A few of New York's biggest museums operate on a suggested admission model, which means you can legally pay a dollar — or nothing — and walk right in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art shifted to requiring paid admission for out-of-state visitors in 2018, but New York State residents still pay what they wish. The American Museum of Natural History operates on suggested admission for all visitors, though they've gotten more aggressive about presenting the full price at the desk. The Brooklyn Museum is suggested admission as well, and tends to be more relaxed about it. Worth noting that the Museum of Modern Art is free every Friday evening from 4 to 8 PM — the galleries get packed, but the collection is extraordinary and the price is right. The Whitney Museum of American Art offers pay-what-you-wish on Friday evenings too. These windows exist. They just require a bit of planning around your schedule.

Beyond the Staten Island Ferry, the NYC Ferry system isn't free — but the East River Ferry terminals along the Brooklyn and Queens waterfronts are public spaces worth visiting regardless. Governors Island, accessible by free ferry on weekend mornings, is a car-free park with old military buildings, hammock groves, and views of the harbor from every angle. The island has hills built from construction fill that give you an elevated perspective on the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan. The Brooklyn Bridge Park piers are free and have kayaking in summer — the Downtown Boathouse at Pier 26 in Tribeca offers free kayaking sessions on weekends and weekday evenings during warm months. You're paddling on the Hudson River with the city rising on both sides. It's surreal and it costs nothing.

The city is best understood on foot, and certain routes pull together neighborhoods in ways that a subway ride can't. One route worth trying: start at Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, walk south through SoHo on West Broadway — the cast-iron architecture and cobblestone side streets have a particular texture — then cut through Chinatown on Mott Street where the air smells like roast duck and sesame, continue to City Hall Park and across the Brooklyn Bridge. That's maybe three hours at a wandering pace and it threads through five distinct neighborhoods. Another: walk the length of the High Line, then continue south along the Hudson River Greenway all the way to Battery Park. The Greenway is flat, paved, runs right along the water, and on a clear day you can see all the way to the Verrazzano Bridge. In upper Manhattan, the Cloisters sits in Fort Tryon Park overlooking the Hudson — the park grounds are free even if you skip the museum, and the gardens have a medieval quiet that feels impossible this close to the George Washington Bridge.

Every borough has its own free pleasures that don't make the usual lists. In Queens, Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City is an outdoor museum of large-scale contemporary sculpture right on the East River — free always, with Manhattan framed behind the artwork. Flushing Meadows-Corona Park still has the Unisphere from the 1964 World's Fair, which is massive up close in a way photos don't convey. In the Bronx, the New York Botanical Garden is free on Wednesday mornings and all day Saturday — the old-growth forest in the Thain Family Forest is the largest remaining tract of original New York woodland. Harlem's Strivers' Row on 138th and 139th Streets is a block of beautifully preserved brownstones with rear service alleys that feel like stepping into the 1890s. On the Lower East Side, the Tenement Museum building exterior and the surrounding streets tell a story about immigration that's visible in the architecture and the layered signage on old buildings. You don't need to pay for the tour to absorb that history — just walk slowly and look up.