Museum sights in New York City
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Lower East Side Tenement Museum
This museum puts the neighborhood’s heartbreaking but inspiring heritage on full display in three recreations of turn-of-the-20th-century tenements, including the late-19th-century home and garment shop of the Levine family from Poland, and two immigrant dwellings from the Great Depressions of 1873 and 1929. The visitor center shows a video detailing the difficult life endured by the people who once lived in the surrounding buildings, which more often than not had no running water or electricity. Museum visits are available only as part of scheduled tours (the price of which is included in the admission), which typically operate daily. But call ahead or check the website …
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Ellis Island
An icon of mythical proportions for the descendents of those who passed through here, this island and its hulking building served as New York’s main immigration station from 1892 until 1954, processing the amazing number of 12,000 individuals daily, from countries including Ireland, England, Germany and Austria. The process involved getting the once-over by doctors, being assigned new names if their own were too difficult to spell or pronounce, and basically getting the green light to start their new, hopeful and often frighteningly difficult lives here in the teeming city of New York. In its later years, after WWI and during the paranoia of the ‘Red Scare’ in this countr…
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Brooklyn Museum of Art
Though it’s the country’s biggest art museum after the Met, with 1.5 million pieces and the largest Egyptian collection in the Americas, it sees far fewer visitors. The five-floor Beaux Arts building – built by McKim, Mead and White to be the world’s biggest museum in 1897 – is big, yet only a fifth of its originally planned size. Highlights are many. For much of the year, visitors linger by the museum’s glass esplanade entry to watch the fountains. Inside, the African Arts display (near the ground-floor cafe) offers several short video loops about fascinating traditional masks and costumes; the huge Egyptian collection on the 2nd floor features 13th-century mummy boards.…
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American Museum of Natural History
Founded in 1869, this classic museum for kids of all ages contains halls of fascinating wonderlands holding more than 30 million artifacts; its interactive exhibits, both in the original museum and its newest section, the Rose Center for Earth & Space, are also out of this world. The most famous attractions are its three large dinosaur halls, with various skeletons for ogling, and the enormous (fake) blue whale that hangs from the ceiling of the Hall of Ocean Life. Kids of all ages will find something to be intrigued by, whether it’s the stuffed Alaskan brown bear, the Star of India sapphire in the Hall of Minerals & Gems, the IMAX film on jungle life, or the skullcap of …
reviewed
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South Street Seaport Museum
Opened in 1967, this museum offers a glimpse of the seaport’s history and a survey of the world’s great ocean liners, with permanent exhibits and various other sites dotted around the 11-block area. Included in the museum are three galleries, an antique printing shop, a children’s center, a maritime crafts center and historic ships: just south of Pier 17 stands a group of tall-masted sailing ships – the Peking, Wavertree, Pioneer, Ambrose and HelenMcAllister, among others – and the admission price to the museum includes access to their windswept decks and intimate interiors. For a really special treat, join a sailing tour aboard the gorgeous, iron-hulled Pioneer…
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Museum of the City of New York
For a look behind the intriguing facade of NYC, head here, where exhibits focus solely on the city’s past, present and future. Housed in a 1932 Georgian-Colonial mansion, the Museum of the City of New York offers plenty of stimulation, both old-school and technology-based. You’ll find internet-based historical resources and a decent scale model of New Amsterdam shortly after the Dutch arrival; the notable 2nd-floor gallery includes entire rooms from demolished homes of New York grandees, an exhibition dedicated to Broadway musicals and a collection of antique dollhouses, teddy bears and toys. Rotating exhibitions cast a clever eye on the city, with past subjects ranging f…
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Museum of Art & Origins
Contrary to popular belief, the island of Manhattan does not end at 125th St (or 59th or 14th St, for that matter). Nope, it extends all the way to 215th St, and the treasures that lie in wait for you up in those nether regions are truly worth the journey north – especially if you take advantage of the recently completed bike path along Hudson River and pedal your way here. In addition to better-known destinations such as the amazing Cloisters and beautiful Inwood Hill Park, there are pockets of culture not on many people’s radar that you’ll be happy were on yours. Two in-home attractions include the Museum of Art & Origins, where George Preston has turned three flo…
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Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
This military museum, housed in a hulking aircraft carrier that survived both a WWII bomb and kamikaze attacks, is back in its slip after being gone for two years to undergo an extensive $115-million renovation. That entailed a refurbishment of half of the 30 aircrafts onboard, a paintjob for the entire carrier, a rebuilding of its Pier 86 and the installation of various new high-tech exhibits – including the G Force Encounter, which allows you to experience the virtual thrill of flying a supersonic jet plane, and the Transporter FX, a flight simulator that promises six full minutes of a ‘complete sensory overload.’ The flight deck of the USS Intrepid, which served …
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Cloisters
The Met is a beautiful place to visit on any day, but if it’s just too gorgeous to be indoors, you might consider heading to its spectacular outside annex instead. Set in Fort Tryon Park overlooking the Hudson River, the Cloisters museum, built in the 1930s, incorporates fragments of old French and Spanish monasteries, and houses the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection of medieval frescoes, tapestries and paintings. Summer is the best time to visit, when concerts take place in the grounds and more than 250 varieties of medieval flowers and herbs are on view. Works are set in galleries – connected by grand archways and topped with Moorish terra-cotta roofs – that sit a…
reviewed
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Skyscraper Museum
Occupying the ground-floor space of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, this wonderful ode to skyscrapers the world over features two serene, high-gloss galleries. One focuses on rotating exhibits, environmentally sustainable skyscrapers, Hong Kong’s verticality versus that of New York’s and the creations of Frank Lloyd Wright. The other half of the museum is dedicated to a permanent study of high-rise history, including a size chart of the world’s biggest buildings (Dubai’s Burj Dubai is currently in the lead – it’s a whopping 2683ft high!), as well as exhibits on the construction of the Empire State Building and an overview of downtown architecture. The museum is also home to the c…
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Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
This museum is in the 64-room mansion built by billionaire Andrew Carnegie in 1901 in what was, in those days, way uptown. Within 20 years, the bucolic surroundings that Carnegie craved disappeared as other wealthy men followed his lead and built palaces nearby. Carnegie was an interesting character: an avid reader and generous philanthropist, he dedicated many libraries around the country and donated some $350 million in his lifetime. To learn more, take the 45-minute guided tour (noon & 3pm Mon-Fri, 12:30pm & 2pm Sat & Sun), included in the admission price.
Part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, this house of culture is the only museum in the country that’s …
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Museum of Jewish Heritage
This 30,000-sq-ft waterfront memorial museum, with a six-sided shape and three tiers to symbolize the Star of David and the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, explores all aspects of what it means to be Jewish in modern-day New York. Displays include personal artifacts, photographs and documentary films. A centerpiece of the museum is the Garden of Stones – an outdoor memorial garden created by artist Andy Goldsworthy (and his first permanent exhibition in NYC), in which 18 boulders form a narrow pathway for contemplating the fragility of life – dedicated to those who lost loved ones in the Holocaust. The onsite, kosher Heritage Café serves light food during …
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Queens Museum of Art
Housed in the historic building made for the ’39 World’s Fair (and once home to the UN), this great museum’s most famous piece is the Panorama of New York City, a 9335-sq-ft miniature New York City, with all buildings accounted for in a sweeping room the size of three tennis courts. Walking around the 895,000-structure piece – and its 15-minute dusk-to-dawn light simulation of a New York day – feels like descending in a plane over New York (without the tiny bag of mixed nuts or the ear pops). It was last updated after the events of September 11. The rest of the museum isn’t to be missed either – a fetching collection of modern art and an excellent World’s Fair exhibit to …
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American Folk Art Museum
The main museum, housed in a beautiful, eight-story building designed by the noted Billie Tsien and Tod Williams, as well as the smaller location at Lincoln Square, focus on traditional arts tied to moments in history or personal milestones. The expansive collection features objects such as flags, liberty figures, textiles, weather vanes and decorative arts, and recent visiting exhibits have ranged from ‘Up Close: Henry Darger and the Coloring Book, ’ which examined the artist’s big influence, and ‘Thomas Chambers (1808–1869) : American Marine and Landscape Painter, ’ about the artist, who was obscure in his own lifetime. The museum also runs several worthy programs, incl…
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Museum of the Moving Image
Once the home of Paramount Pictures’ east coast HQ, this super-fun, three-story museum recently received a $65-million renovation, adding a 66,500-sq-ft high-tech extension to its already substantial space. The museum has a new theater and screening room (and an outdoor screening space) plus more galleries to house the museum’s 130,000 movie artifacts, which include Robert De Niro’s mohawk wig from Taxi Driver and Chewbacca’s head (sorry, kids, he’s not real). Another fun part is the sound-edit room, where you can re-dub the ‘we’re not in Kansas anymore’ scene from The Wizard of Oz. There are lots of massive, early cameras, including a camera that records …
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Museum of Arts & Design
This is an impressive palace of design and handicrafts, from blown glass and carved wood to elaborate metal jewelry. It also hosts innovative shows like the recent ‘Read my Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection,’ including baubles that Albright wore during her diplomatic tenure, and ‘Slash: Paper Under the Knife,’ exploring the art world’s renewed interest in paper as a creative medium. Formerly housed around the corner on 53rd St, the museum made a big splash when it moved into this Columbus Circle building after much controversy from folks who wanted to landmark and protect the long-empty building, originally the Gallery of Modern Art in 1964, with a unique, all-white…
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Jewish Museum
This homage to Judaism primarily features artwork examining 4000 years of Jewish ceremony and culture; it also has a wide array of children’s activities, like storytelling hour, arts and crafts workshops and more. The building, a gorgeous banker’s mansion from 1908, houses more than 30,000 items of Judaica, as well as works of sculpture, paintings, numismatics, antiquities, prints, decorative arts and photography. Watch for occasional blockbuster exhibitions, such as the recent ‘Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention,’ which drew a large and buzzing turnout. The institution also offers frequent lectures and film screenings – especially in January, when it collaborates with…
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New-York Historical Society
As the antiquated hyphenated name implies, the New-York Historical Society is the city’s oldest museum, founded in 1804 to preserve the city’s historical and cultural artifacts. It was also New York’s only public art museum until the Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in the late 19th century. Though it’s often overlooked by visitors tramping to the nearby American Museum of Natural History, it shouldn’t be, as its collection of more than 60,000 objects is as quirky and fascinating as NYC itself. Only here can you see 17th-century cowbells and baby rattles and the mounted wooden leg of colonial-era statesman Gouverneur Morris. The Henry Luce III Center for the Study o…
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Hispanic Society of America Museum & Library
Housed in a two-level, ornately carved Beaux Arts space hung with gold-and-silk tapestries, the Society lives on the serene street called Audubon Terrace (155th St), where naturalist John James Audubon once lived. Open since 1908, this is where you’ll find the largest collection of Spanish art and manuscripts outside of Spain – including a substantial collection of works by El Greco, Goya, Diego Velázquez and the formidable Joaquín Sorolla (who has a mural series on view here), as well as a library with over 25,000 volumes. Head upstairs for a bird’s-eye view of the lovely courtyard and its El Cid sculpture. All signage and brochures are in English and Spanish.
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National Academy of Design
Co-founded by painter/inventor Samuel Morse, the National Academy of Design art-school complex includes a permanent collection of paintings and sculptures housed in yet another stunning Beaux Arts mansion, designed by Ogden Codman and featuring a marble foyer and spiral staircase. In a distressing sign of the financially difficult times, the National Academy was recently branded a pariah by the Association of Art Museum Directors after it sold off two important Hudson River School paintings for a total of about $15 million in order pay off bills. So be sure to get a trip in if you’re interested, as now, with little support in the museum world, its future is even murkier t…
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New York City Police Museum
This minute museum is chock full of ‘New York’s Finest’ facts and exhibits. Located on a landfilled inlet, it’s housed in a building modeled after an Italian palace. Check out the cool old police vehicles (some sit right in the museum while others, like a 1939 beauty, appear only in photographs), as well as mug shots and weapons of some of New York’s most notorious criminals, from Willie Sutton to Al Capone. There’s also a collection of police shields and uniforms throughout the decades, NYPD leadership histories, a moving September 11 exhibit and a memorial to all officers killed in the line of duty since 1845, called the Hall of Heroes.
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Museum of American Finance
This stunning museum feels as rich as its subject: comprising 30,000 sq ft in the old Bank of New York headquarters, it’s got a grand space featuring 30ft ceilings, high arched windows, a majestic staircase to the mezzanine, glass chandeliers, and murals depicting historic scenes of banking and commerce. Exhibits focus on historic moments in American financial history, and permanent collections include rare, 18th-century documents, stock and bond certificates from the Gilded Age, the oldest known photograph of Wall St and a stock ticker from 1867. You can also sign up for various area walking tours through the museum, including one about the women of Wall Street.
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New York City Fire Museum
Occupying a grand old firehouse dating from 1904, this museum houses a collection of gold, horse-drawn firefighting carriages and modern-day red firetrucks. Exhibits show the development of the NYC firefighting system (which began with the ‘bucket brigades’) and the museum’s friendly staff (and the heavy equipment) make this a great place to bring children. The New York Fire Department (FDNY) lost half of its members in the collapse of the World Trade Center, and memorials and exhibits have become a permanent part of the collection. An excellent gift shop sells official FDNY clothing and patches and books about firefighting history.
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Asia Society & Museum
Founded in 1956 by John D Rockefeller – who was quite a fan of Asia – this cultural center is meant to strengthen Western understanding of Asia and relationships between that region and the US. Other outposts exist in cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hong Kong and Shanghai, though the New York branch is the headquarters. You’ll find an array of reasons to visit the place, including educational lectures and events, but the biggest draw is its museum, which features rare treasures from all across Asia, such as Jain sculptures from India, Buddhist paintings from Nepal and jade and lacquer items from China.
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Bronx Museum of the Arts
Who needs a Broadway when you have a Grand Concourse? Finished in 1909, the Bronx’s most famous thoroughfare turned this broad north–south stripe of the western Bronx into a New York Champs-Élysées, with art-deco buildings that have housed the wealthiest of Bronx residents (including Babe Ruth). After WWII, many locals rushed for the suburbs, and the area is now home to many Latin Americans and African Americans. In one or two walk sessions, you could walk up the full 4½ miles – past many architectural highlights. At 165th St is the interesting Bronx Museum of the Arts, with many urban-art exhibits.
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