One way to clear the sidewalks of New York is to drop the daytime temperature into the teens and throw in a biting wind and a dusting of snow. When this happens, New Yorkers go indoors, or so we learned on a weeklong trip in March. But weather doesn’t matter on this trip. We’re going on a museum crawl in one of the greatest museum cities in the world.
So put on your walking shoes, grab a city map and get ready to ride the subway. I’ve picked three New York biggies, plus a couple of places to see art and architecture free. Keep in mind that this is one traveler’s subjective and selective guide, that you are going to encounter crowds, and that your feet will hurt.
The big three
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
This vast repository of art on the Upper East Side at the edge of Central Park is one of the biggest and greatest museums in the world. It’s like a bunch of individual museums rolled into one. The Met, which dates to 1880, has grown over the decades to encompass many architectural styles and acres of floor space. The imposing Fifth Avenue facade dates to 1911.
Its encyclopedic permanent collection includes more than 2 million works of art: Greek and Roman art and artifacts, 20th century art, European and American paintings, sculpture and decorative art, art and antiques from Asia and the Middle East, arms and armor, musical instruments, textiles, photographs, and on and on. The Costume Institute alone houses more than 30,000 costumes. It’s easy to get overwhelmed; it’s OK just to wander and marvel. Make it a day.
Highlights: The Egyptian collection is a treasure trove of approximately 36,000 objects dating from 300,000 B.C to the 4th century A.D.: priceless statuary, coffins, jewelry and much more.
A must-see is the Temple of Dendur, built in about the 15th century B.C. by the Roman emperor Augustus. Threatened by rising waters after construction of Aswan High Dam, the temple was dismantled and moved, block by sandstone block, and installed in a new wing at The Met. The soaring great hall with a reflecting pool is bathed in a sublime glow by light streaming in from the ceiling and the north wall. Reflect, sit and rest your feet. Notice the graffiti that early tourists carved on the stone.
Fans of “Antiques Roadshow” and American antiquities will enjoy the museum’s famed American Wing. Superb examples of American furniture and decorative arts – high-end chests and chairs, silver chocolate pots and crazy quilts – are shown in beautiful galleries.
Shake off the past with a look at the complete Frank Lloyd Wright living room, a pristine example of his Prairie style.
The Met’s collection of modern art includes iconic works by such titans Matisse, Picasso, Miro and Modigliani. “Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall – An Artist’s Country Estate,” on view through May 20, dazzles with its signature Tiffany creations, including magnificent stained-glass windows, vases and lamps.
Wander into the Robert Lehman Collection and you are in good company: Paintings by Goya, El Greco and Rembrandt, among others, boggle the eye. The museum’s collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings reminds us of why we like this color-saturated art so much.
Bonus: Your Met ticket includes same-day admission to The Cloisters, a museum branch devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe – illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, tapestries, sculpture and gardens. The famed Unicorn Tapestries are here.
The Cloisters incorporates elements from five medieval French cloisters situated on four acres overlooking the Hudson River in northern Manhattan’s Fort Tryon Park. It’s a pastoral break from the clamor of the city, but a long detour on a busy day. The long bus ride between the two museums affords a ground-level view of life on the streets of New York.
The mission of this midtown museum is straightforward: “Founded in 1929 as an educational institution, The Museum of Modern Art is dedicated to being the foremost museum of modern art in the world.”
No argument here. The Modern is a pre-eminent museum, an elegant, modernist structure filled with art masterpieces that document the sweep and history of modern and contemporary art.
The building has been enlarged several times; the most recent renovation vastly expanded gallery space when it opened to the public in 2004 and came with a hike in ticket price to $20 for adults.
The Modern, itself a work of art, is easy to navigate, comfortable and accommodating, a sleek design housing more than 150,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, architectural models and drawings and design objects, including a 1945 Bell helicopter hanging from the ceiling and a sexy 1963 Jaguar XKE.
Highlights: Start on the new fourth and fifth floors to see seminal artworks of the modern era, many of which have been branded into our collective memory through countless reproductions. Here’s Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” the jagged 1907 painting of five prostitutes in a brothel that broke the mold of traditional composition and ushered in a new era of art.
Over there is Vincent van Gogh’s iconic “The Starry Night,” a swirling mass of exploding stars in the night sky. The joyous “Dance (I)” by Henri Matisse is a gorgeous symphony of color, line and fluid movement.
Dali, Gauguin, Monet, Chagall, Rousseau. Pollock, Warhol, Steichen, O’Keeffe. It’s extraordinary. Think of all those “isms” – surrealism, modernism, abstract expressionism, minimalism – as you trace the development of modern and contemporary art.
Bonus: MoMA’s Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden is one of the most beautiful outdoor spaces in New York, a serene garden of water, plants and masterworks of modern sculpture. Walls of glass open it to view. The museum’s destination restaurant, The Modern, overlooks the garden.
The American Museum of Natural History
Hollywood’s “Night at the Museum,” starring Ben Stiller as a night watchman in the museum, is credited with boosting attendance, but no dinosaurs come to life, except in the imagination, in the real museum, a huge stone pile on the Upper West Side that opened to the public in 1877.
It’s a wonderful family destination with a wealth of exhibits, displays and activities that take visitors through time and from the depths of the ocean to outer space. The place is immense.
Quick tour: The dinosaur halls on the fourth floor are one of New York’s biggest attractions. So is the Rose Center for Earth and Space and the Hayden Planetarium, where your museum admission includes a viewing of “Cosmic Collisions” in the sphere-shaped Space Theater. Recline in the comfy seats and watch cosmic collisions as the universe evolves. Robert Redford’s soothing voice provides the narration.
Bonus: Gold, one ton of it, is on view in the glittering exhibit “Gold” through Aug. 19 (with an $8 additional admission charge). Begin this gallery walk by looking at natural gold specimens, and then discover the history of gold rushes and mining. The display of gold jewelry, created by artisans from many cultures over the centuries, is eye-popping, but nothing tops the nifty stack of U.S. Treasury gold ingots, a little Fort Knox right before your eyes. You’ll also see Susan Sarandon’s 1966 Oscar and Beyonce’s 2003 Grammy award.
After “Gold,” check out the Guggenheim Hall of Minerals and the Morgan Memorial Hall of Gems for more eye-popping treasurers from the earth.
Art that’s free
New York Public Library
It’s not every day you wander into a public library and see Guttenberg’s Bible. The New York Public Library, one of New York’s great public buildings and one of the world’s great libraries, is that kind of place.
The library’s main building on Fifth Avenue is a Beaux-Arts masterpiece in white marble that opened in 1911. It’s guarded out front by a pair of famous marble lions; Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia named them Patience and Fortitude. The rear of the building faces Bryant Park, a respite of open space in crowded midtown.
See the Bible and other displays, but the building is reason enough to visit. Astor Hall, the grand marble reception hall, is austere and imposing. The library’s main reading room is an explosion of Beaux-Arts ornamentation nearly a football field in size. Researchers hunker down at oak tables and bronze lamps under its soaring, coffered ceiling, decorated with murals and arched windows.
The Map Room is a jewel box of interior design and ornamentation, described by some as an inside-out Faberge egg. A recent $5 million restoration has returned it to its 1911 glory.
Rockefeller Center
Want to shop, eat, wave at Matt and Meredith on the “The Today Show” and be a tourist? Welcome to Rockefeller Center, an urban playground in the heart of midtown. It’s also a destination for art and architecture buffs because of the seamless way it integrates the two.
The prevailing theme is Art Deco, and seven decades after it opened, it’s never been topped as the world’s finest commercial complex, a glamorous blend of sleek, limestone skyscrapers and art, plazas and public spaces.
“Prometheus,” Paul Manship’s gilded bronze statue that presides over the sunken plaza and the winter ice rink in front of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, is the most recognizable artwork here, and one of the finest pieces of public art on the planet. But don’t stop there. Grab a guide pamphlet at the information center and wander this multi-building complex to see the sculpture, friezes, murals and carvings inside and outside.
Mike Murray is an Everett freelance writer.
If you go …
Begin with a trip to the Web for the nuts and bolts – hours, open days, admission, floor plans, collections, new exhibits, restaurants. Taking a virtual tour on the Web is the next best thing to being there.
Photos: Check out each museum’s photo policies; pictures are often OK but using a flash is generally a no-no.
Free: Some of the city’s major museums have free admission for a couple of hours on Friday nights.
Ticket deal: City Pass includes admission to the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, the Empire State Building Observatory and a Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise, and saves waiting in a ticket line; $53 adults, $44 children; www.citypass.com.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd Street; www.metmuseum.org.
Museum of Modern Art: 11 W. 53rd St. between Fifth and Sixth avenues; www.moma.org.
American Museum of Natural History: Central Park West and 79th Street; www.amnh.org.
Rockefeller Center: W. 49th Street and Fifth Avenue; www.rockefellercenter.com.
New York Public Library: Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street; www.nypl.org/research/chss.
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