NYC ~ Beat the Heat at a Museum

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How do you escape the heat of New York City during the summer? Pop into one of the city's many museums to chill out on a hot summer day...

Everyone who has been reading this blog for a while knows one of my all time favorite places in New York is the Metropolitan Museum of Art...and starting July 1st, for the first time since 1971, it will be open seven days a week! Be sure to check out the views from the roof while enjoying your favorite cocktail.  The current "must see" exhibit at the Met is Punk: Chaos to Couture at the Costume Institute - until August 14th. The Met is open late on Friday and Saturday evenings. For past posts on the Met, go here and here .
 

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A little further up Fifth Avenue is The Guggenheim with its iconic circular architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright.  It has an extensive permanent collection featuring  masterpieces by Cézanne, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Picasso, Pissarro, Renoir, and Van Gogh. Until September 25th, there is also a very popular exhibit by lighting artist, James Turrell.  It is Turell's first exhibition in a New York museum since 1980. At its core is Aten Reign (2013), a major new project that recasts the Guggenheim rotunda as an enormous volume filled with shifting artificial and natural light. The Guggenheim is closed Thursdays and is open late on Saturday evenings.

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You don't want to miss Rain Room at The Museum of Modern Art which ends on July 28th. It is a carefully choreographed downpour creating a field of falling water which visitors walk through to experience how it might feel to control the rain. The permanent collections at the MoMA are always worth visiting as well, particularly the Sculpture Garden and the Painting Galleries. MoMA is open every day and is open late on Thursday nights in the summer and every Friday night. Plan to eat at MoMA - there are two cafes and an excellent restaurant, The Modern, all by famed restaurateur, Danny Meyer.

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Other special exhibits at museums around the city include:

 At the Whitney Museum of American Art, an exhibit of Edward Hopper Drawings as well as selections from their permanent collections of modern American art.
 

At the Frick Collection, a special exhibit of clocks and watches, as well as the permanent collections discussed here.

Whales: Giants of the Deep at the American Natural History Museum.

At the American Folk Art Museum, the model for Marino Auriti's Encyclopedic Palace of the World, the theme for the Venice Biennale discussed here.

You will never run out of things to do in Manhattan, but if you are visiting on a hot and humid summer day, a visit to any one of these museums will definitely NOT disappoint!