1 East 70th St. (at Fifth Avenue)
Tel: (212) 288-0700
Closed Mondays.
Designed by Thomas Hastings, the mansion of the industrialist Henry Clay Frick (1849 - 1919) was built with the intention of becoming a museum. Frick was an ardent art collector who left behind $30 million worth of art. In 1935, (four years after his wife's death) the collection was opened to the public. It contains paintings by great European artists, eighteenth-century French furniture and porcelain, Limoges enamels, Oriental rugs and major works of sculpture. The museum's centerpiece is a beautiful indoor courtyard with a fountain, a perfect hideaway.
Liberty Island. Height:303 ft
Tel: (212) 363-3200 - Open 7 Days including Holidays.
The Statue of Liberty was unveiled by President Grover Cleveland on October 28th, 1886 and has recently been restored for its 100th birthday. It is a gift from the people of France to the American people.
The sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi devoted 21 years to making the statue a reality. The interior frame of the Statue was designed by Gustave Eifel, who later built the Eifel Tower. The Statue became is the most famous national monument and a symbol of freedom.
Emma Lazarus' poem is engraved on the base:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to be free..."
The Museum of the Statue of Liberty holds exhibits on immigration and on the design of the statue.
Very few people in New York know that
The Statue of Liberty has a little sister.
She has lived on the top of the Liberty Warehouse building (where O'Neals' restaurant is located) since 1901 and overlooks Lincoln Center. The Statue is 55 feet tall, is made of molded sheet metal bolted to a frame and has a circular stairway inside. The stairway stopped being used in 1912. William H. Flatteau, a French immigrant who build the Liberty Warehouse, had the smaller statue placed on the top of his new buiding, but no one really knows where she came from. One belief is that it is a cast from an exact copy of Bartholdi's masterpiece.
Central Park West at 79th Street
Tel: (212) 769-5000; (212) 769-5100
Open 7 Days.
The American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869, houses over 30 million cultural artifacts and speciments. It is one of the world's largest science and research institutions, renowned for its collections and exhibitions from every continent. The natural history of our planet and its species is revealed in more than forty exhibition halls.
The Museum is widely acknowledged to posses the largest and most diverse collection of dinosaur fossils in the world. Some of the public's favorite dinosaurs, including Tyrannosaurus Rex and Apatosaurus, have been remounted to reflect new scientific thinking; numerous other dinosaurs are on view for the first time.
The Museum houses the Western Hemisphere's largest natural history library and the Hayden Planetarium.
IMAX Films exploring phenomena of the natural world are shown daily on the FOUR-STORY-HIGH movie screen of the IMAX Theater.
212 West 83 St. (B'way - Amsterdam)
Tel: (212) 721-1234
Open: Fri., Sat., Sun.,10 am - 5 pm; Mon., Wed., Thurs., 1:30 am - 5:30 pm; Closed Tuesdays.
The Children Museum of Manhattan holds a variety of temporary exhibits and several permanent activity centers with two family play areas. Every half hour, every day there are a variety of art, music, video, storytelling and science workshops, as well as toddler and pre-school activities. The Museum has a full-scale television-production studio (in which children participate) and a performance stage and rehearsal area with an audience seating for 200 people.
1071 Fifth Avenue at 88th St.
Tel: (212) 423-3500
Open: Sun. - Wed. 10 am - 6 pm; Fri. - Sat 10 am - 8 pm; Closed Thursdays.
The museum was established by the copper magnate Salomon Guggenheim during the late 1920s. It is housed in Frank Lloyd Wright's only building in New York City which has triumphed over the Fifth Avenue since 1959. The Guggenheim museum has one of the most extensive collection of the twentieth-century art.
1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd St.)
Tel: (212) 879-5500
Open: Tues. - Thurs. 9:30 am - 5:15 pm; Fri & Sat. till 8:45; Closed Mondays.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870. It moved to its present location ten years later, in 1880. The first work of art donated to the museum was the Roman Sarcophagus from Tarsus. The largest gift (J.P.Morgan's art collection) was received in 1913, then valued at $60 million. The Metropolitan Museum now contains more than thirty two acres of floor space and its collections include over two million works of art dating from prehistory to the present.The American Wing has the most comprehensive collection of American art and includes 24 period rooms.The European painting collection has over 3000 works from Leonardo and Raphael to Renoir and van Gogh. One of the most intriguing areas is the Egyptian wing with objects dating back to the 16th century BC.
Fort Tryon Park
Tel: (212) 923-3700
Closed Mondays.
The Cloisters is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. John D. Rockefeller financed the buiding of the museum on four acres of the Fort Tryon Park. It incorporates portions of five French monasteries and is devoted to European art and architecture of the Middle Ages. On view are manuscripts, stained glass, sculptures, tapestries, paintings and metalwork. The Cloisters' garden features over 250 species of plants and herbs cultivated during the medieval period. Guided tours are available Tuesdays through Fridays at 3 pm, & Sundays at noon.
Fifth Avenue (at 103rd St.)
Tel: (212) 534-1672
Closed Mondays & Tuesdays.
Located opposite the Conservatory Gardens this museum holds interesting memorabilia that document the history of New York. It was originally housed in historic Gracie Mansion - today's residence of the mayor. The museum is known for its wonderful collection of doll houses and toys, and the period rooms from actual homes including John D. Rockefeller's bedroom.
11 West 53rd Street
Tel: (212) 708-9480
Closed Wednesdays.
Museum of Modern Art was founded in 1929. It moved to its present quarters ten years later, in 1939. The museum collection includes more than 100,000 paintings. Among the impressionists and post-impressionists represented are: Monet, Cezanne, Gaugin, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Redon and Rousseau. There are many works of Picasso, and other European artists like Matisse, Chagall, and Dali to name only a few. U.S. painters represented here are: Hopper, Shahn, Wyeth, and Pollock.
The museum's large sculpture collection includes Rodin and Moore. Some of the works are displayed in the sculpture garden. The garden is known in New York as one of the most relaxing outdoor spaces.
945 Madison Ave. (at 75 St.)
Tel: (212) 570-3676
Closed Mondays & Tuesdays.
The Whitney Museum of American Art was founded in 1930 by sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. It serves as a perpetual art gallery for the living artists. There are no permanent displays held in the museum. The permanent collection of the 20th century American art contains over 10,000 art objects and is the most comprehensive in the world.
