Founded in 1870, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) is often considered the best museum in New York City, and it's not hard to see why. Away from the bustling city, the Met Cloisters is an extension of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is the only museum in the country dedicated exclusively to architecture and art from the Middle Ages. The Tenement Museum, one of the most exclusive museums in the city, conserves two real housing buildings (small buildings that housed several immigrant families in much less than ideal conditions) on the Lower East Side. Instead of encouraging visitors to wander on their own, the museum offers guided tours of the restored and recreated house buildings of former residents who lived there between the 1860s and the 1980s (it is estimated that these houses housed some 15,000 different people over the years).
There's also a short walking tour of the surrounding neighborhood, which was home to thousands of immigrants for the past few centuries. Originally founded in 1980 with just four small rooms on Mulberry Street in Chinatown, this museum known as MOCA spent the next 25 years collecting and documenting Chinese-American history. Today, it is located in a much larger space on Center Street, in Chinatown, and has more than 85,000 artifacts and works to celebrate the living history of the Chinese experience in the United States. The museum has grown so much that it recently announced plans to open a new headquarters in 2025, designed by world-renowned architect Maya Lin, in partnership with Ralph Appelbaum Associates, a major museum design firm.
Known to locals simply as The Museum, this Upper East Side museum focuses on multimedia art from Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly works by Puerto Rican artists. Founded by artist, activist and educator Raphael Montanñez Ortiz in 1969 as a way to celebrate Puerto Rican art and culture, it is one of the main museums in the city today, known for hosting impressive exhibitions in its large space. This image belongs to the current exhibition, Raphael Montañez Ortiz — A Contextual Retrospective, dedicated to the founder. If you're a fan of the old-time Hollywood glamor, head to Astoria, Queens, to visit this fascinating museum dedicated to the art, history, technique and technology of film, television and digital media.
The museum exhibits tons of old Hollywood relics, 130,000 pieces, to be exact, like the first projectors shown in this image. Other exhibitions are dedicated to Hollywood legends such as Jim Henson and Barry Jenkins, and film series with themes such as “Disreputable Cinema” and animation are being screened. The Museum of Modern Art is widely regarded as one of the best art museums not only in New York, but in the world. It offers a collection of modern and contemporary works that include architecture and design, painting, photography, video, sculpture, electronic media and more.
The MoMA hosts Starry Night and classic works by Andy Warhol, Jean Michel Basquiat, Jackson Pollack and Frida Kahlo, among others. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, also known simply as the Met, is one of the best museums in New York and the largest art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It has more than 2 million works of art divided into 17 different departments. With more than 5000 years of human culture, the Met is home to famous works that range from prehistoric to modern civilizations.
Visitors can enjoy works by famous artists, such as Van Gogh, Georgia O'Keefe, Picasso and more. The Guggenheim Museum, also known simply as Guggenheim, is an art museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan known for its rotating collection of works and the building designed by Frank-Lloyd Wright. The spiral shape of the design allows visitors to examine the different collections on display in a continuous loop that goes all the way to the top. Visitors to the Guggenheim will find classic works in styles ranging from cubism to surrealism and abstract expressionism.
The Whitney Museum of Art, also known simply as Whitney, is an art museum in the Meatpacking District. With a focus on living artists, the Whitney houses a wide variety of works ranging from the 20th century to contemporary American art. Its collection includes more than 25,000 works by around 3,700 American artists, including works by famous artists such as Edward Hopper and Willem de Kooning. The Whitney is one of the best museums in New York for those who appreciate contemporary American art.
Located on the picturesque Upper East Side, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian is a museum dedicated to the history and development of contemporary design. The Copper Hewitt, one of the 19 museums under the Smithsonian umbrella, presents collections and exhibitions covering 240 years of innovation and progress in design. If you want to learn about the history and development of New York City, you can't miss the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. The museum presents artifacts and records that trace the history of the American programs that made New York an important immigration center during the 19th century.
While visiting Ellis Island, you can also visit the Statue of Liberty, another nearby historic monument that is crucial to New York's identity. New York City's transportation system has been keeping New Yorkers moving for more than 110 years, and at the New York Transit Museum, you can see exclusively how the subway and public transportation system has transformed and connected locals since its creation. Located in an authentic 1936 subway station in downtown Brooklyn, guests can hop on vintage trains, sit behind the wheel of an old New York bus, and much more. They have a rotating selection of old subway cars and tons of artifacts that tell the story of the successful engineers who built the most important way to get around New York.
And there you have it, my friends, my personal list of great museums in New York City, based on first-hand experiences. With more than 83 museums (including the 5th largest museum in the world), there's no shortage of great museums in New York City to choose from. This UES museum is dedicated to the history, unique culture and the incredibly resilient and ingenious people of New York, through exhibitions such as New York, New Music and Activist New York. The pace of the visit always seems slow, with good reason, as visitors contemplate the seriousness of the situation.
As it's relatively secluded for many tourists, a lot of people come here with a little more enthusiasm for the collection than the average museum visitor. Consider this your guide to the best places in New York City that are worth adding to your list of essential visits on your next trip. However, it really is one of the best museums in New York City and is definitely worth visiting, as long as you can prepare yourself emotionally. The site spans more than a century of New York's public transportation history, which will even bring native New Yorkers back to a time when the subway was a more beloved part of life in the city than it is today.
Rather, all of the exhibits are on display on a temporary basis and feature works by contemporary artists that are not commonly seen in other museums in New York City. The gigantic 94-foot-long blue whale that hangs above the Hall of Ocean Life is unforgettable, not to mention that it is the star of the show in the eyes of New York City children, and the Saurisquios Dinosaur Hall features the bones of an imposing T. Located in the heart of the Lower East Side, the Tenement Museum presents exhibits that show the lives and experiences of immigrants who came to New York in search of a better life. With more than 30 million specimens including animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites and artifacts, it is one of the best museums in New York to learn about the evolution of human history.
Exhibitions can be unpredictable, and the enjoyment of them tends to be very subjective, but that's part of what makes the museum such a vibrant, exciting and diverse space. Located right next to Central Park, the museum houses a wealth of interesting artifacts and documents that focus on New York's unique history. .
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