Brooklyn Museum & Botanic Garden

One of the oldest museums in the country and the second largest in New York is in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Museum, founded in 1910, is located inside the Botanic Garden, a wonderland of 10,000-plus varieties of plants. The museum building, too, is not to be missed. Architecture-lovers will appreciate this 19th century masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style, an eclectic hybrid of Italian Renaissance and French baroque. The entrance received a dashing glass-and-steel facelift in 2004, courtesy of architect James Stewart Polshek, who's design embodies the synthesis of old and new.

The Brooklyn Museum is well worth the 30-minute taxi or subway ride from Midtown. The museum's collection includes more then 1.5 million artifacts, ranging from ancient Egyptian treasures to works of modern art.

Tags: Brooklyn Museum