Van Cortlandt Park    (Photo: Jed Egan)

Day Four: Beyond
Daytime excursions to two outer boroughs and a small-town art treasure.

1. Discover the calmer side of New York City … way uptown at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. Just steps from the 1 train stop at Van Cortlandt Park–242nd Street, history buffs peruse the eighteenth-century Van Cortlandt House Museum (a national landmark and the Bronx's oldest building) for a $5 dollar admission (waived on Wednesdays); cricket players and spectators take to the Parade Ground during the spring; and ornithologists break out binoculars around Tibbets Brook.

2. A $27 package deal to Dia: Beacon includes admission and transportation—a gorgeous, 80-minute Metro-North train ride from Grand Central Terminal. The former Nabisco factory turned modern-art museum showcases works by Richard Serra, Joseph Beuys, Sol LeWitt, and other artists from the sixties onward. (You can save 5 percent by purchasing your tickets through WebTicket.)

3. Staten Island is perpetually overlooked despite the free, half-hour ferry ride from lower Manhattan’s Whitehall Terminal. Down the street from the Staten Island dock is Cargo Café, where you can catch free jazz and snag a stellar $6.75 burger-and-beer lunch deal. If it’s baseball season, head north to Richmond County Bank Ballpark for the A-level farm team, the Staten Island Yankees (or Stankees, as they're endearingly known). Tickets cost as little as $8.