92nd Street Y (1395 Lexington Ave)

Cultural and community center; art talks, interviews, music 

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Museums

*The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1000 5th Ave at 82nd St)

European 19th Century paintings, Impressionists and Post-Impressionists paintings, Egyptian collection and the Temple of Dendur, the American wing with Washington Crossing the Delaware...so much to see! Admission for non resident adults is $30, $22 for seniors, $17 for students but save your receipt because for three days that will get you in The Cloisters.  The Met is now closed on Wednesdays.

 

If the weather is favorable and it's between April and October, don't miss the Roof Garden commission which is different each year. Ask for directions to access the roof.  The view of Central Park and 5th Avenue is spectacular! Summer 2025 will be the last rooftop exhibit until 2030.

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The Dining Room at the Met: One of my favorite things to do is to have lunch in the Dining Room with its huge windows overlooking Central Park and Cleopatra's Needle.  Once you had to be a member of the Met to dine here but that's no longer true. Membership is still a great idea though! And it's tax deductible. ​

 

*The Cloisters (99 Margaret Corbin Dr; Upper West Side of Manhattan)

Beautiful Met museum specializing in European medieval architecture, sculpture and decorative arts

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American Folk Art Museum (Columbus Ave at 66th St)

Includes a nice collection of Outsider art; admission is free.

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Brooklyn Museum ( 200 Eastern Pkwy)

Easy subway ride to museum 

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*The Center for Book Arts (28 W 27th St) The first organization of its kind in the US "dedicated to contemporary interpretations of the book as an art object while preserving traditional practices of the art of the book."

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Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum (2 E 91St at 5th Ave)

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*Dia Beacon (3 Beekman St, Beacon, NY)

This museum has art from the 1960's to the present.  It is a nice train ride up the Hudson River to Beacon, New York. 

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Donald Judd Studio (101 Spring St) You have to get tickets for the guided tour of this artist's residence and studio and you have to get them well in advance. We loved the 90 minutes we spent with the docent climbing the stairs and examining the furniture and art of all 5 floors of this fabulous SoHo studio filled with light from huge, floor to ceiling windows.

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Fotografiska Museum CLOSED (281 Park Ave South at 22nd St) The building is possibly the best part of this museum!

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The Frick Collection (1 E 70th St at 5th Ave) The Frick has reopened after being closed for renovation. Don't miss Bellini's St Francis in the Desert.

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The Guggenheim (5th Ave at 88th St)

Iconic building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

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International Center of Photography (79 Essex St) Photography and visual arts​

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*Morgan Library (225 Madison Ave) Architecture, art, manuscripts 

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*Museum of Modern Art (11 W 53rd St bet 5th and 6th Aves)

Some of my favorite works of art here are Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World, Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and  Van Gogh's Starry Night. Don't miss the sculpture garden.  

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Neue Galleri (86th St and 5th Ave)

Ronald Lauder's gallery of early 20th Century German and Austrian art including Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer; a favorite museum of mine that often has exhibits you won't see anywhere else. Cafe Sabarski located within the museum building has great food and amazing coffee.

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*Noguchi Museum (9-01 33rd Rd, Astoria, Queens) Sculpture garden designed and created by the Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi.

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The Soloviev Foundation Gallery (9 W 57th St) On view by appointment for guided tours and exhibition viewing hours; go to SolovievFoundation.org to sign up for a guided tour. I've enjoyed both of the tours I've taken with the guides.

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Walter de Maria New York Earth Room (141 Wooster St)  The Dia Art Foundation maintains this interior earth sculpture that has been on view since 1980; free admission; check the hours and GO SEE IT!

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The Whitney Museum of American Art (99 Gansevoort St)

Located just off the High Line; building designed by Renzo Piano

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Galleries

I love that there are so many galleries in NYC and that they are free! The neighborhood of Chelsea has more than 300 galleries so you could spend a day just walking around these streets seeing incredible (and some not so incredible) art.  I have a website that I check out before each trip and also I will check on the galleries listed below for current exhibitions.  

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David Zwirner Gallery (537 W 20th St at 11th Ave and 519/525 and 533 W 19th St bet 10th & 11th Ave)

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Gagosian Gallery (555 W 24th St bet 10th and 11th Aves) The photo at the top of this page is one I took of a Richard Serra exhibit here at Gagosian.

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Gagosian Gallery 21 (522 W 21st St bet 10th and 11th Aves)

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*Grolier Club  (47 E 60th St) Exhibits for bibliophiles​

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Gladstone Gallery (515 W 24th St and 30 West 21st St)

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Pace Gallery (537 W 24th St)

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Mathew Marks Gallery (523 W 24th St)

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Art Schools

Art schools often have exhibits of students' work and usually it is very interesting.

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• Art Students League of New York (215 W 57th St) 

• New York Academy of Art (111 Franklin St)

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Make Your Own Art at HAPPY MEDIUM (49 Market St) Choose the kind of art you'd like to make--collage, sculpture, ceramics, painting--from a menu. They will provide all the supplies. It's a BLAST!

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Free Public Art

So much art in the city is open to the public and totally free.  Here are just a few examples.

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Banksy's "Hammer Boy" (79th Street near Broadway)

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Holocaust Memorial (27 Madison Square Park at the corner of the building)

Moving memorial to those who perished in the Nazi death camps. From Atlas Obscura: "...hidden away on the Northwest corner of the building, and rarely noticed, is a miniature memorial to the Holocaust. A column was added to the façade in 1990, this one covered in swirling flames. And at eye level, carved into the column is a representation of Auschwitz. Sculpted by Harriet Feigenbaum, the camp is shown from a bird’s-eye view, and details where the commandant’s house was and, more chillingly, the execution wall, torture chamber, gas chamber, and crematorium. The sculpture is based on an aerial photograph taken on August 25, 1944, by the 15th US Army Air Force; the implication from Feigenbaum being that the US knew of the camp’s existence and layout, but did nothing about it." 

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Lever House (390 Park Ave) In addition to getting an up-close view of the iconic International Style Lever House, you may enter the lobby to check out the latest art exhibition.

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Second Ave (Q Line) Subway Stations (63rd St and Lexington station, 72nd St station, 86th St station and 96th St station) It's worth taking the subway up from the 63rd Street station and getting out at each stop to check out the mosaics like my favorite, Chuck Close's "Subway Portraits" at 86th Street.

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Public parks generally have art that changes seasonally.  Check out Central Park (especially the entrance at 60th and 5th Ave), Madison Square Park, the High Line and Union Square Park

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Subway map in sidewalk 110 Green St

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UBS Building (1285 6th Ave) The lobby has art on exhibit free to the public from their own collection.     2024 - Lucian Freud; 2025 - Portraits

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