First Time in NYC? You NEED to Visit These 8 Iconic Museums During Your Trip

Appreciating Art in these Legendary Institutions

New York City stands out as one of the world’s greatest cultural centers, with amazing museums that draw millions of visitors each year.

Set in beautiful buildings, from the Guggenheim’s spiral design to the Met’s grand entrance, these are eight of the most iconic museums that everyone should visit in the Big Apple at least.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met is the crown jewel of New York City’s cultural scene. It’s America’s biggest art museum and one of the most visited places in the world. When it opened in 1870, it had just one Roman marble coffin. Now it holds more than 2 million pieces of art from the past 5,000 years.

The Met’s Gothic-style building, finished in 1926 on Fifth Avenue, now covers 2.2 million square feet of display space.

You can explore everything from ancient Egyptian treasures to European masterpieces, including works by van Gogh. The museum stays open late on Fridays and Saturdays for evening visits.

Museum of Broadway

Right in Times Square, the new Museum of Broadway opened in November 2022. It’s the first permanent museum that celebrates theater history, and shows off more than 500 productions with costumes, props, and original designs.

This 26,000-square-foot space, started by Julie Boardman and Diane Nicoletti, makes three centuries of stage magic come alive through exhibits you can walk through.

You can explore three main areas: The Map Room, a timeline of Broadway’s history, and a behind-the-scenes look at how Broadway shows are made.

Part of what you pay for tickets goes to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, helping continue Broadway’s tradition of giving back.

The Frick Collection (Reopening on April 2025)

Henry Clay Frick’s stunning mansion from the Gilded Age became one of New York’s finest art museums in 1935.

The Frick Collection has been a cultural highlight of the Upper East Side ever since. The museum has 1,500 masterpieces, with 470 usually on display, including works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Goya.

Its research library, started in 1920 by Frick’s daughter Helen, holds 280,000 books and helps art scholars with their research.

The museum is closed for upgrades until April 2025, so mark your calendars so you can visit as soon as it reopens.

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

The legendary MoMA has led the way in modern art since 1929. Three forward-thinking women started it – Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan.

Opening just after the stock market crashed, the museum grew from its first spot on Fifth Avenue into a massive 708,000-square-foot cultural center on 53rd Street.

Today, MoMA holds over 200,000 masterpieces, including Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” and Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.”

The 2004 renovation by Taniguchi turned the space into a modern wonder, with bigger galleries, The Modern restaurant, and creative learning programs that millions enjoy each year.

Whitney Museum of American Art

The Whitney Museum of American Art started because of one woman’s bold vision. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney created this cultural landmark in 1930 to support American artists when European art was getting all the attention.

Since 2015, the museum has lived in an eye-catching building designed by Renzo Piano in the Meatpacking District. It shows more than 25,000 works by over 3,500 American artists.

The 200,000-square-foot space has the city’s biggest galleries without columns, outdoor viewing decks, and amazing views of the Hudson River.

The Cloisters

Sitting high up in Manhattan’s Fort Tryon Park, The Cloisters takes you back to medieval Europe. It combines pieces from five French monasteries into one amazing place.

This branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art holds about 5,000 works, focusing on art from the Romanesque and Gothic periods.

The museum’s best treasures include the famous Unicorn Tapestries, the Mérode Altarpiece, and the world’s only complete set of medieval trading cards.

You can walk through carefully kept medieval gardens with plants from that time, and grab a snack at the Trie Cafe from April through October.

The Morgan Library & Museum

Moving from medieval monasteries to the luxury of the Gilded Age, J.P. Morgan’s private library, built in 1906, shows how much one person loved collecting rare books and art.

The building, designed by Charles McKim to look like an Italian Renaissance palace, opened to the public in 1924.

The Morgan Library & Museum now has three Gutenberg Bibles, decorated manuscripts from the 6th to 16th centuries, and original works by famous writers like Dickens and Hemingway.

In 2006, Renzo Piano added 75,000 square feet, including a modern concert hall and café, mixing historic beauty with modern convenience.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece changed New York City’s skyline when it opened in 1959. Its spiral shape rises above Fifth Avenue like nothing else in the city.

The museum started in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting. Now its famous design features a long ramp that circles up around a 92-foot-high glass dome.

With over 8,000 masterpieces, the museum shows impressive works from the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Modern periods, including pieces by Kandinsky, Picasso, and van Gogh.

The Guggenheim’s unique upside-down ziggurat design caused controversy at first, but in 2008 it became a National Historic Landmark.