Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met: An Entire World's Art on the Edge of Central Park

Step through the Great Hall on Fifth Avenue and you enter a building where you can pass from a 4,000-year-old Egyptian temple to a Manhattan living room by Frank Lloyd Wright, then to Vincent van Gogh's cypresses, without going back outside. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, known to everybody as the Met, is the largest art museum in the Americas and one of the biggest on Earth, with around 1.5 million works organised into seventeen curatorial departments.

In fiscal year 2025 the Met drew roughly 5.7 million visitors, making it the most visited museum in the United States. Its collection covers five thousand years, and there is no single "right" way to see it: some visitors come for one painting, others return for years and still find rooms they have not entered.

About the Museum

In 1866, at a Fourth of July dinner in Paris, the American lawyer John Jay proposed founding a national art museum for the United States. Four years later, on 13 April 1870, a group of financiers, artists and civic leaders incorporated the Met in New York. The first collection was modest and lived in rented premises on Fifth Avenue and later on West 14th Street, before moving to its current site in Central Park.

The first section of the current building, a red-brick Gothic Revival structure designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould, opened in 1880. Since then, wing after wing has been added around it. The grand Beaux-Arts facade facing Fifth Avenue was designed by Richard Morris Hunt and completed in 1902, and later extensions gave the museum its current footprint.

The museum has two locations. The Met Fifth Avenue holds most of the collection; The Met Cloisters, in Fort Tryon Park in upper Manhattan, focuses on medieval art and architecture and was assembled from parts of European monasteries. Long-term plans announced in recent years also include closer ties with the Neue Galerie, expected around 2028.

The Collection

The Met's holdings number about 1.5 million works, organised into seventeen curatorial departments and covering some five thousand years of human creativity from every inhabited continent. It is the largest art museum in the Americas and one of the largest anywhere by floor area.

Depth is the defining trait. The Asian Art department alone holds more than 35,000 objects, Greek and Roman Art about 17,000, Arms and Armor around 14,000, and the Costume Institute over 35,000 garments and accessories. Painting, sculpture, photography, musical instruments, furniture and works on paper fill many other galleries.

What Can You Explore?

Among seventeen departments, these are the ones most visitors want to see.

• Egyptian Art and the Temple of Dendur. The sandstone temple was a gift from Egypt to the United States in 1965 and reassembled in a glass-walled gallery in 1978, its reflecting pool echoing the Nile. Nearby galleries show tomb chambers, jewellery and sculpture.
• The American Wing. Paintings, silver, furniture and a courtyard filled with sculpture, including Emanuel Leutze's monumental Washington Crossing the Delaware and rooms furnished in the style of successive eras of American life.
• European Paintings. Works by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Caravaggio, Monet, Cézanne and Van Gogh, many in bright, daylit galleries.
• Asian Art. More than 35,000 objects fill about 64,500 square feet, including Chinese painting and calligraphy, Japanese screens, Indian and Southeast Asian sculpture and a full Ming-style garden court.
• Greek and Roman Art. About 17,000 objects, from painted vases to marble portraits.
• Arms and Armor. Around 14,000 items, the finest of which include a parade of mounted knights in full armour.
• The Costume Institute. More than 35,000 costumes and accessories from the fifteenth century to the present, staged in atmospheric annual exhibitions. Each spring the Institute hosts the Met Gala, a fundraising event tied to its opening.
• Modern and Contemporary Art. Picasso, Pollock, Jasper Johns, Georgia O'Keeffe and photography by Alfred Stieglitz and others sit near the Fifth Avenue side of the building.
• The Cloisters and its Unicorn Tapestries. A short journey north for medieval manuscripts, stained glass and gardens.
• The Roof Garden. In warmer months, a seasonal terrace with commissioned art and a view over Central Park and the skyline.

Museum Architecture & History

The Fifth Avenue facade is grand enough to meet the scale of the city outside, with paired columns and huge arched windows. Inside, the Great Hall carries visitors under a broad dome and toward the central staircase, and the building tucks courtyards, glass pavilions and quiet galleries into its layers.

Some rooms are reconstructions in their own right. The Astor Court, a Ming dynasty-style garden courtyard, was built by Chinese craftsmen in 1981. Period rooms in the American Wing and European galleries let you walk through interiors rebuilt from historic houses.

Online Collections & Research

The Met's website offers a searchable catalogue of hundreds of thousands of objects, with high-resolution photography, and a large share of it is available under open-access terms for reuse. Scholars can also consult the Thomas J. Watson Library, one of the world's great art-history libraries, and the Department of Drawings and Prints, which grants access to works on paper by appointment.

Visitor Experience

You cannot see everything, and the wisest visitors do not try. A few strategies help.

• Pick two or three departments. Visit the Egyptian wing, an art period you love and a favourite painter, and let the rest be a bonus.
• Start at the top. Most people begin on the ground floor, and the upper floors are quieter.
• Use side entrances. The 81st Street entrance is often less crowded than the main steps.
• Book meals or coffee. The museum has several cafés and a members' dining room, and the rooftop bar operates in warmer months.
• Check the daily schedule. Free gallery talks and short tours run throughout the day, and they are a great way to see something you would otherwise walk past.

Planning Your Time

A well-paced half day at the Met can follow this line: start in the Egyptian wing, where the Temple of Dendur sits in its glass hall, then walk through the Greek and Roman galleries to the European paintings for Vermeer and Van Gogh. Take a break in the American Wing's sculpture court, and end in the modern and contemporary galleries or the Costume Institute if it is on. On a warm day, finish on the roof garden for a view across Central Park.

Friday and Saturday evenings, when the doors stay open until 9:00 pm, offer a quieter atmosphere and a pleasant end to a day of sightseeing. Weekday mornings and Sunday afternoons are the calmest, while holiday weekends bring long lines at the main steps. Because the museum is closed on Wednesdays, most New York itineraries build a Met day around Thursday, Friday or the weekend. The Cloisters deserve a separate morning uptown.

Visit

The Met Fifth Avenue is open Sunday to Tuesday and Thursday from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, and on Friday and Saturday from 10:00 am to 9:00 pm. It closes on Wednesdays, Thanksgiving Day, 25 December, 1 January and the first Monday in May, the day of the Met Gala. The Cloisters keep separate hours, so check the website if you plan to visit both.

Tickets

• Adults: $30
• Seniors (65+): $22
• Students: $17
• Visitors with disabilities: $22
• Children 12 and under: free
• New York State residents, and New York, New Jersey and Connecticut students: pay what you wish, with a minimum of a single cent per ticket.

Admission covers the Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters on the same day, and it often includes most special exhibitions. Prices and policies change, so check the official website before buying.

Getting There

The main entrance is on Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, along the eastern edge of Central Park, in a stretch known as Museum Mile.

• Subway: Take the 4, 5 or 6 trains to 86th Street and walk about 10 minutes west and south, or ride the crosstown M79 or M86 bus lines.
• Bus: The M1, M2, M3 and M4 run along Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue and stop close to the front steps.
• On foot: From the park, enter at 79th or 84th Street and follow the paths to the museum's back.

The Cloisters can be reached by the A train to 190th Street or by the M4 bus, which runs the length of Fifth Avenue up to Fort Tryon Park.

Accessibility & Visitor Services

The building is fully accessible: lifts, ramps and accessible entrances make every department reachable, and wheelchairs can be borrowed at the coat check. Distances between wings are long, and the Great Hall can be loud, so the museum offers quiet hours and sensory-friendly programmes for visitors who need them. Sign-language interpretation and audio description can be arranged with advance notice, and cloakrooms at the Great Hall and the north and south entrances take coats and bags.

Who Is It For?

• Art history students who will find nearly every period of European and American art.
• Fashion and textile lovers drawn by the Costume Institute's exhibitions.
• Photographers and designers, who will find inspiration in the museum's photography holdings and its decorative arts.
• Families, thanks to the Egyptian galleries, the armour collection and the family-friendly programmes.
• First-time visitors to New York who want a rainy-day option that still feels iconic.

Things to Know

• Wednesday is a closed day: New Yorkers often plan around it, and it also closes on Thanksgiving, 25 December, 1 January and the first Monday in May.
• Pay-what-you-wish has rules: The pay-what-you-wish price applies to New York State residents and to students from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut with valid ID.
• Choose your departments: With seventeen departments and 1.5 million works, a focused plan works better than wandering.
• Tickets cover The Cloisters: Admission includes the medieval branch in Fort Tryon Park on the same day, which is worth using.
• Use the side entrances: The 81st Street entrance is often less crowded than the front steps.
• Costume Institute changes: Its exhibitions are timed around the spring gala, so check what is on before you go.

Explore the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Whether you have three hours or three days, the Met rewards a plan. Choose your priorities, check the schedule and ticket prices on the official website, and leave space for one gallery you didn't expect to love.

Visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art

For current opening hours, tickets, accessibility services and exhibitions, visit the official Metropolitan Museum of Art website before you travel.

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