"Founded in 1804, the New-York Historical Society is New York City's first museum, and today it houses a collection that's soared to about 1.6 million works, from paintings and watercolors (including many fine examples of the Hudson River School) to George Washington's bed from Valley Forge. Current exhibitions exploring aspects of life in the city past and present include Pets and the City and Real Clothes, Real Lives: 200 Years of What Women Wore, the Smith College Historic Clothing Collection. The latter aims to give the city's ordinary women the Costume Institute treatment by way of their closets, so if you're visiting during the off-season of that annual exhibition, this makes a neat substitute." - Andrea Whittle, Charlie Hobbs