A Day at Historic Richmond Town

Historic Richmond Town calls itself New York City's open-air museum: a living history village, historical museum and arboretum gathered around Staten Island's landmarked third county courthouse. General admission includes a guided walk. The Two Centuries tour moves from a Native encampment depicting the 1640s contact period to the Voorlezer's House of the early colonial settlement, the Christopher House of about 1720, which saw Staten Island's divided loyalties during the Revolution, and the Guyon-Lake-Tysen House, which tells the story of slavery and emancipation in 1820s New York.

On weekends a second tour, on 1820s village life, visits the tavern, the basket maker's house and a broom shop. Buy tickets at the Village Store inside the courthouse. Admission is free on Thursday afternoons from May through December, though you still need a ticket, reserved online or at the door. In December, holiday house tours replace the regular ones, and the village closes for Thanksgiving and the day after. Local buses run here from the St. George ferry terminal; give it the better part of a day.