Indoor things to do in New York, from free to thirty dollars

Always free, no tickets required. It is a Smithsonian museum, so it works the way the Washington ones do: you walk in. That alone makes it the single most useful answer in this guide, because it needs no plan, no day of the week and no reservation.

It also happens to be in the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, a 1907 Beaux-Arts building with an oval rotunda that would be worth the trip if it were empty. From Bowling Green you are a block from the 4 and 5, which matters when the reason you are inside is the weather.

Genuinely free, not pay-what-you-wish, and — unlike the resident schemes further down — not restricted by where you live. Friday evenings from 5 to 10, and all day on the second Sunday of each month. Admission otherwise is $30.

The part almost nobody uses: the ground floor is free all the time. The lobby gallery, the shop and the bakery are outside the ticketed area, so there is a room with art in it at the foot of the High Line that costs nothing on a Tuesday afternoon. Closed Tuesdays; open late on Fridays to 10.

Wednesdays are free for everyone — not residents, everyone. The catch is procedural and it will cost you the visit if you miss it: free Wednesday tickets are available only at the ticket counter, not online. Turn up and ask.

New York City residents pay what they can on any day. Otherwise it is $23 for adults, $18 at 65 and over, $14 for students 19 and up, and free at 18 and under.

Two separate offers here, and they are not the same thing. First Fridays are free, 5:30 to 9, on the first Friday of the month — but the programme skips January and September, which is exactly the kind of detail that sends someone across town for nothing.

Wednesdays 1:30 to 5:30 are pay-what-you-wish, with a $5 minimum per ticket if you reserve in advance. That is a reduced rate, not a free afternoon. Regular admission is $30, children 10 to 18 are free during normal hours, and the museum is closed Tuesdays.

Pay-as-you-wish for the last three hours on Friday. Regular admission is $24. Open Tuesday to Sunday, late on Friday to 8, closed Mondays.

Worth pairing with the Whitney's free Friday only if you are willing to cross the park in the evening; otherwise pick one and stay in it.

Pay-what-you-wish applies to New York State residents, and to students from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Note the asymmetry, because it is where people get caught: the residency rule is New York State only. The tri-state part covers students, not residents. A New Jersey adult who is not a student pays the posted $30.

Residents can buy online with a New York billing address. Students from New Jersey or Connecticut have to buy in person and show a valid student ID.

Pay-what-you-wish is for New York State residents with valid ID. Suggested amounts are $25 for adults, $20 for students and seniors, $14 for children. If you have been carrying the old New York, New Jersey and Connecticut version of this rule around in your head, it is out of date.

The limit is worth stating plainly, because the museum states it plainly: ticketed special exhibitions are not included and cannot be added to a pay-what-you-wish ticket. The scheme covers general admission — which is still more than forty permanent halls, and more building than most people finish.

Open daily except Thanksgiving and Christmas, which is part of why it absorbs so much of the city's bad weather.

Free on Friday evenings, 5:30 to 8:30 — for New York State residents only, sponsored by UNIQLO, and free tickets have to be reserved in advance. It is every Friday, not the first Friday, and it is not open to everyone. Both of those get written wrong constantly.

The $30 ticket covers all galleries including special exhibitions, which is not true of every museum on this page.

A twelve-storey interior garden, and one of the quietest rooms in midtown. Free, but not a walk-in: you have to pre-register by 5pm the day before, bring photo ID, and pass through security screening on the way in.

That friction is why it is never crowded. Plan it a day ahead and it is the best free indoor hour in the neighbourhood; turn up on impulse and you will be turned away.

Sixteen forty-foot palm trees under a glass vault on the Hudson, rebuilt after 2001 with two thousand panes of glass. You can sit there as long as you like without buying anything, and the food hall upstairs is open if you would rather.

Shops run Monday to Saturday 10 to 8 and Sunday 11 to 7; Hudson Eats opens at 8 most days. The hall itself keeps longer hours than the shops inside it.

A glass-roofed atrium with bamboo, a hundred-odd movable chairs, thirty-two tables and a coffee kiosk — and a legal obligation to let you sit in it for fourteen hours a day. There is no purchase requirement and no time limit.

This is the clearest example of the trade described above: the tower is taller because this room exists. Use it.

Open for nearly twenty-one hours a day, free, and large enough that you can spend forty-five minutes in it without being in anyone's way. The main concourse, the dining concourse and the ramps between them are all inside.

Individual shops and restaurants keep their own hours, and the guided tour is paid. The building itself is not.

Free to enter. The Polonsky Exhibition of the Library's treasures is the building's permanent free exhibition, and free timed tickets can be reserved. The Rose Main Reading Room is open for research and quiet study during building hours; if you have no research purpose, the daily guided tours are the way in.

The building is undergoing renovation work, so expect some disruption and check before you plan an afternoon around a particular room.

Directly across Fifth Avenue from the Schwarzman building and open considerably longer — until nine on weeknights, and from eight in the morning. For anyone who needs a warm, free, quiet place to sit and work, these are the most generous hours on this page.