South Street Seaport & Museum - New York City

Dating back to the 17th century, this landmark historic district on the East River encompasses 11 square blocks of historic buildings, a maritime museum, several piers, shops, and restaurants.

You can explore most of the Seaport on your own. It's a beautiful but somewhat odd place. The mainly 18th- and 19th-century buildings lining the cobbled streets and alleyways are impeccably restored but nevertheless have a theme-park air about them, no doubt due to the mall-familiar shops housed within. The Seaport's biggest tourist attraction is Pier 17, a historic barge converted into a mall, complete with food court and cheap-jewelry kiosks.

Despite its rampant commercialism, the Seaport is well worth a look. There's a good amount of history to be discovered here, most of it around the South Street Seaport Museum, a fitting tribute to the sea commerce that once thrived here. On weekends the museum dedicates Saturday and Sunday afternoons to family fun with music, art, and other activities for children 4 and older.

In addition to the galleries -- which house paintings and prints, ship models, scrimshaw, and nautical designs, as well as frequently changing exhibitions -- there are a number of historic ships berthed at the pier to explore, including the 1911 four-masted Peking and the 1893 Gloucester fishing schooner Lettie G. Howard. A few of the boats are living museums and restoration works in progress; the 1885 cargo schooner Pioneer (tel. 212/748-8786) offers 2-hour public sails daily from early May through September. Tickets for the early and late voyages (1pm and 9:30pm) are $25 for adults, $20for students/seniors and children 12 and under. Add $5 to the prices for the 4pm and 7pm departures. If you'd rather keep those sea legs on dry land, the museum offers a number of guided walking tours; call or check www.southstseaport.org for details.

Even Pier 17 has its merits. Head up to the third-level deck overlooking the East River, where the long wooden chairs will have you thinking about what it was like to cross the Atlantic on the Normandie. From this level you can see south to the Statue of Liberty, north to the Gothic majesty of the Brooklyn Bridge, and Brooklyn Heights on the opposite shore.

At the gateway to the Seaport, at Fulton and Water streets, is the Titanic Memorial Lighthouse, a monument to those who lost their lives when the ocean liner sank on April 15, 1912. It was erected overlooking the East River in 1913 and moved to this spot in 1968, just after the historic district was so designated.