Museums and landmarks in Manhattan, ranked

Really powerful

The other museum you can’t do in a day. Made me realize how much I love modern art: Water Lilies, Rothkos, Pollocks, all the hits.

No one does a museum like the Met. This one is spectacular. Built on Rockefeller money; gives you a sense of how unimaginable their wealth was, and underscores how much better the Asia Society should be.

Pay-what-you-wish for tri-state residents. One of the few NYC museums you can’t see in a day. Collection is unmatched, even if half of it was probably looted. The Matisse/Derain show was thought-provoking. Free public lectures are great.

Across from Lincoln Center; everyone’s wondered, no one’s been. Free, full of folk art, exactly what you’d expect but bigger.

Never saw the gallery; talked to a curator for 90 minutes about Roman Republic coinage. Saw the first silver and bronze coins, the evolution of mints, even fake forging blocks. Recommend if you like history.

Several floors, surprisingly large. Saw Sonia Delaunay; she did painting and clothing both, and I always like art outside the usual mediums.

Bad art, nice tour guide. Strange that they highlighted the artist’s painting given he was far better known as an author.

Cool gallery of interesting Chinese art. Not connected to the CCP.

Cool exhibit on the evolution of Olympic iconography. Other exhibits were meh. Building is a beautiful Gilded Age mansion with lots of original details; want to come back for the once-a-month architecture tour.

Two enormous exhibits I liked. Hard to describe; just go see them.

Large collection of drawings, all modern.

Huge piece of NYC and American history. Pain in the ass to get to.

Closed. Cool vibe. Some photos were trippy and fun, others not.

Strong collection, regardless of the founder’s reputation. Liked how they used the Breuer building during the renovation.

Mayor’s residence. Same era as Bartow-Pell but well kept. Interesting back-to-back. Smaller than I expected, and the view’s not much.

Fantastic and shockingly large modern art collection for a museum no one’s heard of. Run by NYU.

Great but small permanent collection. Extremely exhibit-dependent: only one big exhibit at a time, hit-or-miss. Current curator is heavy on contemporary, which is unfortunate.

Cool vibe. Two floors with several galleries. Couches to sit and view from. Feels more like a rich hipster’s apartment than a museum.

Cool space; the mural room elevated this. Big room with massive murals all around. Loved sitting in the dim, gazing up. Huge.

Massive space, tons of interesting photos. Didn’t expect it to be so big. Double-height rooms with a mezzanine give it real gravitas.

Really interesting Japanese Zen exhibit. Big space, nicely laid out. Could use more per-piece context.

Part of the South Korean consulate. Cool exhibits in a large space, with art loaned by the chaebols. The Whanki exhibit was good.

Not a museum, but a delightful sight.

Specialty is prints and drawings, so other mediums would help. Liked the Potter exhibit. Cool building.

European-style 1800s synagogue in NYC, who knew. Impressive space; needs work but the bones are obvious. Stained glass is a must-see.

Surprising one. Exhibit on sleeves was fascinating: elegant evolution with enough context for non-designers.

Solid permanent exhibit on Chinese immigration to America. The temporary exhibit on the senses had dishes infused with smells you had to identify; never seen anything like it. Always appreciate something novel.

Holocaust museum, large and extensive. Shockingly big collection of objects families got through, including several Torahs.

One of NYC’s AAA museums. Feels dated though: dioramas, blank nondescript hallways. Modernization attempts have been weak.

Tiny (two rooms) but really neat. Photos and snippets on LES squatting and community gardens. Took the Anarchist Walking Tour with a guy in his 50s who’s a bit out there. Cool way to learn the neighborhood from the 70s on.

Take the elevator to the 20th floor of a hotel and walk down 20 flights; the stairwell is the museum. Really cool.

Saw the Klimt exhibit: large, well laid out, but light on context. Long line on a random weekday for some reason.

One of the most surprising stops on this whole journey. Three floors of really interesting art by someone I’d never heard of. Free, and unclear how it’s funded.

Would have been a 0 if not for an inexplicably great Tiffany Lamp exhibit on the top floor. Rest is bleh.

The archived footage library is the real draw; watched some otherwise lost Andy Warhol show episodes. Exhibit was meh.

Beautiful building with a lot of history.

Massive collection of Chaim Gross sculptures plus his collection of art from well-known artists. Decent guide. Liked seeing his studio.

Closed in 2024. Huge collection of beautiful, very old Buddhist artifacts. Cool interactive water gong. Loved the meditation rooms.

Huge collection of interesting drawings. Worth browsing; some real gems.

Iconic

Surprising one. Lots of interesting book bindings from the last few centuries.

Fantastic park and way to explore Chelsea

Hangar deck is badly done: no real planes, nothing showing what life on it was like. Flight deck is fun but the Blackbird and shuttle are replicas. The sub was cool.

It’s a shame you can’t climb it anymore

Was enjoying it until I hit the AI-generated art exhibit. Deeply offended; refuse to recommend the museum because of it. Unforgivable.

Design of the museum is spectacular; sets the right atmosphere and gives you the scale of the towers. Information presentation doesn’t do justice to what happened.

Not much to see, but if you’re in the building, look in.

Not much to see, but if you’re in the building, look in.

More gallery than museum. Some art’s for sale. Worth popping in if you’re walking past; low commitment.

Big space with no real exhibits when I visited, just videos about climate change playing. Run on Rockefeller money. Should be much better.

I think this is a money grab

Judaica museum at Temple Emanu-El. Not a single other person there, including staff. Some interesting menorahs and a notable Indian Torah. One of the best Judaica exhibits I’ve seen, high praise.

Surprisingly large gallery of contemporary art.

Should be cool. Instead it’s pictures of some buildings and that’s about it. Waste of space.

Not really a museum, but went for the Power Broker / Robert Moses tie-in. The sea lion show is fun. Surprisingly big considering they shoehorned it into a corner of Central Park.

Not sure why it got so famous

Literally an active tattoo shop with mementos on the walls. Friendly people. Co-owner is a licensed NYC tour guide but only does tours Fridays at 11; never been able to make it.

Like the Earth Room: a big room of cylinders. Don’t really know why.

One weird exhibit. You look at a room of dirt. If that’s your thing, you’ll like it.

Another historic house...

Spanish Harlem art. The tour guide kept asking what the art meant to the group; I want to hear what the artist intended, not other visitors. First time I encountered contemporary art on this journey, and didn’t care for most of it.

Thought it’d be a tour of actual mansions. Was really a tour of the HBO show. Still picked up a few mansions I didn’t know, like one owned by NYU, the Albertine building.

Should be interesting. Isn’t. Just the tomb and some Civil War flags.

Another historic house, and it was moved; not even on its original site. NPS, so a ranger gives the tour.

Could have used more effort, but not the worst I’ve seen.

Run by NYU. One exhibit was photoshopping US troops out of DoD photos from Iraq. The other was random photos from elsewhere. Felt aimless.

Light on Robinson artifacts but a thorough life story. Liked the pieces on the important people in his life.

Really cool: Donald Judd’s home, gives you a feel for how he lived. Completely unlivable by his own design choices. Very high ceilings, minimalist/Bauhaus feel. Would’ve been a 2 if not for the $35.

Very interesting

Not much to see, but if you’re in the building, look in.

Small. Mix of contemporary and modern: some interesting, some not for me.

Little lighthouse under the GW Bridge, exactly as advertised. Walk by, say ‘neat,’ keep walking.

Refreshing: most historic houses are rich families or tenements; this one’s a middle-class family. Liked the tour guide.

Columbia’s gallery. Visited during the MFA thesis show; cool.

Hole-in-the-wall with little samples: different elements, soils from around the world, water from different oceans.

Another historic house. Nothing interesting.

Second floor of the same building as HSNY. Big lock collection. They give you a book and tell you good luck; not exactly immersive.

Bigger than expected. Hate when a free museum has a paid exhibit. Cool to see the artist studios on the upper floors.

Went thinking it’d be a tourist trap. The price says yes, the curation says no. Lots of artifacts and a real effort to convey Broadway’s history.

In hindsight, a kids’ museum. Has enough to keep an adult entertained while supervising. Pricey. Some illusions were neat. Missed opportunity in the gift shop: no cool mug.

100% tourist trap. Zero redeeming qualities.

Surprisingly large and popular. Felt very superficial: broad and thin.

Surprisingly large space. Nothing grabbed me. Liked one architectural scale model. Otherwise meh.

Smithsonian, so security was a notch tighter, and the check-in guards were assholes. Collection is interesting but lacks per-item context. Cases of stuff after a tribe blurb didn’t connect me to the work.

Decent contemporary collection. Not my favorite, not a waste.

Big photos of designer projects with very little text on the thinking behind them. Photos weren’t even high res.

First of the smaller museums I went to. Big poster collection. Free day is a plus.

Basically nothing inside: a few mementos, mainly conductor batons. There’s a Breguet wall clock in the next room.

Small space that will never be busy. Faroe Islands art when I went, interesting but not worth seeking out. Hidden, but not sure it’s a gem.

Half-assed. Mostly just pictures of skyscrapers. The wood exhibit had potential but was just stats on a wall.

Nothing in the museum is worth seeing. The ship has nothing on it either. Cargo hold scale was the only fun part. Skip.

It’s a shonda that this isn’t better

More restaurant than museum. Mildly interesting photos. Curious about the vibe when the restaurant’s actually open.

Pretty to look at, historical.

When I went: contemporary art on the first floor, plus uninteresting Judaica. Two of my dislikes in one place.

Park ranger leads the tour. Recreation of TR’s birth house, built by his wife and sisters after he died. He didn’t even spend much time there before the family moved to a 5th Avenue mansion.

Run by monks? Interesting Tibetan tapestries. Staff seemed nice.

Exhibits whatever, but the Gilded Age mansion is spectacular, feels original in a way none of the other surviving mansions do.

Somewhat interesting tapestry exhibit by a Holocaust survivor. If you’re in the building, look in.

Exhibit on the post-1948 Yiddish vs. Hebrew conflict. Really interesting history I didn’t know.

Not what I expected. The whole museum is oil paintings of dogs. Saw maybe one German Shepherd; not worth it.

Weird. Exhibit on 70s home design with everything in German, no English. Doesn’t seem like good cultural ambassadorship. The front guard was shocked anyone visited.

Went for the Power Broker tie-in. It’s just where you wait for the Statue of Liberty ferry. Unremarkable.

Pretty to look at, historical.

Pop-up on climate change, poorly executed. Walls of text, badly edited. Not compelling.

Hard to know when it’s even open (Mon–Thu only?). Exhibit on Czech gaming was statistics on the walls and two unlogged-in PCs that staff couldn’t explain. Hilariously indifferent.

Lobby of Hebrew Union College. Not really a museum. Guard let me peek even though it wasn’t open. With Czech Center, the two hardest Manhattan museums to get into.

Pretty to look at, historical.

Tourist trap above a tavern. Yes, Washington ate there a lot, but the museum isn’t interesting. Tour guide was bad. Got stuck in a deeply weird, racist exchange between the guide and the security guard while waiting for my tour.

Closed, was really just a cafe.

Had high hopes, all let down. Huge space, mostly empty, and what was there wasn’t interesting.

Tourist trap. Bad wax replicas of people you don’t care about.

Why does this still exist? Not historic, not beautiful. Tour starts with a 20-min VHS about NYC of the period. Geared for kids more than adults wanting history.

Felt like donated junk. Old engines were neat but no context; would’ve loved a timeline of innovations. Joined as a member only because it’s the cheapest path to a NARM card.

100% tourist trap. Don’t go. I doubt kids would even like it.

Don’t know what this place is or why it exists. The exhibit was sounds. Didn’t get it.

Historic-house museum on steroids. I’ve been on literally every single tour. Avoid: complete waste of time.

Looks cool from outside. Inside it’s the most municipal building I’ve ever been in; gallery felt like a public school cafeteria with photos hung. Guards were shocked anyone came to see the gallery.

Random Ukrainian artifacts in a room with no context. Modern art was awful too. Disliked.