NYC's Museum Mile and Beyond

On Manhattan’s tony Upper East Side, Fifth Avenue was once lined almost exclusively with millionaires’ mansions, but now it’s home to riches of another kind. Here, fronting Central Park between 82nd and 105th Streets, lies one of the world’s greatest concentrations of museums, with several others just a few blocks to the south and one directly across Central Park to the west.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the linchpin of the lot. With a collection of more than 2 million works from around the world, from the Stone Age to the digital age, it ranks as one of the world’s largest and finest repositories of art and culture. Founded in 1870, the museum has expanded to such a degree that its original Gothic Revival building is now completely surrounded by additions. Highlights include the Greek and Roman galleries; the Costume Institute; the collections of Byzantine and Chinese art; the collection of European paintings; the Arms and Armor collection; the musical instrument collection (with some 800 instruments from six continents on display); and the Egyptian collection, with its mummies, sphinx, and the amazing Temple of Dendur, a complete 1st-century b.c. Egyptian temple presented as a gift of the Egyptian government to the people of the U.S.

The American Wing comprises one of the best American art collections in existence, with more than 15,000 paintings, sculptures, and decorative art objects, including more than a dozen period rooms that offer a window into American style and domestic life. The museum’s Roof Garden is a favorite summertime haunt for New Yorkers, with its great view of Central Park and rotating series of site-specific art installations.

Walk uptown to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1959. With a kind of spiraling (and recently restored) seashell form, its top wider than its bottom, the structure reflects the architect’s use of organic form. Begin at the top and walk slowly down through the circling uninterrupted gallery, viewing a collection that spans from the late 19th century to the present, including Mr. Guggenheim’s original collection of nonobjective art; niece Peggy Guggenheim’s collection of Surrealist and abstract works; and pieces from various other schools, including the Impressionists, early Modernists, German Expressionists, Minimalists, and Conceptualists.

A little farther uptown, the Museum of the City of New York is a must for Gotham
aficionados, with its collections of photographs, art, costumes, toys, and memorabilia that trace the city’s history from a small Dutch colony to the capital of the world. The Theater Collection is one of the world’s best, covering New York theater from the late 18th century to the present, with original set renderings, scripts, costumes, props, posters, and more.

At 91st Street, the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design occupies the former mansion (built in 1901) of another famous New York tycoon, Andrew Carnegie. Part of the Smithsonian Institution, it’s the only museum in the U.S. devoted solely to historic and contemporary design, with collections of product design and decorative arts; drawings, prints, and graphic design; and textiles and wall coverings. One block north, the Jewish Museum celebrates 4,000 years of Jewish culture through painting, sculpture, photos, and archaeological and everyday artifacts—more than 25,000 pieces in all. The permanent exhibition, “Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey,” tells the story of the Jewish experience from ancient times to today.

Other museums on Museum Mile include El Museo del Barrio, dedicated to Latino history and culture; the National Academy of Design, with its collection of 19th- and 20th-century American art; and the special Neue Galerie New York, devoted to early 20th-century German and Austrian art and design.

And then there are the museums that aren’t technically part of Museum Mile at all, but why quibble? Located a little south of the Mile on Fifth Avenue, the Frick Collection offers a collection of European masters housed in an 18th-century French-style mansion built in 1914 by steel and railroad magnate Henry Clay Frick. Highlights include works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Titian, El Greco, and Goya.   Nearby, the Whitney Museum of American occupies the other end of the arts spectrum, with a collection of modern and contemporary American art.

Across Central Park from the Met, the American Museum of Natural History has a collection of more than 36 million objects, from moon rocks to the Brazilian Princess Topaz (the world’s largest cut gem at 21,005 carats) to the famous dinosaur halls. Don’t miss the Hall of Biodiversity, the classic dioramas of animal and village life, or the futuristic Rose Center for Earth and Space, an adjacent four-story glass sphere that holds the Hayden Planetarium, the largest and most powerful virtual reality simulator in the world, sending visitors through the Milky Way and beyond.

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Tel 212-535-7710; www.metmuseum.org. When: closed Mon. Guggenheim Museum: Tel 212-423-3500; www.guggenheim.org. When: closed Thurs. Museum of the City of New York: Tel 212-534-1672; www.mcny.org. When: closed Mon. Cooper-Hewitt Museum: Tel 212-849-8400; www.si.edu/ndm. Jewish Museum: Tel 212-423-3200; www.jewishmuseum.org. When: closed Fri. El Museo del Barrio: Tel 212-831-7272; www.elmuseo.org. When: closed Mon–Tues. National Academy of Design: Tel 212-369-4880; www.nationalacademy.org. When: closed Mon–Tues. Neue Galerie: Tel 212-628-6200; www.neuegalerie.org. When: closed Tues–Wed. Frick Collection: Tel 212-288-0700; www.frick.org. When: closed Mon. American Museum of Natural History: Tel 212-769-5100; www.amnh.org

Read about New York's Empire State Building.

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Patricia Schultz is the author of 1000 Places To See Before You Die (Workman) and 1000 Places to See in the USA & Canada Before You Die (Workman)

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