9 of the Best Museums in New York City and How To Visit

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest and most-visited museums in the world—and one of the best museums in New York City. The Met’s staggering collection spans Paleolithic artifacts to post-impressionist masterworks and features some 1.5 million artworks and objects. Even exploring its hundreds of rooms would take most visitors months to get through. Instead, book a guided tour for a manageable excursion through its galleries, viewing highlights ranging from King Henry VIII’s suit of armor to John Singer Sargent’s Madame X.

(The Met’s attractions don’t end at its Fifth Avenue flagship location, either. Continue your sightseeing at the Met Cloisters, its Washington Heights branch that focuses on medieval art and tapestries in a beautiful building resembling an Italian monastery.)

Don’t miss: In the flagship Met, the Temple of Dendur, an Egyptian temple that dates to 10 BC, is housed in its own light-washed gallery space; it’s a Met must.

If there’s one thing that the Met doesn’t have, it’s a robust collection of modern and contemporary art. That’s where the Museum of Modern Art, or MoMA, comes in. Another of the top art galleries in New York City, the museum is home to an exceptional array of masterpieces, from Claude Monet’s Water Lilies to Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair.

Book your skip-the-line admission tickets in advance to guarantee your entry to this always-popular museum, and then discover its seven floors of galleries at your own pace.

(Like the Met, MoMA also boasts a second satellite location that’s worth discovering. That would be MoMA PS1, located in a former public school in Queens that hosts a range of cutting-edge installations and exhibitions.)

Don’t miss: MoMA is packed with world-renowned, instantly recognizable landmarks, such as Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night—don’t miss the chance to see it up close.

If you’re exploring New York City’s cultural institutions, it might be tempting to stay uptown and visit cultural highlights such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Neue Galerie. But it’s also worth grabbing tickets and hopping on a downtown train to the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The museum itself decamped from its original Upper East Side digs to its current Meatpacking District home in 2014, and its luminous new building shows off masterworks by artists from Edward Hopper to Georgia O’Keeffe in their best light.

If you can, visit during the Whitney Biennial. One of the museum’s showcase events, it’s the longest-running survey of American art in the world. Dates vary year by year, so consult the calendar in advance.

Don’t miss: The Whitney’s outdoor balconies offer some of the best skyline views in the city.

Founded more than 150 years ago and billed as one of the world’s preeminent scientific and cultural institutions, the American Museum of Natural Museum is a highlight of the Upper West Side, and a star of the silver screen—Night at the Museum, anyone? Overlooking Central Park, the landmark museum is home to a staggering 30 million specimens and tells the story of 4.5 billion years of Earth’s history.

Grab your New York City museum tickets in advance for seamless sightseeing, and look out for highlights from dinosaur fossils to a taxidermied Siberian tiger.

Don’t miss: One of the museum’s most iconic residents is its 94-foot-long (29-meter-long) blue whale model. It’s suspended from the ceiling of the Milstein Family Hall of Ocean Life—don’t worry, you can’t miss it.

A near doppelganger of the Met, with its neoclassical grandeur and prime location on the edge of a popular city park (the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in this case, plus Prospect Park just adjacent), the Brooklyn Museum has the second-largest museum collection in the Big Apple. It’s also one the top New York City museum highlights, with more than 500,000 objects that span everything from ancient Egyptian artifacts and medieval altarpieces to period rooms. It's the perfect cultural complement to a Brooklyn walking tour.

Don’t miss: Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party—which consists of table settings that represent dozens of important women in history—is a landmark feminist artwork, and a Brooklyn Museum essential.

Situated on the edge of “El Barrio”—Spanish or East Harlem, as residents call it—El Museo del Barrio is an essential stop for anyone visiting museums in New York City, thanks to its unique focus on Latinx art and culture from the United States, the Caribbean, and wider Latin America. El Museo was established in the 1960s as a counterpoint to other institutions, which had long overlooked those voices and works.

Today, its 8,500-strong permanent collection includes everything from pre-Columbian artifacts to modern and contemporary art. It would be a worthy stop as part of any cultural tour of Harlem.

Don’t miss: The museum has a collection of Taíno sculptures and amulets that pre-date Columbus.

Many decades before the Lower East Side became one of the coolest neighborhoods in Manhattan, the area was infamous for its tenements—overcrowded, low-quality apartment buildings that housed new immigrants to New York City.

The Tenement Museum offers a uniquely immersive way to experience this history with a number of guided tour options that walk visitors through restored tenement apartments, telling the stories of the real families who once occupied them. After visiting, book a Lower East Side food tour for another perspective on how immigrant history has shaped the neighborhood.

Don’t miss: The Tenement Museum’s gift shop is home to a wide range of books and gifts from local artists—it’s well worth a browse.

One of the most important historical museums in New York City is the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration. Located right in the New York Harbor, Ellis Island was once the busiest immigrant processing station in the country; during its heyday, it welcomed 1.25 million new immigrants in a single year.

Today, you can tour the dormitories and discover a range of artifacts. Thanks to its proximity to Liberty Island, the museum is a featured stop on numerous New York City tours that visit the Statue of Liberty.

Don’t miss: The Baggage Room—where new immigrants first began the inspection process, and where luggage is still displayed today—is a great place to begin your Ellis Island tour.

One of the most moving New York City museums, the 9/11 Memorial and Museum captures the devastating history of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Located at the World Trade Center in the Financial District, the museum tells the story of 9/11 through a collection that spans first-person testimonies, multimedia archives, and artifacts. Book admission tickets in advance and quietly explore the galleries that pay homage to those who perished in this horrifying event.

Don’t miss: The memorial exhibition includes a floor-to-ceiling presentation of 2,983 portrait photographs of the 9/11 victims—it conveys the enormity of the tragedy, and is a moving place of tribute.