Museum Of The City Of New York General Admission Ticket

What a great museum! We had a rainy day in the city and were looking for an indoor activity. This museum was medium-sized so it was not overwhelming or crowded like some others. The permanent and temporary exhibits were all excellent – informative, interesting, well-presented. We had a docent guided tour of the highlights for about an hour, which was very worthwhile. The film in the basement was also excellent. Another plus was the wonderful Amy’s Bread, a café upstairs with fresh pastries.

I had a lovely visit to this museum. It was easy to get in through security and ticketing. There are several levels with different exhibits. The museum is clean and staff are helpful. There are several hands-on & interactive exhibits. I would highly recommend a visit if you want to learn the history of NYC. There is some construction going on, so the front facade looks a bit underwhelming.

The tours are excellent and free, The tour leaders are knowledgeable and provide a dynamic and entertaining experience

We had not originally planned to visit the Museum of the City of New York, but after visiting El Museo del Barrio, we crossed over and decided to go in — and I absolutely loved it. The museum is very interesting, informative, and well organized. It gives a great overview of New York City’s history, culture, and development in a way that is easy to follow and engaging. One of the highlights was the 35-minute audiovisual presentation about how the city was built and how the boroughs came together to become the New York City we know today. It was very complete, clear, and worth watching. We also really enjoyed another room dedicated to the history and construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. It added another fascinating layer to the visit, especially after seeing how much planning, engineering, and vision went into building such an iconic part of the city. This museum is definitely worth visiting, especially if you want to understand NYC beyond the typical tourist attractions. A great and unexpected stop.

Very small but well design museum. Each floor has two main galleries with plenty of information and interactive exhibits. I love how the exhibits were concise but powerful.

What a fabulous treasure in NYC! Highly recommend. We were so excited about our experience. Truly a great museum!

I have been coming here for at least 15 years. I generally like the feel and vibe. Yeah, admission can be little pricey. But if you want some interesting takes on the city, this is the place. Their current exhibit on the city and the revolution is well done. You will definitely learn some thing new. Unfortunately, the main draw for many is the Macken model of the city. Yes, it is an awesome piece of art. But how it is placed in the room makes it all but impossible to really examine, even with their provided binoculars. The highlight is the Timescape video. Just an incredible documentary of the city’s history. I did notice on this last video an ongoing glitch with the audio. Hopefully it will get fixed soon.

I got to experience this musuem on a warm New York night. It was full of people and families with children but never felt crowded. I took my Phone and used the Bloomberg app to walk at my own pace to each floor full of historical artifacts about New York and its history. Did I mention the interactive parts of the musuem? All along the walls there are phones that tell the story of a person in history and of New york. It was very popular. Like most musuems on Musuem mile there are days when you can enjoy the Musuem for free. WEDNESDAY IS THAT DAY at the Musuem of New York City

Skip “He Built This City” at all costs. You won’t be able to see a thing and the binoculars that are provided don’t work worth a damn. Total waste of time.

When I was there (April 2026), there were 3 floors open to the public. This is totally focused on the history of New York City. Upon entering, it is best to turn right. They have a room which starts with the Dutch settling in what was then New Amsterdam in 1609. The room is subdivided into sections based on key periods in New York history through the late 1800s. For instance, the Dutch era is 1609-1660. Then, you can cross over to the other side of the floor and they have a similar room that picks up where the first room leaves off and continues to the present. There are movies, interactive exhibits, artifacts, and things to read. There's a full scale model of New York City build from small stuff the size of Legos that you can see from 2 angles. I spent 75% of my time here. If you go down the stairs, there's a movie that is just under a half hour that summarizes all that you see from the entry level. If you go up the stairs, there's a room with what are called activist New York exhibits throughout time - similar set up to the first floor. There's a Songs of New York section which plays music over time - which I skipped. There's a photo gallery. I spent just over 2 hours there. Love that it is chronological. Great that they have the exhibits and a summary movie.

This understated but beautiful little museum is well worth a visit - for the 30 minute timescales film alone (who doesn’t love Stanley Tucci?!). We learnt so much about New York. Hot tip - it’s free on Wednesdays. Pop across to the Conservatory Gardens in Central Park while you’re there.

After 56+ years of living in NYC, my husband and I finally visited this terrific museum.

This museum was a disappointment. The artifacts add little to understanding the city, and the texts and video could be better viewed from your home computer or a book. I went to see the Macken model of the city, but they needed more room to show it properly, so viewers could walk on all sides. Even better would be several bridges over the model so the view could get a close look at more neighborhoods. In general, the museum seems to use only old technology and be underfunded.

This is a very awesome place to know the history of New York City! And you can see how it developed from a port city to now! Everything is well-organized! And definitely watch the film downstairs!

We enjoyed our visit to Museum of the City of New York. This time, we mainly came to see He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model, which was fun to explore. The museum itself is on the smaller side, but it offers a nice look at New York’s history, with exhibits on the city’s development, culture, and neighborhoods. It’s conveniently located near Central Park and Museum Mile, making it easy to pair with a walk or visits to other museums nearby.

Excellent intro to the history of nyc. I’m not a tourist but imo this is perfect for them and very good even fit residents. Nice use of audiovisual. I think it can be seen at a leisurely pace in 3 hours. Less if you move along. Nice 40 minute video n some shorter ones.

Very informative exhibits with the movies being most informative & enjoyable. Wonderful history lesson in front of our eyes.

Such a great, underrated museum! If you want to learn all about NYC’s history, you’re going to love this place.

This museum is the perfect place. Smaller and not so busy that you can actually take your time learning about the wonderful exhibits. The Gingerbread display is fascinating! The staff are so friendly and helpful.

We spent almost 4 hours in the museum. It consists of four floors, with several exhibits showing how New York grew from a tiny village to arguably the most important city on earth. The two best parts were both video. On the ground floor is a 30 minute documentary showing things like the Brooklyn Bridge going up, the Verrazano going up, the beginnings of the El trains, early subways, how the city started in lower manhattan and grew both north and into the suburbs. The movie was so good we watched it twice. The other video was a montage of scenes from movies filmed in or about New York like, Taxi Driver, Fame, Tootsie, the Warriors, On The Town, and many more. A lot of fun. There is a special exhibit on now, that apparently goes on every fall, where about a dozen professional and amateur bakers are invited to create buildings or other structures out of ginger bread. Not only did it smell great, there was a tenement house, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Chrysler Building, and many others, all made of ginger bread. Much more fun than I expected.

A lot to digest. So much information. Telling everyone I know to go and see for themselves. I especially enjoyed the gift shop.

I didn't even know this museum existed until I was researching what museums were free on certain days of the week. This was a great find and free all day on Wednesdays. All the exhibits were amazing, better than I expected. I really wanted to check out the Stettheimer Dollhouse which was very cool and offered insight on the Stettheimer sisters who I didn't know anything about. Urban Stomp: Dreams & Defiance on the Dance Floor is an unique exhibition that explores over 200 years of social dance in the city, from ballrooms and bars of the 19th century to the parks, living rooms, and clubs of today. “You Are Here” is a well-crafted video montage that pulls from movies set in New York across 16 screens. I also enjoyed the behind the scenes exhibit on how filmmaking evolved in New York, from studio sets built to emulate the city skyline to famous directors utilizing the gritty urban landscapes of the greatest city in the world. Songs of New York was an awesome interactive exhibit where you stepped on one of the five boroughs on a map to see the music icons that hailed from each borough. New York at its Core encompasses 400 years of history, starting when NYC was New Amsterdam before becoming the booming diverse city it is now. Activist New York highlights the social activism in New York City, past and present, including workers' rights and immigration reform. Don't forget to check out the gift shop filled with cute, kitschy New York oriented souvenirs.

Go on a pretty day and sit on top . We just rode it through the whole tour which took about one and a half hour.

The museum is located at the north-east side of central park, near Harlem. It is an excellent source of the history of New York (e.g., to learn about how New York gets massive funding from the New Deal from 1933-1943, how mid-class migrate away to suburb in 1950s-1960s, and how New York changes from a manufacture center to focus on culture and art.)

This museum is not to be missed. Start with the approximately 20 minute video on the first floor about the history of New York. It’s a good starting point for the rest of your visit. From there we visited the two rooms on the history of the city. There was so much information. I feel like I have a greater understanding of the city after going through these spaces. (Pro tip: grab a stool, there’s a lot of reading.) There’s a very well done film that’s about 30 minutes long on NYC film. I could watch it again since I know I missed parts due to where I was seated in the room (the film is along three walls). The exhibit on Shirley Chisholm was excellent. I honestly knew very little about her before visiting the exhibit. We spent four hours at the museum and didn’t see everything. I would definitely return. I wish I had visited at the start of our trip because I probably would have noticed some different things about the city after having visited the museum.

The museum was good. The video of the city was the best bit. Films set in new york was also interesting. It will take about 2 hours to walk around

Excellent exhibits and films covering the history of New York. The exhibits about all the many forms of music and dance from this area was terrific! We spent about 4 hours seeing it all.

This museum is super modern, clean, and easy to navigate—housed in a beautiful building along Museum Mile, overlooking Central Park. If you're into New York City culture or just curious about what makes NYC so unique and iconic, this place is for you. The exhibits cover a bit of everything: immigration, architecture, activism, fashion through postcards, graffiti, photos, and more. One of my favorite parts was the upstairs section dedicated to movies filmed in NYC, with famous scenes playing across multiple screens at once. I learned a lot and really enjoyed the visit. Whether you're a local or just visiting, it’s a great way to connect with the city’s story.

A varied and engrossing museum! To kick off, I enjoyed reading about the history of the city in New York at Its Core. The Songs of New York made for a fun, interactive musical interlude. My favourite, though, had to be Activist New York: stories of the many different examples of social movements.

This museum is fantastic and not to be missed! I suggest starting on the bottom floor with the very entertaining and informational half hour history video, then going all the way to the third floor and making your way slowly down. There are fantastic interactive display everywhere you look on New York's movies, music and dancing, activism, ect. Our favorite part was probably the looping display of movie clips, but everything was so engaging and interesting that neither I nor my teen wanted to leave! The gift shop had some very reasonably priced souvenirs too. The Shirley Chisholm exhibit runs into July and the graffiti exhibit runs into August. I highly recommend both.

If you love New York and her vibrant history, that’s the place for you. The Museum wasn’t busy at all when I visited and I enjoyed the first floor displays almost alone. The entrance is free for NARM members. The first wing on the first floor is the Port City gallery, which tells the story of New York City's remarkable three-century evolution from 1609 to 1898 It started as a small trading village shared by the Native people (Lenape) and the Dutch and gradually grew into the largest, most vibrant, densely populated, diverse, and prominent city in the United States. The Dutch created New Amsterdam, the center for their fur trade, and later the town has become a thriving seaport renamed New York by the English. In the 19th century, the city has became America's economic and cultural capital, attracting talented people from all over the world. By the 1890s, when New York was well on its way to becoming the world's second largest metropolis after London. The second wing on the first floor is dedicated to the events of the 20th and 21st centuries… the building of the subway system, the theater, the skyscrapers, the parks, the demonstrations and riots, the tragedy of the 9/11 and remarkable resilience of all New Yorkers. The museum tells you about New York prominent citizens, emigrants, diverse communities, their old and new traditions and the objects on display make their story settings come alive. I was not too interested in the temporary exhibits, but the Doll House installation is charming. And don’t miss the stellar staircase! It is full of light and absolutely breathtaking. The “Amy’s Bread” cafe on the second floor is a nice place for a cup of coffee and a delicious pastry.

Terrific museum, documenting the history of the city. Really well done. Multi media. Don’t miss the café featuring Amy’s bread. Took us about two hours.

What a wonderful museum. The Stettheimer dolls house exhibition was really interesting and it was lovely to see the house and all the detail that went into creating it. The exhibit on Shirley Chisholm was fantastic - what a roll model and trailblazer that lady was. I loved reading about the history of New York and its native people, the Lanape, as well as how the city has changed and developed since the 18th century. The exhibit on New York and various media projects was very interesting and it was great to see several screens showing a display of various films and shows that have been created in this magical city. The museum is in a beautiful neo-Georgian building, had a very interesting and reasonably priced cafe and the wasn’t too big as to be exhausting or overwhelming. I’d highly recommend! We did go on a Wednesday, which at the time of writing, the museum is free - worth bearing in mind! Book your tickets as close to the date as possible to benefit from this.

I went on a Members tour of the "Art Deco New York" exhibition at the museum before it closed. What was nice was it was a private tour and there were only ten of us with the curator of the exhibition. So we got a real behind scene of the exhibition. Some of the items on the collection was Ron Lauder's private collection of post cards, there was Art Deco architectural items such as the wooden models of Rockefeller Center and a complete collection of outfits from the early 1930's. It was an interesting look at Depression era architecture and how it influenced everything. What was nice was the curator was there to explain everything to us and give us her perspective of the exhibition. This is one of the nice things about being a member are these interesting tours and lectures. It really gives an in-depth look at exhibitions.

This is a fantastic museum for first time NY visitors. It takes you right through the history of NY, up to 2020, with great displays of artifacts and information boards. Go on a Wednesday - it's free entry, with a suggested donation if you want.

This museum has so many fun collections, which represent the diverse array of cultures, expressions, and history of New York City. We had to stop first to smell the best museum exhibit ever, the borough bake-off for best gingerbread houses. Though by this time, some of the construction was failing, the smell still lingered in the air. Another temporary exhibit was from the Martin Wong collection, celebrating the graffiti art of the 1970s and 1980s. This man's story and this man's love of art are both inspiring. We got to hear Shirley Chisholm's voice, read her words, and vote for her on a voting booth from the 1970s. And we also got to see how the other half lives through the eyes of their dollhouse. There were so many things to see and do for all ages. There were interactive exhibits, sights, and sounds. Definitely a must for all New Yorkers, who can pay as they wish, and definitely a place to return time and time again.

This was our first visit to this museum and we enjoyed it. We began as recommended with the half hour movie on the history and development of NYC narrated by Stanley Tucci. We enjoyed the immersive movie experience about filming in NY, the dollhouse, the Shirley Chisholm centenary exhibition, and the protests movement exhibit. As a bonus, the cafe (an Amy's Bread outpost) did a delicious and warming mushroom and barley soup - yum!

I cannot recommend this outstanding museum too highly. There was SO much to see with diverse and eclectic exhibitions including ones on Shirley Chisholm (very inspiring and informative), a history of protesting in NY, Art Deco in NY, an immersive room showing multiple clips from the myriad movies filmed in the city (much less chaotic than it sounds; absolutely absorbing and not at all frenzied) as well as the outstanding permanent exhibitions devoted of course to the development of the city from fields and trees to what it is today. Don’t miss the fascinating film showing in the basement along the same lines. I visited on a Wednesday, which is free, and I thought it might be horribly busy but apart from a small but very noisy group of children - easily avoided - it wasn’t crowded at all. The staff were very well informed, very welcoming and very friendly. I would have stayed longer but the icy air con eventually forced me out into the sun to defrost! Truly a wonderful experience.

Feels like this is a bit of a hidden gem as it doesn’t seem to be that busy. The video narrated by Stanley Tucci and the montage of films set in New York were particular highlights. The museum is easy to get to and from Midtown as there is a bus stop right outside.

This is one of the best museums in New York detailing history how it has grown, the people that made it possible, and the folks that are continuing to change New York for the good. A must see.

We enjoyed the very informative film apart from the inclusion of 'climate change' at the end. Several areas were closed so we just visited the ground floor history section. We found it very dark and could not read read the text well. Too much reliance on screens and artificial lighting so we did not enjoy this and did not linger. The entrance fee was rather high. However we were glad to find a proper visitors cafe which sold very good coffee and cakes!

A very cool little museum near Central Park. The 30 minute video narrated by actor Stanley Tucci is not to be missed. A very informative and entertaining of the history of the City's development. I think one of the best features of this museum is you will not get overwhelmed. It's a perfect way to spend one to two hours. And better yet, combine this museum with a bike rental. Get on your rental bike, ride 3 miles, exit near the museum, spend 90 minutes at the museum, and then finish your bike ride around Central Park.

I learned a lot and I was entertained it was really fun. Very interactive and you can choose what you want to learn more about so everyone can have a different experience. Really well executed. Highly recommended.

Compact small museum, well worth the admission & not too big that it becomes daunting. Well worth a couple of hours of anyone’s time

This is a cute and small museum! It's quite dense, so the size may mislead you to think 2 hours would be enough to see everything when in reality, it's closer to 4 hours. The ground floor has a 30 min video that summarizes a lot of the information on the ground floor, but all the artifacts and fun interactive displays are on the ground floor. Afterwards, the top two floors are rotating exhibits on NYC figureheads and their work. The art was so soft and engaging to look at, the NYC movie section on the fourth floor was clearly a hit, and all in all, I had an enjoyable afternoon that was well worth the price of admission.

I was not impressed by this museum. Timescapes, the video presentation of how the city has evolved, was the best bit. Very interesting. Really not much else to see. Even though it's technically free, you basically are obliged to pay $20 each. Not worth it, there are many better museums in the city.

I come here every time I am in NYC. The museum never disappoints. It is a very accessible and innovative museum. A first time visitor should start on the ground floor with Timescapes, a great telling of the basic story of the city. Then follow it up with the two exhibits about New York at its Core. Two exhibits that can deceivingly time consuming are closing soon. You are here is a kaleidoscope of sound and imagery that can be watched again and again. The restoration project is probably their best interactive learning classroom yet. Getting to chat with Gary was a wonderful experience.

An excellent exhibition about New Amsterdam's beginning, rename, cultural metamorphosis and the people who made this extraordinary city. EXACTLY what we were looking for. Beautifully laid out and very informative. So pleased to have gone

We enjoyed the movie in the basement. We would suggest guests do that first then visit floor, 1, 2, 3 in that order. Originally, the ticket agent said to do the reverse.