New York City is the place to go to for a museum vacation in the US. It’s no secret that town is full of historical past and tradition. And this cultured atmosphere makes it extremely well-suited to museums because of all of the subjects and tales it will probably cowl. Its vary of museums are a few of the metropolis’s most superior issues to do.
New York has all the pieces from a Jewish Museum to the Tenement Museum and New York Transit Museum. New York City is iconic, and its museum scene is simply too. So, earlier than you get any additional, our first recommendation is to dedicate as a lot time as potential to seeing the very best museums in NYC.
Top Museums in NYC
You might need a love for modern artists. You might wish to glimpse New York’s maritime historical past or a time machine-like transportation again to the Middle Ages. In this information, we’ll provide the lowdown on the place to go to to get your museum repair. These high 18 museums are the very best in New York City.
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Top Museum Tickets And Tours in NYC:
1. 9/11 Memorial & Museum
The 9/11 Memorial & Museum is probably the most well-known of all of the museums in New York and, arguably, probably the most somber too. The museum stands subsequent to the place the Twin Towers fell, with two huge swimming pools marking their foundations. Undoubtedly, the 2001 (and earlier 1993) terrorist assault is certainly one of historical past’s most catastrophic occasions. The advanced story is already acquainted to many. After the hijacking of two planes in a nationwide assault, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center had been focused in a terrorist assault.
Flying the planes immediately via the towers, the 2001 attackers triggered an estimated dying toll of two,977 individuals. A large group of firefighters, paramedics, and workplace staff misplaced their lives, and mid-way via the rescue proceedings, the towers tragically collapsed, inflicting unprecedented additional lack of life.
The museum is a harrowing however lovely ode to the people who misplaced their lives and survived the ordeal. Some extremely impactful accounts of the tragedy embody Michael Hingson, who was led from the tower and saved by his information canine, Roselle. It additionally covers the opposite assaults orchestrated throughout the US on the identical day. United Flight 93 famously crashed in a subject in Pennsylvania after passengers sabotaged the hijacker’s efforts – saving the lives of these in the proposed goal space of Washington, DC.
Walk amongst the reveals and permit not less than 3 hours to course of and completely discover the museum. There is such nice consideration to element, so count on a lot of little reveals, particular person tales, and a few movies.
2. Metropolitan Museum of Art
Opening occasions: Closed Wednesdays, open 10 am till 5 pm Sunday to Thursday, and 10 am till 9 pm Fridays and Saturdays Cost: $30. Get Your Tickets Here.
Get prepared for an enormous assertion; the Metropolitan Museum of Art is an enormous deal. It’s one of many grandest artwork galleries in the world – of all of the artwork museums in New York, the Metropolitan Museum is probably the most revered. To be trustworthy, its mixture of historic trendy, and modern artwork is astounding. The museum covers over 5,000 years of paintings and artwork historical past. You’ll discover all the pieces from outdated grasp work to Egyptian statues. ‘The Met,’ as it’s affectionally referred to as by native New Yorkers, is the most important artwork museum in town and the third largest museum.
Alongside its substantial everlasting assortment, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a spread of short-term reveals. These embody reveals just like the fabulous Van Gogh’s Cypresses and the African Origin of Civilization. The Met is someplace you’ll be able to go to to browse extra typically or look forward and decide short-term reveals to deal with as particular occasions. This makes the Metropolitan Museum of Art extraordinarily thrilling for critical artists. While for many who aren’t typical artwork lovers, it may be useful to cherry-pick what to see.
3. American Museum of Natural History
Opening occasions: 10 am till 5:30 pm Cost: Suggested $25.
Every main metropolis has a museum devoted to the pure world. And the American Museum of Natural History is a museum situated in New York City devoted to doing exactly that. The museum options all the pieces from dinosaurs to area historical past. If you need a full day trip, it’s the good answer.
Just to stroll the reveals takes round 3 hours. But then the museum has particular exhibits and exhibitions, every taking upwards of an hour. And there’s a present store on the finish. It’s greatest to go to with the restriction of a time restrict looming over your head, so depart a day for this museum. The American Museum of Natural History hit the bottom working in 1869 and has continued accumulating reveals and the newest analysis info since. David Attenborough can be proud; let’s simply put it that approach.
The American Museum of Natural History is a part of the Smithsonian Museums’ establishment. It is conveniently situated simply off of Central Park. It is a wonderful museum to mix with an early morning Central Park stroll.
4. Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum is likely one of the most enjoyable museums in New York City. The museum covers three main subjects: sea, air, and area. So naturally, it options well-known reveals from every three, together with an plane service referred to as Intrepid and an area shuttle referred to as Enterprise. It supplies an actual ‘show and tell’ method to sea, air, and area schooling. And younger kids particularly will discover this thrilling method extra partaking.
You can see an actual submarine and be taught the way it observes ocean life and performs a navy position as a missile submarine. And you’ll be able to rise up near the world’s quickest jets.
This museum is fascinating, and that is the one museum prefer it in New York City. Heavily military-focused but additionally only a nice normal perception into sea, air, and area historical past, Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum is a superb go to.
5. Ellis Island National Museum
Opening occasions: 9:45 am till 4:45 pm Cost: $25
It’s no secret; Ellis Island National Museum is certainly one of New York City’s most well-known museums and for wonderful cause. Find the Statue of Liberty and also you received’t be removed from Ellis Island. Ellis Island National Museum is in the Upper Bay area of the Hudson River. The museum was as soon as the primary port of name for immigrants arriving in New York and was a former processing station. Nowadays, you’ll be able to retread these footsteps. Passenger information and artifacts offer you a transparent perception into the people and their lives earlier than stepping onto New York soil and beginning afresh.
Highly individual-focused and a very good museum for social historical past, Ellis Island National Museum is likely one of the greatest museums in NYC. We’d additionally suggest visiting as a option to go by the Statue of Liberty without spending a dime, and it is likely one of the greatest points of interest to mix with admiring Lady Liberty herself.
6. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Opening occasions: 11 am till 6 pm Sunday to Monday, 11 am till 8 pm on Saturdays Cost: $25. Get your Tickets Here.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a haven for modern artists. The huge assortment can also be displayed in one of many metropolis’s most lovely exhibition areas – making Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum among the finest museums in NYC for an aesthetic inside. The well-known ramp format is rife on social media, particularly Instagram. And the brilliant white museum spirals up from the ground to the skylight in a ramp across the outdoors wall, leaving a dizzying drop in the center. The format is classy. And it completely matches the post-impressionist, impressionist, modernist, and modern artwork it showcases.
Visiting Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is non-negotiable in case you are after iconic and numerous structure in New York City. As an artwork gallery, it additionally matches an ideal area of interest extra anybody wanting modern and impressionist paintings. It positively ticks a extremely sought-after field, and it appears gorgeous whereas doing it.
7. Brooklyn Museum
Opening occasions: 11 am till 6 pm Wednesday to Sunday Cost: $16 normal admission, $25 ticketed exhibition, and free entry on the primary Saturdays of the month between February and August
Brooklyn Museum is undoubtedly one of many greatest issues to do in Brooklyn. The imposing Beaux Art landmark is the second-largest museum in town and is an attraction simply due to its structure. Its reveals are simply as spectacular, although, and Brooklyn Museum incorporates a rotating exhibition of round 500,000 objects.
The museum specializes in world cultures and confronting colonial legacies. So, in fact, you’ll see paintings from all around the world, together with African artwork and Egyptian treasures. There’s an enormous vary in paintings intervals, too, with reveals from the period of Egyptian pharaohs but additionally trendy artwork items on subjects like environmental justice.
Brooklyn Museum is likely one of the hottest museums in New York. The mixture of a considerable everlasting assortment and the fixed refreshing of short-term exhibitions make Brooklyn Museum an thrilling spot to go to. And if you wish to see a museum that challenges you and your worldview, that is the artwork gallery to take action.
8. New York Transit Museum
Opening occasions: 10 am till 4 pm Thursday to Sunday Cost: $10
New York Transit Museum is suitably situated in a 1936 subway station, so that you enter by heading down steps from avenue degree. The museum options many immersive reveals, together with classic subway vehicles you’ll be able to sit on. Transit historical past is (admittedly) fairly a distinct segment topic of curiosity. But you don’t want an enormous curiosity in New York’s transit historical past to take pleasure in this museum, because of its immersive design and format. NYC historical past has by no means been extra aesthetic, and the recreated classic transit scenes are a successful contact.
The New York Transit Museum is good for a half-day exercise. It solely actually requires two hours or so, so it’s straightforward to squeeze into what is going to undoubtedly be a busy New York itinerary. The subway system is probably the most prized and influential achievement in New York’s engineering historical past. This makes it one of the crucial vital issues to study and rejoice when visiting – particularly as you’ll possible be catching a lot of subways to get round.
9. Rubin Museum of Art
Opening occasions: 11 am till 5 pm from Thursday to Sunday, with 11 am till 10 pm on Fridays. Cost: $20
Rubin Museum of Art is way more area of interest than the opposite giant artwork galleries in New York City. The museum has an intensive assortment of paintings from Himalayan Asia, together with reveals from Tibet and Bhutan. The exhibition area incorporates all the pieces from work to statues – famend for its numerous method to showcasing artwork. Rubin Museum of Art is a ravishing ode to Himalayan Asia’s inventive historical past.
It is value anticipating the packages and occasions that the Rubin Museum of Art additionally runs. In the previous, this has included mindfulness and meditation lessons. And there are many Buddhist-angled exhibitions to be taught extra concerning the practices driving Himalayan paintings. Keep a two-hour block in your schedule for this museum.
10. Tenement Museum
Opening occasions: 10 am till 6 pm Cost: $30
Tenement Museum is a ravishing idea of a museum on the Lower East Side. The museum captures the tales of working-class historical past via a collection of Nineteenth-century to Twentieth-century recreated tenement residences. Tenement Museum is people-focused, uncooked, and genuine.
The 1863-built constructing is stuffed with character and, in the event you like social historical past, is well one of many high museums in New York City. Stepping from tenement to tenement is outstanding. And the museum has carried out a superb job of expressing every household’s distinct character and story in every condo. Each exhibition area has a novel character – resembling Mrs. Wang from China and Natalie from Prussia.
Aside from its reveals, Tenement Museum has digital and precise strolling excursions all through the Lower East Side. This is a novel contact amongst the museums in New York, and you may escape from the confinements of museum partitions and see historical past in the group.
11. Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art is likely one of the hottest New York City museums. We aren’t exaggerating once we say that New York City is 90% artwork galleries. However, the Whitney Museum really stands out inside its area of interest. Whitney Museum solely options American paintings fairly than historic paintings from totally different international locations.
You’ll solely discover artwork from the Twentieth century and the twenty first century. In reality, the Whitney Museum is so trendy that almost all of its artists are nonetheless residing. Most artwork museums in New York take a posthumous take a look at artists and their work, a defining marker of individuality.
The museum is in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, an space you’ll possible spend sightseeing in any approach. The mixture of everlasting and rotating exhibitions can also be good, as there’s at all times one thing recent to see and the everlasting reveals. The Whitney Museum appears company and weird from the skin, with an oddly-designed stacking format. It isn’t removed from the Museum of Illusions (not featured in this information however a notable point out) and Carrie Bradshaw’s Apartment. So visiting is smart.
12. Jewish Museum
Opening occasions: 11 am till 8 pm on Thursdays, 11 am till 6 pm Friday to Monday Cost: $18 however free on Saturdays
The Jewish Museum is likely one of the greatest museums in New York City in order for you an expertise completely devoted to Jewish tradition. This area of interest museum maintains a ravishing documentation of Jewish historical past and traditions. You’ll discover reveals on conventional marriage contracts and choose Jewish experiences just like the Holocaust via the eyes of artists – for example, housing paintings on Anne Frank and combined media sculptures.
Unlike the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Jewish Museum has an actual artwork focus. The historical past, group, and particular person sentiments are channeled creatively to create a chic assortment of paintings that represents lived expertise.
While each the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Jewish Museum are wonderful museums in New York to go to. We really feel just like the Jewish Museum is probably the most wrongly missed. The artistic lens it makes use of to doc the Jewish expertise all through historical past is way more summary. The Museum of Jewish Heritage is extra fact-based, with over 40,000 artifacts devoted to memorializing the Holocaust.
13. American Folk Art Museum
Opening occasions: 11:30 am till 6 pm Cost: Free
Ready for a healthful perception into American artwork historical past and past? This is a museum devoted to self-taught artists and American people artwork. Forget your run-of-the-mill trendy artwork and modern American artwork; these highly effective items will be something from watercolors to tapestries. The American Folk Art Museum is deliberately candid and goals to highlight real, uncooked inventive processes. This is a distinct segment of an artwork gallery that ticks a selected field. And in the event you fancy a extra ‘organic’ artwork expertise in New York City, that is your prime contender.
The American Folk Art Museum is free to enter (and ‘always will be’). It is a profound, non-stuffy perception into an on a regular basis relationship with artwork. And a wonderful celebration of self-taught and folk-style items.
14. Museum of Broadway
Opening occasions: 9:30 am till 18:30 pm from Sunday to Friday and 9:30 am till 8 pm on Saturdays Cost: $25. Get Your Tickets right here.
The Museum of Broadway is an experiential darling on the New York museum entrance. The museum covers all the pieces Broadway associated, from previous to current and future. You stroll from room to room, gazing at costumes, listening to throwback music and Broadway backing tracks, and studying written exhibit after exhibit. The exhibited Broadway exhibits vary from The Lion King to West Side Story and all the pieces in between.
For anybody with a ardour for theater, the Museum of Broadway is a dream. It presents a passionate and thorough perception into New York’s most famed performances, and also you’ll completely adore it.
15. Morgan Library & Museum
Opening occasions: 11 am to five pm Wednesday to Sunday Cost: $22
Bibliophiles alert; welcome to Morgan Library & Museum, among the finest museums in NYC. Morgan Library is gorgeous, with walnut bookshelves and whole extravagance all through the premises. Wandering its studying rooms and reveals is likely one of the most serene methods to spend a number of hours in New York.
It isn’t simply its books that make Morgan Library so particular both. The museum has that ‘old money’ enchantment and, fairly frankly, appears like getting into a movie set. Its grandeur is so intense that many individuals liken coming into Morgan Library to a Harry Potter scene. Despite its comparatively small dimension, it is likely one of the grandest locations in town and carries some critical oopmh. We assume (in addition to many of the metropolis’s inhabitants) that it’s probably the most lovely library in New York City – so get it in your itinerary, bibliophile or not.
16. New York Historical Society
Opening occasions: 9am till 5 pm Monday to Friday Cost: $22
New York Historical Society is likely one of the most superb museums New York has to supply from a historic perspective. The museum extensively paperwork American historical past. And New York Historical Society boasts a proper museum with reveals, a analysis heart, and a library open to guests.
It was based approach again in 1804 and, momentously, is New York’s very first museum.When we discuss beginning originally, the New York Historical Society is the definition of it. If you’re even barely traditionally inclined, this museum will likely be up your avenue. The New York Historical Society is a ravishing place to understand tons of archives – every representing 1000’s upon 1000’s of hours of devoted analysis into American historical past.
The New York Historical Society is situated in Upper West Manhattan, simply outdoors the boundaries of Central Park. The 400 years of historical past is brilliantly mixed with a stroll in Central Park, the place you’ll be able to course of all of the data you’ve simply obtained and loosen up amongst nature and the very best mountaineering trails.
17. New Museum
Opening occasions: Closed Mondays, 11 am till 6 pm Friday till Wednesday, and 11 am till 9 pm on Thursdays Cost: $20
New Museum just isn’t, in reality, only a new museum. The museum is a shocking modern artwork gallery and additional proof that New York is heaven for the artwork obsessed. The shiny white constructing is designed like higgledy-piggledy constructing blocks, oddly stacked on one another with overlaps in random locations.
The normal consensus is that the very best plan of assault is to discover the three ranges of reveals first, head to the cafe after, after which benefit from the roof terrace views. New Museum is suited to artwork lovers and is a pleasant place to hang around. It has a lowkey vibe that makes it one of the crucial relaxed museums in New York to go to.
18. The Skyscraper Museum
Opening occasions: 12 pm till 6 pm Wednesday to Saturday Cost: Free timed entry
The Skyscraper Museum is likely one of the solely of its type worldwide. The museum is completely centered on the historical past of the skyscraper, particularly concentrating on documenting New York’s journey to changing into the ‘world’s at first vertical metropolis.’ As of 2023, admission is free till the tip of the yr, though this might change after this level -s o get your go to in ASAP. It is a superb option to familiarize your self with New York’s well-known skyline and a very good area of interest focus for a museum.
The Skyscraper Museum is in the attractive Battery Park in Lower Manhattan, the place you’ll be able to take ferries previous the Statue of Liberty. This attraction is most positively already in your record. So contemplate combining the 2 and profiting from the free 2023 entry. Whether you take pleasure in structure or not, it’s a enjoyable, budget-friendly option to get a style and perception into the skyscrapers that make New York iconic.
To Conclude
These greatest museums in NYC ought to hold you ticking over for not less than 4 days or so. New York City is a metropolis of museums. You most positively don’t wish to skip over exhibitions throughout your keep. And with extra data on New York, you’ll be empowered to attach with town on a deeper degree. Through its museum scene, you mainly get to know precisely what makes New York tick. And who wouldn’t wish to join extra deeply with the one-and-only New York City?
Whether you go to the Smithsonian museums or the Morgan Library, these greatest museums will hold you entertained and problem and stimulate you mentally. Looking for extra adventures to your keep in New York City? Here is our final five-day itinerary. Don’t neglect our information on the place to remain, which features a rundown of the very best neighborhoods relying in your New York itinerary.