The Big Apple is known worldwide for its incredible city skyline, diverse boroughs, and world-class attractions, but what about New York City’s museums? There are over 170 museums in this sprawling metropolis, covering all ranges of interests from history and fashion to experimental artworks and European artists. The trouble with visiting the city’s museums isn’t finding one that matches your interests, but how to fit them all into your NYC itinerary! Below, we have compiled the best museums in New York City so you can craft an itinerary that makes the most out of your time in the city. So, let’s dive into the beautiful and the strange on display in the Empire City.
Save Money at New York City’s Museums
If you’re planning to visit several top New York City attractions, not just museums, then you should consider purchasing a city pass. These passes are fantastic for tourists as they allow you to group several attractions into one ultimate ticket and can save you up to 50% off entry prices!
Go City All-Inclusive and Explorer Passes
Go City offers two awesome tourist passes that travelers can use to visit multiple popular attractions, including museums. Each pass works a little differently, but either one can save you and your group up to 50% off admission tickets by bundling multiple attractions for a discounted price! With the Go City All-Inclusive Pass, you pick how many days you would like the pass to be valid, which ranges from one to 10 days. Once you’ve chosen how many days you want your pass to be valid, you’ll have unlimited access to over 110 attractions, museums, and tours during those days, such as the Empire State Building, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History.
The Go City Explorer Pass works similarly, but instead of choosing how many days you would like for the city pass, you choose how many attractions you would like included in the pass. You can opt for a two-choice pass up to a 10-choice pass, and then you’ll have 60 days to use the pass from the day of first use. The Explorer Pass offers entrance to over 90 tours, attractions, and museums, including the Museum of the City of New York, a Rockefeller Center Tour, and the Intrepid Museum.
New York CityPASS
The New York CityPASS is another great option for tourists planning to visit multiple attractions, as you can save up to 40% on tickets! The city card includes entrance tickets for the Empire State Building Observatory and the American Museum of Natural History, and then lets the cardholder pick three more attractions from a list of six, bringing the total attraction count to five included with the pass. Attractions and tours to choose from include the Top of The Rock Observation Deck, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, the Intrepid Museum, Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises, and ferry access and entrance to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration.
Best Museums in New York City
Now that you know the best way to save some money on the city’s museums, let’s jump into all the top museums in New York City and see what you can find on display!
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, popularly referred to as the Met, is easily the most popular museum in NYC to visit. As the United States’ largest museum and the fourth-largest museum in the world, there is no shortage of incredible artworks on display. The collection at the Met ranges from European paintings from renowned artists like Vermeer and Rembrandt to Japanese artworks, ancient Greek architecture, and Roman and Egyptian temples. With a myriad of interesting works on display, it’s no wonder this is a go-to museum for tourists as it covers a little bit of everything! While it would definitely take you more than a day to see all the displays in the museum, you should make sure to cover all the highlights when you visit, including Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat, Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Antonio Canova, The Dance Class by Edgar Degas, and Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware.
For those with a particular interest in art and architecture from medieval Europe, make sure to check out the Met Cloisters. Here, you can explore all things medieval in a historical and integrated setting resembling that of a monastery, including medieval metalwork, sculptures, and textile works.
American Museum of Natural History
For those with an interest in the natural, scientific, and unknown, a visit to the American Museum of Natural History is a must. This fantastic NYC museum is likely the only museum in the world to have a celebrity tyrannosaurus rex in its collection, thanks to the hit 2006 family comedy Night at the Museum featuring Ben Stiller. Just like in the movie, visitors will find exhibitions of breathtaking historical creatures like a giant squid, blue whale, African elephants, Alaskan brown bears, and several dinosaurs. The museum also boasts an Insectarium, a Butterfly Vivarium with over 80 species, and an exhibit dedicated to the vastness of space and the universe! This is a great museum for kids and tourists looking to delve deeper into the world’s strange and incredible natural history.
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Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the Guggenheim Museum has been a popular attraction since the 1960s. This famous art museum boasts an excellent collection of works ranging from abstract pieces to Surrealist, Impressionist, American minimalist, and early modern masterpieces. Visitors will find plenty of powerful pieces, including over 150 works by Vasily Kandinsky, Faith Ringgold’s Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach, Paul Klee’s Red Balloon, and Marc Chagall’s Paris through the Window. The museum also hosts several temporary exhibits for emerging artists along with experimental and contemporary art exhibits that push the envelope of traditional art.
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Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
The MoMA is another household name when it comes to museums in the Big Apple and for good reason. Since its opening in 1929, the MoMA has amassed a collection of over 200,000 modern artworks from around the world, including masterpieces like Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory, Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night, and Andy Warhol’s Gold Marilyn Monroe. While the museum has an incredible collection from household names like Picasso, Warhol, and Monet, there is also an impressive collection of thought-provoking pieces on display by upcoming and emerging artists that cover topics like Objects of Desire, Staging Selfies, the American Dream, and more. With an ever-changing temporary collection and excellent permanent collection, it’s no wonder this is one of the most visited museums in the city.
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New York Transit Museum
Are you looking for a museum in New York City that offers a more hands-on experience? Then consider making a visit to the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn. This family-friendly museum is located in a historic 1930s subway station and takes visitors on a journey through the development of New York City’s transit systems. The underground museum spans a whole city block and features over twenty vintage cars, subways, and buses that visitors can enter and explore. This is a great NYC museum for those with kids or those with an interest in seeing how emerging technology and changing societal needs have shaped the 24-hour NYC transit system into what it is today!
Museum of the Moving Image
Remember how we said there are some quirky and fun museums in the city? Well, the Museum of the Moving Image is one of them! Dedicated completely to mediums that use moving images to evoke emotion and entertainment, this niche museum is definitely worth a visit. The museum is also home to Kaufman Astoria Studios, where hit TV shows like Orange is the New Black and Sesame Street are made. However, the museum doesn’t just cover the history of movies and TV shows but also video games and short films. Visitors can explore several floors of film equipment and memorabilia dating back to the 1800s, including props, old film fan magazines, and much more. Highlights of the museum include its on-site screen, the Redstone Theater, which regularly plays specialty films, Robin Williams’s costumes from Mrs. Doubtfire and Mork & Mindy, coin-operated moving picture machines from the 19th century, and a set model from The Silence of the Lambs. This is a must-see museum for TV, movie, and video game aficionados.
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Museum of the City of New York
World history is cool, but if you want to learn more about the history of New York City, then a visit to the Museum of the City of New York is a must. Once named New Amsterdam, the city boasts an interesting history to explore all the way back to the 16th century. Visitors can learn more about those who immigrated here, the enclaves that popped up, city planning, and much more through over one million artifacts, photographs, and drawings. Highlights of the museum include a 22-minute film Timescapes narrated by Stanley Tucci, a 12-room mansion dollhouse, and a thought-provoking exhibit on protests in the city.
Fotografiska
Fotografiska is a contemporary art and photography museum in NYC and a fantastic place to visit while on holiday in the city. As visitors enter the museum, they can make their way to the café for a coffee or cocktail to take with them as they tour the museum’s works. There is a myriad of exemplary pieces on display, and since there isn’t a permanent collection in the museum, visitors can come again and again to find new and exciting exhibits. The museum is also open quite late (11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays), so if you’re looking for a fun date night idea, head to the Fotografiska!
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is a great art museum to visit if you have a love for world art. Not only does the museum boast an impressive collection of Western artworks from 1945 to the present day, but it also houses a large collection of Egyptian art and mummies. What’s even cooler about this museum is its permanent collection works on a “pay what you want” pricing, meaning you pay a donation of what you think is a fair price. Visitors will find plenty of awesome works inside with highlights including Gilbert Stuart’s George Washington painting, Claude Monet’s The Doge’s Palace, and the Cartonnage of Nespanetjerenpere, which is an exceptionally decorated mummy encasing created for priest Nespanetjerenpere from Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period.
Intrepid Museum
Another unique must-see museum in New York City is the Intrepid Museum, located on a retired aircraft carrier. This military and maritime museum features some seriously impressive displays. Visitors can get up close and personal with the world’s first space shuttle Enterprise, a nuclear-carrying submarine, a supersonic spy plane, and many more awe-inspiring planes, helicopters, and artifacts. Not to mention, the aircraft carrier itself has a fascinating history to delve into as the Intrepid served several naval campaigns during World War II and survived four Kamikaze attacks.
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9/11 Memorial & Museum
The 9/11 Memorial & Museum is one of those museums that you have to see in your lifetime to truly understand the events of September 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks of this tragic day have left an imprint on American history, and tourists interested in learning more about the faces, the stories, and the heroes behind the historic event should consider a visit to the museum. The reflecting pools pay tribute to where the towers of the World Trade Center once stood and are completely free to visit. However, the museum does require a ticket. On display at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum are several artifacts from workers and rescuers, first-hand testimony from those who were there, an exhibit on the 1993 Pentagon attack, and several other niche artifacts recovered from the 9/11 attack. For an even more in-depth experience, tourists can book a tour of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum and/or purchase a ticket/tour that includes access to the One World Observatory (NYC’s tallest building).
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Whitney Museum of American Art
Those with an interest in modern American art shouldn’t skip out on the Whitney Museum of American Art. Located in the West Village, the museum boasts a collection of 26,000 artworks exclusively made by over 3,900 American artists from the 20th and 21st centuries. Some of the must-sees at the Whitney Museum of American Art include Edward Hopper’s Early Sunday Morning, The Rose by Jack DeFeo, and George Bellow’s Dempsey and Firpo. Visitors can also enjoy fantastic city views from one of the museum’s many balconies, including a rooftop restaurant, and score free tickets on the second Sunday of every month.
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Tenement Museum
New York City is a city built on immigrants. Many of us know the story of the American Dream and how thousands of newcomers made their way to Ellis Island before being granted passage into NYC. The Tenement Museum is a small but powerful museum dedicated to just this, the immigrants who helped shape the Big Apple into the bustling and vibrant metropolis it is today. Tourists can purchase a ticket to go on a guided tour of the museum, where recreations of refugee and immigrant homes have been created to connect the past to the present. Tours last between 60-75 minutes and cover the heartbreaking and heartwarming stories of those who moved to the Lower East Side to pursue the American Dream.
The Morgan Library & Museum
Calling all book lovers! If you can only visit one museum in NYC, make it the Morgan Library & Museum. The museum was once home to the personal library of J.P. Morgan, who opened the collection to the public so locals and tourists could immerse themselves in the expansive collection of rare books, manuscripts, drawings, music, and much more. With over 350,000 objects to discover and an impressive Beauty and the Beast-like library, the museum has become a must-see for bookworms. Highlights of the museum include Gutenberg Bibles and several works by Lord Byron, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, and Charles Dickens. Keep an eye on the museum’s website for specialty exhibits, too!
Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration
When New York City, previously named New Amsterdam, opened its doors for immigration to the rest of the world, all inbound immigrants had to stop at Ellis Island for immigration processing to ensure they were free from diseases and/or mental health conditions. Throughout its time as an immigration processing station, it serviced over 12 million immigrants from 1892 to 1954, and these stories are worth sharing. At the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration, visitors can learn about the full immigration process of Ellis Island, including stories from immigrants, and see personal items like trunks, clothes, and passports. This is a great way to learn more about American history and see this historic landmark up close and personal.
The Jewish Museum
The Jewish Museum is a great museum for those who want to learn more about Jewish culture and history and explore Jewish artworks. The museum is one of the oldest Jewish museums in the world and features a collection of over 30,000 artworks, artifacts, and ceremonial objects covering 4,000 years of Jewish history. Several incredible paintings and photographs are on display, like Marc Chagall’s Untitled (Old Man with Beard) and Tim N. Gidal’s Night of the Cabbalist, along with religious artifacts like Hanukkah lamps, Torah shields, and Torah pointers. Tours are also available for those who want a more in-depth knowledge of Jewish traditions, art, and culture.
Museum of Illusions
For those of you who aren’t into traditional museums, perhaps the Museum of Illusions will pique your interest. This fun and quirky museum is sure to leave your brain sore as you walk through displays and rooms that will make you question your reality. From tilted rooms to mind-bending illusions and vibrant displays, visitors are guaranteed to have a laugh and leave with some seriously unique photos. All the displays are built with participation in mind, so you’ll get a more hands-on experience and actually get to become part of the art! This is a great museum for families with kids or those looking for an out-of-the-box experience.
National Museum of the American Indian
Before Europeans came to North America, Native Americans occupied the lands for thousands of years, and you can immerse yourself in the artwork and artifacts of these native tribes at the National Museum of the American Indian. The museum covers Native art from Central, North, and South America, with over 700 artworks in its permanent collection. Native headdresses, parkas, robes, baskets, and even boats can be found in the museum from several tribes across the Americas. The Native New York exhibition is of particular interest as it covers the relatively unknown stories of Native Americans who helped build and shape the city, from Iroquois ironworkers to the communities already set up in the area prior to European settlement.
The Frick Collection
Those with a particular interest in European art should make their way to The Frick Collection. This incredible collection is well-known for its many Old Master works, which refer to skilled painters in Europe prior to the 1800s. Visitors will find several masterpieces on display on the museum’s walls, like The Flagellation of Christ by Cimabue, Pietro Aretino by Titian, Officer and Laughing Girl by Johannes Vermeer, and Edouard Manet’s The Bullfight. Of particular interest, the collection boasts three of only 34 paintings widely accepted to be painted by Dutch Golden Age artist Vermeer. In total, the Frick Collection has about 1,800 works in its collection.
Museum of Chinese in America
If you’re looking for a free museum in New York City that offers an eye-opening perspective, head to the Museum of Chinese in America located in Lower Manhattan. This history museum spotlights the Chinese-American experience by highlighting the contributions, struggles, and inspiring stories of Chinese immigrants in the United States. The Museum of Chinese in America offers free public tours to gain more insight into the artifacts and experiences of Chinese immigrants, or visitors can explore the collection on their own. Of particular interest in the museum are its exhibits on racist imagery in American entertainment and Chinese medicine, along with a children’s play area where they can see a lion dance costume up close.
The Noguchi Museum
Isamu Noguchi was one of the most important and most famous sculptors of the twentieth century, and the Noguchi Museum is a must-see for any fan of his work. Even if you haven’t heard of this renowned Japanese-American artist, an introduction to his work at the museum will leave you a fan. Not only was Noguchi a master of sculpture, but he also designed gardens, furniture, ceramics, public spaces, and more. At the Noguchi Museum, visitors will find the world’s largest collection of his works in a space he designed himself before passing. Those looking to get away from the crowds of the MoMA and the Met can peruse the serene gardens and galleries, which feature highlights like his pottery and stone work.
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Located along the Upper East Side’s Museum Mile, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a must-see attraction for those with a passion for historical and contemporary design. The museum is located in Andrew Carnegie Mansion, a 64-room mansion with an exhibition space of 17,000 square feet and over 200,000 objects in its permanent collection. The outstanding and diverse collection covers drawings, prints, textiles, decorative art, interior design, architecture, and more. It’s not just your average displays here either, as several of the exhibits are interactive! Highlights of the museum include the Immersion Room, the Process Lab, psychedelic posters from the 60s and 70s, beautiful African textiles, and 20th-century Scandinavian designs by some of the world’s most influential women artists.
Neue Galerie New York
Located across the street from Central Park on the Upper East Side, the Neue Galerie New York offers a space for visitors to explore German and Austrian art, specifically from the 20th century. You can find several works by well-known Germans and Austrians in fine arts, decorative arts, and architecture, including Paul Klee, Gustav Klimt, Dagobert Peche, Otto Wagner, Alfred Kubin, and Ernst Ludwig. One must-see at the museum is Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, also known as The Woman in Gold, by Gustav Klimt, which is a masterpiece and a truly exquisite piece to see in person. Other highlights in the museum include Max Beckmann’s Self-Portrait with Horn, Egon Schiele’s Town Among Greenery, and Prussian Archangel by John Heartfield and Rudolf Schlichter.
MoMA PS1
While the MoMA showcases the works of those who broke boundaries and mastered their modern fields, MoMA PS1 is a space for artists to exercise experimental practices and push the boundaries of today’s contemporary art scene. The museum regularly hosts events and has a permanent collection of contemporary art that is specific to the space or area in the building (which was once a schoolhouse). Of particular interest is James Turrell’s Meeting Skyspace installation, which allows the viewer to enjoy the natural light of the space while encouraging them to gaze upwards at the sky. There is always something new on display here and it’s a great addition for those visiting the sister museum, MoMA!
New-York Historical Society
Want to step inside the Oval Office? Okay, obviously not the real one, but at the New-York Historical Society you can find an impressive replica! This American history museum and library is a fantastic place to learn more about America and New York’s history. Not only can you snap a picture at the desk of the most powerful figures in the country, but you can also explore niche exhibits like the Tiffany lamp collection, along with displays and artifacts touching on slavery, 9/11, LGBTQ+ history, and more. There is so much to see here that visitors should plan to spend between two and three hours.
Now that you’re an expert in the New York’s museum scene, all you have to do is sort out how many of these awesome attractions you can fit into your itinerary! Whether you’re being wowed by the size of the giant squid at the American Museum of Natural History or exploring the flight deck at the Intrepid Museum, we know a visit to any of these museums will be memorable.
