Here's a list of NYC's most popular attractions IN ORDER of most to least favorite, with thousands of visitor reviews about each one.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g60763-Activities-New_York_City_New_York.html
Here is a list of NYC hotels, with star-ratings, and hundreds of visitor comments about each one. You can also sort the list according to price range.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels
One of the newer attractions is the "
High Line" elevated walkway which extends a couple of miles and is decorated with flowers - go early in the day to avoid crowds. The "Circle Line' boat tour, giving you a choice of halfway, or all the way around Manhattan Island, has been a favorite for generations. Also, I believe the Met Art Museum and the Natural History museum are free of charge, and among the world's best. And there's the United Nations Tour, and Lower East Side Tenement Museum. I will never forget the young acrobat break-dancing, for tips, in Times Square to a boom-box playing Michael Jackson (soon after Michael died). And all the Orthodox men standing in beards and black hats, asking to buy your jewelry in the "Diamond District." In recent years, Brooklyn has become very popular (at least the part that's closest to the bridge) and there are even bus tours of that borough too, where hundreds of celebrities and other luminaries were born.