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New York City Museums

New York City Museums | Museum Mile

Museum of Modern Art

One of New York's greatest museums as well as one of its most architecturally significant buildings, the Museum of Modern Art, 11 W 53rd St, has a first-rate collection and puts on important retrospectives each year. Known as 'MOMA,' the museum boasts a permanent collection of masterpieces including Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon , Van Gogh's Starry Night and Piet Mondrian's Broadway Boogie-Woogie . Claude Monet's Water Lilies rates a whole gallery to itself. This New York museum also has an outstanding photography collection and a very cool gift shop.

American Museum of Natural History

Central Park West and 79th St, is most famous for its three large dinosaur halls but don't dismiss the rest of the permanent collection (which numbers about 30 million artifacts). Temporary exhibitions often have an emphasis on hands-on or interactive displays, making the museum extremely popular with kids. Couch potatoes should definitely check out the New York Museum of Television & Radio , a great place to head when it's raining or when you're simply fed up with walking. Over 75,000 US TV and radio programs are available from the museum's computer catalog and you can sit down and veg out at one of 90 consoles.

National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts

The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts is one of the oldest artist-run organizations in the United States. Founded in 1825, they have always fostered the promotion of the Fine Arts in America, and house a sizeable collection of American Arts, over 8,000 works! Designated a New York City landmark, this elegant and stately six-story Beaux-Arts townhouse designed by Ogden Codman Jr. is one of the few remaining mansions on Fifth Avenue that is open to the public.

Lectures, symposia, gallery talks, tours, and other educational programs are presented regularly, designed to complement special exhibitions and provide rare insights into the creative process from the artist's perspective.

Madame Tussaud's New York Wax Museum

Get up close and personal with your favorite celebrities at the 85,000 square-foot, five-story Madame Tussaud's New York. Opened in November, the New York version of the famous London museum takes on "the face of the place" presenting New York's most famous and infamous personalities, as well as figures of international fame and acclaim.

Leave time to tour these six themed, interactive environments showcasing nearly 200 masterfully crafted, lifelike wax figures:

  • The Opening Night Party , set in an Italian baroque garden, features Woody Allen, Bette Midler, Nicolas Cage, Hugh Grant, Oprah Winfrey, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Donald Trump:
  • Madame Tussaud's Story , spanning 200 years of history, features Marie Antoinette and Napoleon's lover Josephine:
  • Behind the Scenes is a multimedia exhibit about the process of creating the incredibly life-like wax figures at the museum featuring Al Roker and others.
  • The Gallery , set in a meeting of the United Nations, features The Dalai Lama, Maya Angelou, John F. Kennedy, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., Buffalo Bill and Diana, Princess of Wales:
  • It Happened in New York is a midnight ride celebrating the city's illustrious history.

Madame Tussaud's New York joins the growing international family of museums with locations in London, Amsterdam, Las Vegas and Hong Kong. The tradition began in 18th century Paris, when Madame Tussaud was forces to create death masks for aristocrats executed in the French Revolution. In 1835, she established the London museum, which now welcomes more than 2.5 million guests each year.

Other NYC Museums

In addition to the heavyweights, New York has dozens of museums that would bring tears of joy to any self-respecting Rotarian in a mid-sized town. Museum Mile's Solomon R Guggenheim Museum is a distinctive spiral space designed by Frank Lloyd Wright to hold one of the 20th century's greatest private bequests. The Whitney Museum of American Art , which specializes in contemporary art, is nearby.