Statement of Purpose

The Museum of the City of New York is a private, not-for-profit, educational agency established in 1923 to collect, preserve, and present original materials related to the history of New York City. In addition to individual contributions and gifts from foundations and corporations, the Museum recieves public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Highlights & Collections

Permanent gallery space showcasing countless historical treasures of New York City. Not to mention the busy schedule of events, and exhibitions that keep our visitors coming back for more.

Broadway! is an ongoing exhibition which attracts many tourists and native New Yorkers alike. A survey of comedies, dramas, and musicals performed on Broadway from 1866 to the present day, the exhibition celebrates the development of American theater and the creative individuals who have nurtured it. Broadway! features costumes, set designs, set models, posters, paintings, drawings, caricatures, programs and photographs drawn from the Museum's incomparable Theater Collection. Furniture of Distinction, 1790-1890 highlights furniture from the Museum's renowned Decorative Arts Collection owned and/or manufactured in New York City between 1790 and 1890 as well as related documents that describe the City's evolving furniture trade over the course of a century.

Revisiting the Scene: New Research, New Discoveries features approximately twenty-five recently re-examined, intriguing nineteenth- and twentieth- century paintings from the Museum's extensive urban scene collection.

The fire gallery features two antique fire engines, and one antique water pump from the first ladder, hose, and engine companies in New York City. New York Toy stories permanently features many of the toys and dolls, ranging in date from 1880s to the present, that were on display in the special show in 1997.

Included are mechanical toys, cast-iron toys, miniature toy soldiers, toy boats, optical toys, Edmund Branhall Child's toys of the 1870s, Elizabeth Yandell's Treasure Box, the doll Gracie's tea Party and the fanciful white rabbit from the Central Park Children's Zoo.

of course, the Museum's renowned doll houses remain on display.

• Prints and Photographs
• Theater
• Toys
• Paintings and Sculpture
• Decorative Arts
• Silver
• Costume
• Marine
• Library and Manuscripts
• Fire and Police
• Military

Exhibits & Special Events

• New York Toy Stories, New Permanent Installation, Opened 11/15/97

• Beynd the Grave: Cultures of Queens Cemeteries, through 3/8/98
• Under the Big Top: Circuses in New York, through 2/22/98
• New York from Above: An Aerial View, through 6/28/96
• The New Metropolis: A Century of Greater New York, 1898-1998, through 1/3/99
• Bridging New York, 1/31 - 6/28/98
• Broadway! The Great White Way in 1898, 2/21 - 7/26/98
• Berenice Abbott's Changing New York, 1935-1939, 3/14 - 6/21/98
• A Float for All Seasons: New York's Ethnic Parades, 3/21 - 10/17/98
• Half Past Autumn: The Art of Gordon Parks, 7/5 - 11/1/98
• New York Vertical by Horst Hamman, 11/21 - 4/11/99
• New York Horizontal: Circuit Camera Views of New York by William Hassler, 11/14 - 5/2/99
• Hughson Hawley: Master Renderer of New York Buildings 11/29 - 4/4/99

Hours

• Open Wednesday through Saturday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm,
• Tuesday, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm for preregistered groups only, and
• Sunday, 1:00 to 5:00 pm.
• The Museum is closed on Mondays and all legal holidays.

Admission & Directions

• Admission is free,
• although the following contributions are suggested:
• • $5.00 for adults,
  • $4.00 for senior citizens, students, and children, and
  • $10.00 for families.

It's easy to reach the Museum by public transportation:

• By bus: M1, M3, or M4 to 104th St.; M2 to 101st St.
• By subway: Lexington Avenue #6 train to 103rd St Station, then walk three blocks west, or the #2 or #3 train to 110th St. and Lenox Ave., then walk one block east to Fifth Ave.

Key Personnel

Robert R. MacDonald, Director

• Public Affairs: Billie Heller Monness
• Photographic Research: Eileen Kennedy
• Theater Research: Marty Jacobs
• Special Events: Marly Hays
• Receptionist: Priscilla Tanco