El Museo del Barrio

The best starting point for exploring Spanish Harlem is this museum, which began in 1969 as a celebration of Puerto Rican art and culture. It has since expanded into the premiere Latino cultural institution in the city, with a dizzying collection that includes 2000 pre-Columbian ceremonial objects, 900 traditional objects from countries including Brazil and Haiti, more than 3000 Puerto Rican prints and posters, plus contemporary paintings and sculptures from artists including Raul Farco, Marcos Dimas and Pepon Osorio. The film and video collection has some rare footage of life in El Barrio from the 1970s to the present, along with educational materials from Puerto Rico. Photographs document life in Puerto Rico during the Depression as well as some of the early years of Latin American migration to the US. Now it’s an even better place to visit than before, thanks to a nearly two-year, multi-million-dollar renovation, which brought with it a sparkling new glass facade, more space for its permanent collection and a redesigned courtyard.

Temporary exhibits are a particular draw here, as past showings have focused on the works of big names including Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, as well as themed exhibits such as ‘Nexus New York: Latin/American Artists in the Modern Metropolis’ and ‘The Disappeared (Los Desaparecidos),’ which brought together visual responses to the tens of thousands of people who were kidnapped, killed and ‘vanished’ by Latin American dictatorships from the 1950s to ’80s.