindy Sherman were given their first museum retrospectives by the Whitney. The Museum has consistently purchased works within the year they were created, often well before the artists became broadly recognized. The Whitney was the first museum to take its exhibitions and programming beyond its walls by establishing corporate-funded branch facilities, and the first museum to undertake a program of collection-sharing (with the San Jose Museum of Art) in order to increase access to its renowned collection.
The Whitney is constructing a new building in downtown Manhattan, which will open to the public in spring 2015. Designed by architect Renzo Piano and situated between the High Line and the Hudson River, the building will vastly increase the Whitney’s exhibition and programming space, providing the first comprehensive view of its unsurpassed collection of modern and contemporary American art.
Tenement Museum
103 Orchard Street, New York, NY
Our Mission:
The Tenement Museum preserves and interprets the history of immigration through the personal experiences of the generations of newcomers who settled in and built lives on Manhattan's Lower East Side, America's iconic immigrant neighborhood; forges emotional connections between visitors and immigrants past and present; and enhances appreciation for the profound role immigration has played and continues to play in shaping America's evolving national identity.
International Center Of Photography
79 Essex Street, New York, NY
About ICP
The International Center of Photography (ICP) is the world’s leading institution dedicated to the practice and understanding of photography and the reproduced image in all its forms. Through our exhibitions, educational programs, and community outreach, we offer an open forum for dialogue about the role images play in our culture. Since our founding, we have presented more than 700 exhibitions and offered thousands of classes, providing instruction at every level. ICP is a center where photographers and artists, students and scholars can create and interpret the world of the image within our comprehensive educational facilities and archive.
