| New York has a bounty of world-class attractions in | | | | photographs, sculptures, films, drawing, architecture |
| many categories. The city's museums are at the top | | | | and design. A lot of familiar 20th-century works hang |
| of that list in terms of quality and diversity. When I | | | | on MOMA's walls. |
| lived in Manhattan in the 1980's, I was on a mission to | | | | Ellis Island Museum is sometimes off the radar of |
| visit every museum in town. | | | | tourists, but it's a great one. The museum chronicles |
| My favorite New York museums are: | | | | the role of Ellis Island in immigration history; the island |
| Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the | | | | was where 12 million immigrants were |
| greatest museums in the world. It's mammoth-32 | | | | processed-examined, quarantined and sometimes |
| acres-and features a huge variety of art-3.5 million | | | | even renamed-from 1892 to 1954. Probably the |
| pieces in all. You will have time to see but a fraction | | | | museum's most popular exhibit is the American |
| of what's here so you might want to pick a style, a | | | | Immigrant Wall of Honor, which recognizes America's |
| country or a century and start there. Some of the | | | | immigrants and is inscribed with over 700,000 names. |
| most popular exhibits include the Rembrandt | | | | Guggenheim Museum is more known for its |
| paintings, Roman statues, Tiffany glass and the | | | | architecture than for its art, which is actually well |
| reconstructed Temple of Dendur in the Egyptian | | | | worth seeing. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the |
| wing. You'll quickly realize why the "Met" attracts 5 | | | | museum has an upward-spiraling ramp that winds 6 |
| million visitors a year. | | | | floors high. Art pieces hang from the walls |
| American Museum of Natural History sits across | | | | surrounding the ramp, and each set of pieces leads |
| the park from the Met on Central Park West. | | | | an exhibit that continues in an adjacent chamber. |
| Dinosaur fossils are a big attraction here, with such | | | | Celebrated European artists who include Picasso, |
| stars as Tyrannosaurus Rex, Apatosaurus (formerly | | | | Kandinsky, Chagall, Renoir and others are prevalent in |
| Brontosaurus), Stegosaurus and Triceratops. The | | | | the Guggenheim's permanent collections. |
| dazzling Rose Center for Earth and Space is the new | | | | Lower East Side Tenement Museum offers a |
| home of the famous Hayden Planetarium. The Center | | | | rare look at a New York City tenement, or |
| is a glass cube, and the Planetarium is in a sphere | | | | multiple-family building, that was the first home to U.S. |
| within the cube. The Rose Center is an interactive | | | | immigrants. Most of these tenements had no water, |
| resource encompassing all things pertaining to | | | | heat or toilets until 1905. The building was |
| galaxies, stars and planets. | | | | rediscovered in 1988 by historian Ruth Abram, who |
| Museum of Modern Art is a fun place, right in the | | | | wanted to build a museum to honor America's |
| heart of Midtown. The building itself is dramatic, with | | | | immigrants. The first restored apartment, that had |
| a breathtaking 6-story glass atrium that looks out | | | | been the 1878 home of the German-Jewish |
| over a sculpture garden. The modern art featured | | | | Gumpertz family, opened in 1992. The museum can |
| here exists in many media forms-paintings, | | | | be seen by guided tour only. |