5 unmissable museums to visit in New York

It’s no stretch to say that New York City is the greatest arts destination in the States. The Big Apple is packed with cultural institutions, from the hallowed halls of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the city’s premier modern art museum, to the Museum of Broadway which celebrates New York’s theatre scene.

The hard part is knowing where to begin. This is the city that never sleeps, after all, and you’d need endless hours in the day to tick off all of New York’s world-class arts and cultural institutes. To set you on the right track, here are five museums to kick off an interesting and thought-provoking escape.

1. The Museum of Modern Art

A veteran of New York City’s creative scene, MoMA has been showcasing the world’s finest modern and contemporary works for almost a century, having opened back in 1929. Fast forward to today and the institution’s evolving collection contains 200,000 works from around the world, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, photography, architecture, design, film, media and performance art.

Highlights of the collection include Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, whose swirling, midnight-toned strokes were inspired by the artist’s view from his window at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in southern France. Other big hitters are Andy Warhol’s striking Gold Marilyn Monroe and his famous Campbell’s Soup Cans, a classic slice of Americana. moma.org

Top tip: While in the area, head over to the Top of the Rock, whose three levels of indoor and outdoor observation decks reveal a variety of Manhattan’s iconic landmarks, including the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. 

2. 9/11 Memorial and Museum

The harrowing events of 11 September 2001 left a permanent scar on the American psyche, and this poignant museum reflects on the tragedy and memorialises its victims. Visitors will view a series of affecting artefacts, from personal items such as the wallets and shoes of survivors to moving family photographs belonging to the deceased. Larger items include a crumbling staircase salvaged from the World Trade Center site and a wrecked fire truck — each a stark reminder of the devastation. Most moving of all is the Memorial Exhibition: a photo wall that honours the 2,977 people killed in the 9/11 attacks, and the six individuals who lost their lives in a separate bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.

Outside the museum is the striking and sombre National September 11 Memorial. Taking over the footprints of the destroyed towers, two giant pools catch cascades of water and panels are inscribed with the names of the fallen. 911memorial.org

3. Whitney Museum of American Art

A dramatically asymmetrical structure, with a teetering, cantilevered entryway, this temple to American art impresses before you even enter the door. Opened in 2015, the current building was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, the brains behind Paris’s Centre Pompidou and The Shard in London. 

Featuring four outdoor terraces, with spectacular panoramic views of New York City, the building makes a fitting home for one of the world’s most extensive and imaginative holdings of American art. The museum of 25,000 works was built around the personal collection of its founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, a prominent New York socialite whose initial 600 pieces included works by realist painter Edward Hopper, whom the Whitney now holds the largest collection of in the world. Today the institution is famed for showcasing works by living artists, anchored by its signature exhibition the Whitney Biennial, a show that features all that’s new in contemporary art. The 81st edition will be on view next Spring and Summer, 2024. whitney.org

Top tip: While in the area, head over to Hudson Yards. Here, visitors can take the lift up to the 100th floor to reach Edge, a triangular cantilevered platform, which, at 1,100ft, is the highest outdoor observation deck in the Western Hemisphere. 

4. Guggenheim

The Guggenheim’s twirling white building is a masterpiece in itself — and reason enough to head to the Upper East Side and pay this storied museum a visit. It was designed in 1943 by the late Frank Lloyd Wright, one of America’s most celebrated architects, who was known for pioneering the Guggenheim’s style of organic architecture. Even amid New York City’s urban sprawl, Wright was influenced by nature, and it’s thought that the Guggenheim’s rotunda skylight was inspired by a spider’s web, and the spiralling interior ramp modelled on a nautilus shell.

The exhibitions are world-class, too. The permanent collection has burgeoned to some 8,000 pieces, with everything from bronze sculptures by French Impressionist artist Edgar Degas to avant-garde pieces by key figures such as Lawrence Weiner, a conceptual artist in the 1960s whose work often took the form of typographic texts. If you’ve got kids in tow, time your trip for the second Sunday of the month, when themed family-friendly tours explore some of the collection’s highlights. guggenheim.org

5. Museum of Broadway

Experiencing the Big Apple’s lauded theatre scene is a mainstay of many travel itineraries and this museum, which opened in 2022, puts exhibits about Broadway centre stage. It has teamed up with internationally renowned artists, designers and theatre historians to create an interactive experience that highlights groundbreaking moments in Broadway’s history — the moments that pushed creative boundaries, challenged social norms and paved the way for those who would follow.

The overture is a detailed wall timeline, which tracks the history of theatre in New York City, from early Vaudeville shows right up to today’s special-effect-packed spectacles. You can then delve into the ‘Making of a Broadway Show’ exhibit, where immersive displays cover the nuts and bolts of a production, from the writing process — you’ll enter a room papered with scores and scripts, the wastepaper bin overflowing with balled-up drafts — to sound and costumes. Along the way look out for precious theatreland relics such as masks worn in long-running The Lion King, and the scarlet lace-up knee-highs donned in Kinky Boots. themuseumofbroadway.com

Top tip: The nearby SUMMIT One Vanderbilt is well worth a visit. Comprised of three levels, the transcendent experience features various rooms and exhibits which meld lighting, mirrors, sound and technology with the tower’s soaring vistas for an illusion as if one is floating above the city.