The Tribeca Film Institute successfully launched the First Annual Tribeca Film Festival in 2002. Created by Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro, the mission of the Tribeca Film Festival is to enable the international film community and the general public to experience the power of film by redefining the film festival experience. The Tribeca Film Festival was founded to celebrate New York City as a major filmmaking center and to contribute to the long-term recovery of lower Manhattan. After only 120 days of planning and with the help of more than 1,300 volunteers, the inaugural Festival became a critical and popular success and was the springboard for what is now one of the leading annual film festivals in the world. Through the years, hundreds of native films have made their world premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival, with generally half of the festival's total screenings making their debut. The obscurely independent find themselves screening alongside legendary directors like Woody Allen, and while the quantity of films has decreased in recent years, the quality has risen with a more closely curated schedule of the city's true best and brightest. No genre is out of bounds for the home-spun festival, and even established foreign films—some Oscar-winners, at that—have found a place in the hallow program of the festival. The Tribeca Film Festival takes place in various locations throughout Lower Manhattan, although a great deal of screenings occur at the Tribeca Cinema. A full list of Festival venues and a schedule is available at their official website.

Dia:Beacon is a museum for Dia Art Foundation's renowned collection of art from the 1960s to the present. Located on the Hudson River in Beacon, New York, Dia:Beacon occupies a nearly 300,000-square-foot historic printing factory and includes work from Andy Warhol, Richard Serra, Walter De Maria, Dan Flavin, Joseph Beuys, Agnes Martin, Hanne Darboven and other select artists. Each artist’s work is displayed in a dedicated gallery or galleries: in many cases these presentations were created in collaboration with the artists themselves.

The mission of the Museum of Sex is to preserve and present the history, evolution, and cultural significance of human sexuality. In its exhibitions, programs and publications, The Museum of Sex is committed to open discourse and exchange, and to bringing to the public the best in current scholarship. The Museum's exhibition schedule changes frequently, and we encourage you to visit their website for up-to-date information. Aside from frequent exhibitions, the Museum is home to the Ralph Whittington Collection. Ralph Whittington, who recently retired as a curator at the Library of Congress after 38 years of service, was a major force in acquiring and documenting pornography since the 1970s. Since picking up a pocket-size magazine on a second-grade school trip to Baltimore, he has known of his interest in the subject, and 'came out' as a collector about twenty years ago. His collection, which includes more than four hundred 8-millimeter films, 700 videos, 1,500 magazines, 100 books, and artifacts such as blow-up dolls and bawdy house coins, has been recently acquired by the Museum of Sex.

New York City has officially designated Fifth Avenue from 82nd to 104th Streets as "Museum Mile" because of the vast richness and diversity of the cultural institutions found there. The third Tuesday of every June is the Annual Museum Mile Festival. In the past two decades, well over one million people have taken part in this annual celebration where Fifth Avenue closes to traffic and becomes a walker's haven. Festival attendees can visit nine of New York City's finest cultural institutions for FREE that evening, while also enjoying various street entertainors and free live music. The museums along the mile are: 104th Street El Museo del Barrio (212) 831-7272 103rd Street Museum of the City of New York (212) 534-1672 94th Street International Center of Photography (212) 860-1777 92nd Street The Jewish Museum (212) 423-3200 91st Street Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution (212) 849-8400 89th Street National Academy of Design (212) 369-4880 88th Street Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (212) 423-3500 83rd Street Goethe Institut New York/German Cultural Center (212) 439-8700 82nd Street The Metropolitan Museum of Art (212) 535-7710

From the hustle of the Port Authority Bus Terminal to the bustle of Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street, much of New York’s dazzling vibrancy and energy emanates from this area stretching from Times Square to Central Park South. Packed with theaters, tourist attractions and tall office buildings, the buzz and glow of the city are most obvious amid the huge neon signs, giant wraparound news tickers and Broadway marquees. For Times Square New Years information, read below. For a list of Hotels at or near Times Square, click HERE. Times Square New Year Info 5:00 p.m. If you want to be in the thick of the celebration, arrive early and dress appropriately! You should wear warm winter clothing, especially warm socks and a hat, and ideally carry with you a hot beverage in a thermos. Average temperatures for this event are typically 32°F or 0°C. Revelers start arriving late in the afternoon on New Year's Eve. By approximately 6:00 p.m., the Bow Tie of Times Square (42nd to 47th Sts. Between Broadway & 7th Ave.) is fully closed to traffic. Revelers are directed by the NYPD to gather in separate viewing sections. As one section fills up, the revelers are directed by police to the next viewing section. As the evening progresses, revelers continue to fill the Times Square neighborhood along Broadway and Seventh Avenue. 6:00 p.m. At approximately 6 pm, the raising and lighting the Times Square New Year's Eve Ball takes place. The lighting and raising of the New Year's Eve Ball traditionally kicks off the evening's events. The New Year's Eve Ball is lit by Con Edison and raised to its highest position on the flagpole at One Times Square, marking the official beginning of Times Square 2003. Music will continue throughout the evening marked by hourly countdoewns. 6:58 p.m. Hourly Video Countdown Begins! And don't worry, you will know when the New Year is close at hand. Two minutes of sound effects and music culminate in a 30-second video countdown on giant Panasonic Astrovision screens mark the end of each hour. The music and sound effects are heard using a wireless surround sound system specially engineered for the Times Square New Year's Eve celebration. 9:30 p.m The Times Square BID sanitation crews clad in bright red uniforms distribute tens of thousands of fun handouts to the assembled revelers for cheering in the New Year. The handouts include pom-poms, balloons. confetti Bags, single-use cameras, and American flags. 10:00 p.m. Beginning at 10:00 p.m., a live video feed of the celebration in Times Square is sent to broadcasters worldwide via fiber and via satellite at 11:15 p.m. This video feed will be carried by Crosswalks TV in Manhattan and Channel 74 on Time Warner Cable. 10:30 p.m. The Times Square wireless surround sound system begins running continuously to heighten the excitement of the rapidly approaching New Year. 11:59 p.m. At one minute to midnight, the Mayor and the Times Square 2003 Special Guest push the Waterford crystal button that signals the final sixty-second countdown prior to the Ball Lowering. The Countdown Stage is located at the center island on Broadway between 45th and 46th Streets. The lighted Ball descends 77 feet in sixty seconds. The Ball is a geodesic sphere, six feet in diameter, weighing approximately 1,070 pounds. The Ball is covered with 504 Waterford crystal triangles, 696 multicolored Philips light bulbs, 96 high intensity strobe lights, and 90 rotating pyramid mirrors. 12:00 a.m. -- New Year's Day!! Marking the New Year at the stroke of Midnight, the light bulbs on the New Year's Eve Ball are turned off as the numerals of the New Year burst to life shining high above Times Square. The world-famous New Year's Eve confetti is released from rooftops of buildings throughout Times Square as the revelers celebrate the New Year. For More Info Visitors to Times Square can receive transportation instructions and general information for this event by calling (212) 768-1560 or by visiting the Times Square Visitors Center located on Broadway between 46th and 47th Streets (open 8:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. daily).

Columbia University was founded in 1754 as King’s College by royal charter of King George II of England. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the United States. The Royal Charter formally establishing King’s College in 1754 defined the institution’s goal as “the Instruction and Education of Youth in the Learned Languages and Liberal Arts and Sciences.” This mandate has not essentially changed, even with the transformation of King’s College into Columbia, one of the world’s foremost research universities. Columbia’s undergraduate curriculum combines the breadth of learning provided by general education courses with the solid mastery of a discipline achieved through a major. And, because Columbia is a great research university as well as a small liberal arts college, students with the will and ability to pursue their majors to the highest levels of scholarly sophistication are free to do so.