A Wish You Can Hold in Your Hand — Rockefeller Center
Artist Kelly Wall's Wistful Thinking is one of those rare installations that stays with you — literally. Located at 45 Rockefeller Plaza, the free, interactive penny press lets visitors stamp a well-wish onto a coin and take it home as a souvenir. Simple, tactile, and surprisingly moving in the middle of one of Midtown's busiest plazas.
Sculptures That Make You Stop at City Hall Park
Genesis Belanger's first major public exhibition unfolds across three sculptural vignettes in City Hall Park. Two crouching figures meditate on justice, artificial plants wait patiently among real gardens, and a group of cement birds plucks pennies from the fountain, a nod to the US penny being decommissioned in 2026. Quiet, witty, and full of meaning, hiding in plain sight.
A Wishing Well for Commuters at Pershing Square
Three sculptures by Jim Rennert, Timing, Inner Dialogue, and Listen, stand in Pershing Square directly across from Grand Central Terminal. Designed as kindred spirits to the thousands of people passing through daily, they're easy to walk past and hard to forget once you notice them.
Times Square After Midnight
Since 2012, Midnight Moment has turned the digital billboards of Times Square into a gallery every night at 11:57 PM. For three minutes, every screen synchronizes around a single artist's work. It's brief, free, and one of the most genuinely surprising things you can see in a city full of surprises.
A Buddha Above the High Line
A 27-foot-tall recreation of a Buddha statue destroyed by the Taliban stands above 10th Avenue from the High Line. Artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen's The Light That Shines Through the Universe, carved in Vietnam from sandstone, recreates one of the Bamiyan Buddha statues destroyed in Afghanistan in 2001 and is a monument to cultural loss and resilience that stops you in your tracks.
Book Your Stay
The Marmara Park Avenue puts you within easy reach of all of it, steps from Midtown, and a short ride from every corner of the city. Book your stay at The Marmara and make the city your gallery.
