Things to do nearThe Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens who believed their country deserved a world-class institution dedicated to art and education. It opened its current Fifth Avenue home in 1880, and the building has expanded continuously ever since, its neoclassical facade becoming one of the most recognizable landmarks in New York City. Today the museum's permanent collection holds more than two million works spanning virtually every culture and era, from ancient Mesopotamian artifacts and Greek and Roman sculpture to Islamic geometric art, Japanese armor, and American paintings of the Hudson River School.

The European paintings galleries contain masterworks by Vermeer, Rembrandt, El Greco, and Caravaggio, while the American Wing showcases period rooms that reconstruct domestic interiors from colonial times through the early twentieth century. The Costume Institute, located in the lower level, houses one of the most comprehensive fashion archives in the world and draws significant attention each spring with its major thematic exhibition. Visitors who climb to the Roof Garden, open seasonally, are rewarded with contemporary sculpture installations set against sweeping views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline.

The museum's dining spaces range from a casual cafeteria to the more formal dining room overlooking the medieval European galleries. Guided tours, both staff-led and audio, help orient first-time visitors, while seasoned visitors often return to spend time with a single department or collection. The Metropolitan Museum of Art endures as one of the essential cultural experiences in the United States, a place where a single afternoon barely scratches the surface of what it holds.