Why go
A first visit works better when its biggest attractions are grouped by geography and energy. Put Midtown's towers and Times Square together, reserve the harbor and Lower Manhattan for a separate day, then balance major museums with Central Park or Brooklyn. The plan avoids treating every famous place as one long cross-city route.
The full story
Use the city in five broad clusters, not as a race through a list. Midtown brings together the Empire State Building, New York Public Library, Bryant Park, Grand Central Terminal, Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Times Square. A separate Lower Manhattan day can center on the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, then continue through the Financial District, Wall Street, Trinity Church, St. Paul's Chapel, and the waterfront at Battery Park City. Give the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Central Park a slower day, with Fifth Avenue nearby if there is energy left. Another Uptown day can focus on the American Museum of Natural History and a walk through Central Park. Save Brooklyn for its own outing rather than attaching it to a Manhattan landmark circuit. The order can change with weather and interests, but the pacing principle remains: one major anchor, one nearby landscape or neighborhood, and room for the crossings between them.