New York for free

Follow our four-day itinerary – including Broadway shows, guided tours and live comedy and music – and you needn't spend a dime

New York Times Square. Photograph: Mitchell Funk/Getty

Day one: Thursday

09:00 Start your trip with some of the most spectacular views of the city skyline and have a close encounter with the Statue of Liberty during a ride on the Staten Island Ferry. Yeah, I know, this is a pretty obvious suggestion, but there's a good reason for it. You simply won't find a better way to see New York, short of shelling out a couple of hundred dollars for a helicopter tour. Hop on the ferry at Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan, and when you reach Staten Island, turn around and get on the next ferry back. The round trip is free and will take you about an hour. nyc.gov/dot; subway 1 to South Ferry, subway 5 to Bowling Green or R,W to Whitehall Street South Ferry.

10:00 Just a short walk from the ferry terminal is The Old Customs House. This impressive building, one of New York's most spectacular Beaux-Arts buildings, is home to the equally impressive Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the American Indian. The museum's collections include more than 800,000 artefacts and rare works of art and interactive exhibits including first-hand oral histories, music and crafts that trace the entire history of the native cultures of the Americas.
One Bowling Green, between State and Whitehall Streets.

13:00 Walk up Broadway to the historic Trinity Church on Wall Street for a classical music concert. The one-hour performance takes place every Thursday at 1pm. Upcoming performers includes the Moscow String Quartet, soprano Alison Trainer and Slovenia's Slowind Quintet.
74 Trinity Place, Broadway and Wall Street.

The Staten Island ferry leaves its Manhattan terminal. Photograph: Alamy

15:30 A visit to the financial district is not complete without a little money talk. A few blocks away is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which offers fascinating tours around this shrine to capitalism. Exhibits include rare coins, impressive counterfeits and a chance to get your hands on a gleaming brick of gold – almost (sorry, it's a hologram). The highlight of the tour is the trip down to the gold vaults, 80ft below street level, resting on Manhattan bedrock, where about $180bn worth of gold bars are stacked up. The bad news, you definitely won't get your hands on these; the good news, they do hand out free cash to visitors at the end of the tour . . . really.OK, the cash happens to be out of date and shredded, but it is free. Tours run throughout the day. Make reservations about two weeks in advance through their website.
33 Liberty Street, between Nassau and William Streets.

19:00 While prices for Broadway shows easily top $100, it is possible to see almost any off-Broadway shows (and even some on Broadway) for free by being a volunteer usher – even if you are just visiting for a few days. Here's how it works: get in touch with the theatre at least a couple of weeks before you arrive. Make a "reservation" to volunteer for a specific date. On that night, show up at the theatre about an hour before curtain-up to help seat the paying folks, then before the lights go down, grab a seat and enjoy the show. Some theatres ask you to wear black trousers and a white shirt to look official, while others just ask that you look respectable. Some theatres fill their ushering slots far in advance, but here are three top-flight, off-Broadway venues where you can generally be sure to land a reservation with just a bit of planning: New York Theater Workshop; Performance Space 122; The Cherry Lane Theatre.

Late night snack Just a short walk from PS 122 or New York Theater Workshop, be sure to stop into the Black Hound New York bakery for some tantalising treats. Black Hound is one of New York's finest bakeries and every day they set out generous individually wrapped samples of their meticulously crafted sweets. If you're lucky, you will get a taste of their Busy Bee Cake, a chocolatey, almond-filled mousse and marzipan concoction that melts in the mouth.
170 Second Avenue at 11th Street; 001 212-979-9505.

Day two: Friday

Midday Sure, Times Square is over-run with tourists, but you can get an insider's view of the "Crossroads of the World" on a free guided tour. The 90-minute (sometimes much longer) tour takes you inside some of the neighbourhood's most notable theatres, churches and historic buildings, bringing the district's colourful history to life with little-known stories, intriguing facts and architectural oddities. And the characters leading the tours slip in enough puns and jokes along the way to make sure this tour of the theatre district is more comedy than tragedy.
Times Square Visitors Center, Seventh Avenue between 46th and 47th Streets, +212 768 1560, timessquarenyc.org.

Another tour option is Grand Central Terminal at 12.30pm. The tour is lead by architectural historian Justin Ferate who gives an insider's view on one of the world's largest train stations and one of the great architectural wonders of New York. The free 90-minute tour also includes explorations of the Chrysler Building and The News Building, two of the most iconic buildings in the New York skyline.
Every Friday 12.30 pm (Sculpture court, 120 Park Avenue at 42nd Street and Park Avenue, grandcentralpartnership.org).

Afternoon Spend a couple of hours exploring the high-end art galleries of Chelsea. The 150 or so galleries in the area feature the works of some of the world's most prominent artists and are free to browse any time. Here are a few of the big-shot galleries where you are likely to find works by such artists as photographer Robert Mallelthorpe, Chuck Close, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol: PaceWildenenstein (545 West 22nd Street), Cheim & Read (547 West 25th Street), Gagosian Gallery (555 West 24th Street).

Afternoon snack After the galleries, walk a few blocks over to the gourmet shops of the Chelsea Marketplace. Many of the shops are quite generous with their samples of breads, brownies, cookies, fruit, gelato and even wine tastings.
75 Ninth Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets.

16:00 Continue your art tour by slipping into any number of New York's most renowned museums offering free admission on Fridays. The Museum of Modern Art has free hours from 4-8pm, where you can see everything from Monet and Cézanne to Performance Art and classic films. MoMA's free hours are popular, so prepare to queue to get in. The American Folk Art Museum next door has free hours from 5.30-7.30pm, including free musical performances. The museum's exhibits include unique paintings, drawings, textiles, sculptures and objects by unschooled artists spanning the past three centuries. Three other museums with free hours on Friday are the Whitney Museum of American Art (6-9pm); the Asia Society (6-9pm); and the International Center for Photography (5-8pm).

21:00 Settle in for an evening of intimate acoustic music at The Postcrypt Coffee House on the campus of Columbia University. This is one of the great hidden treasures of New York City. Since 1964, every Friday and Saturday night during the school year, this small performance space (only about 25 seats) has been filled with the sounds of some of the top names in folk music. Past performers have included Jeff Buckley, Shawn Colvin, Ani DiFranco, The Roaches, Lisa Loeb, and Suzanne Vega. Nowhere else in the city presents folk music in a purer setting. Here, acoustic means acoustic: no mics, no nothing. And, best of all, you get free popcorn.
Columbia University, Basement of St Paul's Chapel, 116th Street & Broadway +212-854-1953.

Day three: Saturday

09:00 When in New York, do as the Sex and the City gals might do. And I don't mean rush out and buy yourself a pair of Manolos. Start the day with a free yoga class at Lululemon's Union Square location. The yoga store pushes back their racks of stretchy pants and $90 yoga mats for a class led by teachers from nearby yoga studios.
15 Union Square West at East 15th Street (+212-675-5286).

Snack After the class, cross the street to the Union Square Farmers Market where you can fill up on samples of the freshest and tastiest fruits, vegetables, cheeses and baked goods in the city.
Open Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

Afternoon Explore Central Park, "New York's backyard", with guided walks led by knowledgeable volunteers from the Central Park Conservancy . Every week they offer a full schedule of strolls through the park's many hidden nooks and crannies. After the tour, work up a sweat by borrowing a free Field Day Kit from the North Meadow Recreation Center(mid-park at 97th Street, +212-348-4867). The kits include sports equipment and games (basketball, football, sponge Nerf balls, waffle bats, horseshoe sets, hula hoops and more). Birdwatchers and naturists can stop by Belvedere Castle to borrow a Discover Kit (binoculars, field guides and maps) to explore the lush paths of the Rambles on your own (mid-park at 79th Street, +212 772 0210).

19:00 Head down to Greenwich Village for an evening of music at two of New York's most unique venues. Arthur's Tavern has been jamming jazz and blues fans into its small club since 1937 – and it looks like it. But don't be put off by the tattered posters on the walls. Every night you can depend on fine music and a raucous crowd. Then cross the street to The Duplex , the ultimate piano bar, where you can join in as your bartender, waiter, Broadway performers, drag queens and that shy-looking chubby guy sitting next to you all take turns belting out show tunes and pop songs. There's no cover charge at either place but they do expect you to buy a couple of drinks and cough up a few bucks for the tips jar.

Day four: Sunday

11:00 Take a guided tour down Orchard Street, which will take you from the days of pushcarts selling schmatas and immigrants living 12 to a room in dangerous tenements, to ultra-hip clubs and gleaming new condos. Nowhere else in the city does old New York bump into the new as it does on the Lower East Side. The two-hour tour down Orchard Street starts at 11am, every Sunday from April to December.
lowereastsideny.com. Start at Katz's Delicatessen (East Houston & Ludlow Street, +212 226 9010).

16:00 Every Sunday afternoon, the wonderful Marjorie Eliot welcomes jazz lovers into her North Harlem apartment for a free concert. Get there early to find a spot in her living room, hallway, kitchen or any other place that you can squeeze into to hear some of the purest, sweetest, most swingin' tunes you will hear anywhere, for any price.
The music gets under way at 4pm at 555 Edgecombe Avenue between 159th and 160th Streets.

21:30 Enjoy some belly laughs at the Upright Citizens Brigade's weekly free show, Assssacat 3000. UCB is one of the best comedy/improve troupes anywhere. Don't be surprised if the performers include well-known guest comedians, such as founding member Amy Poelher, along with their regular company members. Tickets are distributed at 8.15pm and the show is very popular, so get there early to queue.
307 West 26th Street at Eight Avenue, +212-366-9176.

Midnight Count the money left in your wallet, then collapse!

• Rob Grade is author of The Cheap Bastard's Guide to New York, $10.17.