Metropolitan Museum of Art
Good for: best travel agency, art history lovers, history, everyone, students
Not good for: very young children, foreign patriots, travelers with limited time, zombies, paperclips
- Address
- Fifth Ave at 82nd St
- Transport
- Website
- Phone
- 212-535-7710
- Price
- suggested donation adult/child/senior & student $20/free/15
- Hours
- 9:30am-5:30pm Tue-Thu & Sun, to 9pm Fri & Sat
Lonely Planet review for Metropolitan Museum of Art
With more than five million visitors per year, the Met is New York’s most popular single-site tourist attraction, with one of the richest coffers in the arts world. The Met is a self-contained cultural city-state, with two million individual objects in its collection and an annual budget of over $120 million. Since completing a multimillion-dollar remodeling project that brought works out of storage, renovated the halls of 19th- and early 20th-century paintings and sculptures, expanded the Ancient Hellenistic and Roman areas and sparklingly remade the American Wing, the place is looking more divine than ever – despite operating in the midst of a financial crisis that has led to major payroll cuts, a shrinking endowment and a donations slump. Charged with seeing this behemoth through the hard times is new director Thomas Campbell, a British tapestries expert who was appointed to the position following the much-publicized retirement of the larger-than-life Philippe de Montebello, who reigned over the institution for three decades.
Despite the big changes, though, the Met’s ability to thrill, confound, inspire and exhaust has not been altered, as its massive list of curatorial departments includes something for just about everyone – from American Decorative Arts and Ancient Near Eastern Art to Greek and Roman Art, Medieval Art, Modern Art, Photography, Musical Instruments and the Costume Institute. To get organized once you arrive inside the Great Hall, pick up a floor plan and head to the ticket booths, where you’ll find a list of any exhibitions closed that day, along with a lineup of special museum talks. The Met presents more than 30 special exhibitions and installations each year and it’s best to target exactly what you want to see on the floor plan and head there first, before museum fatigue sets in. Then you can put the plan away and get lost trying to get back to the main entrance. It’s a virtual certainty that you’ll stumble across something interesting along the way.
To the right of the Great Hall, an information desk offers guidance in several languages (which change depending on the volunteers) and audio tours ($6) of the special exhibitions. The Met also offers free Guided Tours of museum highlights and specific galleries. (Check the calendar, given away at the information desk, for specific schedules.) Families will want to grab the children-specific brochure and events calendar (both free at the information booth).
If you can’t make it to Cooperstown, New York, home of America’s Baseball Hall of Fame, then exit the gallery through the door behind the Egyptian wing’s Temple of Dendur to behold the Met’s special collection of baseball cards, which includes the rarest and most expensive card in the world – a 1909 Honus Wagner that’s worth a whopping $200,000. Continue on to the left and you’ll enter that newly renovated American Wing of furniture and architecture, with a quiet, enclosed garden space that’s a perennial favorite as a respite from the visiting hordes. Several stained-glass works by Louis Comfort Tiffany frame the garden, as does an entire two-story facade of the Branch Bank of the US, preserved when the downtown building was demolished in the early 20th century.
Past the popular American Wing, you’ll find the pyramid-like addition that houses the Robert Lehman Collection of impressionist and modern art, featuring several works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (including Young Girl Bathing), Georges Seurat and Pablo Picasso (including Portrait of Gertrude Stein). An unexpected bonus in this gallery is the rear terra-cotta facade of the original 1880 museum building, now completely encased by later additions and standing mutely on view as its own architectural artifact.
The Rockefeller Collection contains arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, then leads to the Greek and Roman art section. The museum has recently restored much of its Greek and Roman work, including the 2nd-floor Cypriot Gallery, which contains some of the finest pieces outside Cyprus.
Elsewhere on the 2nd floor, you’ll see the Met’s famous collection of European paintings, located in some of the museum’s oldest galleries, found beyond colonnaded entryways. The exhibition features works by every artist of note, including self- portraits by Rembrandt and Van Gogh and Portrait of Juan de Pareja by Velázquez. An entire suite of rooms focuses on impressionist and post impressionist art. The new collection of modern masters is housed on this level, as well as the photographs recently purchased by the Met, and the museum’s exquisite musical-instrument holdings. Also of interest up here are the treasures from Japan, China and Southeast Asia.
If you can’t stand crowds, avoid coming here on rainy Sunday afternoons. But during stormy winter weather, you might try viewing the 17-acre museum, deserted, from the outside at night – a real NYC image. On flawless, balmy days, the roof garden – with constantly rotating installations and gorgeous views of the city below – is a true gem, especially in the summer, when it adds a wine bar on weekends.
Traveller reviews for Metropolitan Museum of Art (13)
-
-
-
Just Brilliant- wander around the history of the world!
stevenmiller77 recommends this,
Good for: history, everyone, students, art history lovers
Not good for: very young children
-
A Place Can't be Missed...
PeiyuRang recommends this,
it has so many treasures from all over the world. you can travel around the world through the time just by wandering in the MMA in New York. many of them are from my country. As a non-citizen of United States. I don't know whether I should feel lucky or sad.
Columbia University students can visit it for free.
Good for: Columbia U students
Not good for: foreign patriots
-
more museums
81benny recommends this,
new york has so many worth visiting museums.you shouls also check out
museum of modern art,rubin museum of art,amercan museums of natural
history for the complete list check out this site
http://www.usattractions.net/new_york_city_museums/new_york_city_museums.html -
Inspiring and humbling, to stand close to the greats in art
emmabids recommends this,
Good for: inspiration, ancient history, Photo taking, Art Enthusiasts, seeing famous paintings
-
-
-
It's not just for art.
remelila recommends this,
Did you know that the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a room full of medieval European and Japanese armor -- including the full body armor of (the rather short) King Henry VIII, complete with (a ridiculously large) codpiece?
Or an entire Egyptian temple, pockmarked with bullet holes and graffiti from Napoleon's soldiers, that was transported from the banks of the Nile and reconstructed in front of a glass wall overlooking Central Park?
Or that it has a collection of rare baseball cards, including one of the most valuable cards in the world, the T206-series Honus Wager (current market price approximately $3 million)? Or an extensive costume collection of clothing from all over the world? Or real Egyptian mummies? Or a rooftop garden with a bar and killer views? Or an entire collection of medieval art and architecture including that really famous tapestry with the skinny unicorn tied to the tree that your college roommate had a poster of on the wall for your entire sophomore year?
Well, okay, if you read the author's review you probably knew at least some of that. But either way, give yourself at least a day or three, bring some water and some comfortable shoes, and prepare to find incredibly cool things around every corner, because the Met is one of the most amazing museums in the world -- and it's not just for art.
Good for: humans, dolphins, bonobos, any animal with a large brain
Not good for: zombies, paperclips, pet rocks, cats
-
I love the MET.
jboris recommends this,
I regard the MET as one of the most comprehensive and "digestible" museums in the world. While it would probably take 2 days to do it justice, you can have an amazing experience in 1 day. It is also a great place to take kids and if you have not done so, I encourage you to take a tour with a docent. They are excellent. Lastly, the roof top bar at the MET is one of my favorite places in NYC. On a nice summer night it offers one of the best views of Central Park and the City. Also, don’t forget the Cloisters. I know it is a bit of a schlep but it is beautiful and a great way to spend an afternoon. Enjoy
-
Second best museum in the world
hikeymikey recommends this,
I love the Met. Always have. I thought it was the best art museum in the world until I visited Paris. The Louvre makes the Met look like one of its many wings. The Louvre doesn't have anything created after about 1850 or so, but otherwise there's no contest at all.
-
Like walking through the pages of a Art calendar...
steveomac recommends this,
I don't know if the Met is the worlds best museum, but it is certainly a mind blowing experience. I'm not an art buff by any stretch - however as I walked from room to room, I constantly found myself recognizing one amazing piece of Art after another. I really felt like I was walking through the pages of an Art calendar. So if housing the biggest names in Art makes a museum the worlds best - then the Met must be hard to beat - but perhaps the 'worlds best museum' criteria is a bit more sophisticated than that...
-
Quantity and Quality
janeyo recommends this,
The Met is incredible - kinda overwhelming but if you pick and choose your favourite eras to tackle and come out for regular bursts of fresh air and coffee on the steps, it's much more manageable. Don't think you can tackle it meaningfully in a day otherwise you'll be doing a marathon sprint past most of the collection. I saw an amazing show of Russian graphic design from 1940s a few years ago there and it was a great way to spend a couple of hours.
-
Advertisement
Activities to book
-
New York City Hop-on Hop-off Tour, Shopping and Top of the Rock
from USD$114.00 -
New York City Hop-on Hop-off Tour and Harbor Cruise
from USD$54.00 -
New York CityPass
from USD$89.00
Nearby things to do and see
Advertisement
