Howard Halle

New York boasts the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world, so it’s easy to understand why tourists and even local museums lovers might not realize that there’s a lot more destinations to visit than just The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim or MoMA. Those are of course, amazing places, but if you’re looking for something more off-beat, you should know the NYC hosts a whole ecology of smaller, niche museums with idiosyncratic offerings related to mathematics, magic and even elevators. Where can you find them? Why right here in our authoritative list of New York’s quirkiest museums. RECOMMENDED: Full guide to museums in NYC

La pintura es un antiguo medio que data desde hace 40,000 años atrás, cuando los primeros seres humanos aplicaron ocre y carbón a las paredes de una cueva para crear imágenes de animales o plantillas de sus propias huellas. En otras palabras, la pintura estuvo presente en el nacimiento del pensamiento simbólico, precediendo a la palabra escrita por alrededor de 35,000 años. Incluso con el inicio de la era moderna y la introducción de la fotografía, el cine y la tecnología digital, la pintura sigue siendo un medio de expresión que persiste a pesar de los pronunciamientos sobre su muerte. Es imposible mencionar cuántas obras han sido creadas durante milenios, lo que sabemos es que solo un porcentaje relativamente pequeño se consideran clásicos y se han vuelto familiares para el público. No es coincidencia que estos clásicos son producidos por algunos de los artistas más famosos de todos los tiempos. Esto puede parecer obvio, pero deja abierta la pregunta de qué combinación de talento, genio y circunstancia conduce a la creación de una obra maestra. Quizás la respuesta más simple es que reconoces una de estas pinturas cuando la vez, ya sea en alguno de los muchos museos de Nueva York o en instituciones en cualquier otra parte del mundo. Nosotros, por supuesto, tenemos nuestra opinión sobre lo que hace que tengan ese grado y los presentamos aquí en nuestra lista de las mejores pinturas de todos los tiempos. Recomendado: Las mejores frases sobre arte de artistas famosos.

As one of the major art hubs in New York City, Chelsea's gallery scene certainly takes the top spot as the best. Since the 1990s, the Chelsea gallery scene has been synonymous with the New York art world, even though numerous other neighborhoods (the Upper East Side, the Lower East Side, Midtown and Soho, as well as parts of Brooklyn and Queens such as Bushwick and Long Island City) have also gotten into the mix with myriad art galleries.  Even so, Chelsea remains the largest such district with scores of spaces to traipse through—including the flagship outposts of global mega-dealers Larry Gagosian and David Zwirner. RECOMMENDED: The ultimate guide to Chelsea Occupying roughly 10 blocks straddling 10th and 11th Avenues from 18th to 28th Streets, Chelsea was once home to hundreds of garages and warehouses. This industrial heritage is reflected in gallery interiors that tend to be large and generally free of columns, a combination that encourages extremely ambitious installations like those by the sculptor Richard Serra. This propensity for enormous art has drawn criticism in recent years, but in any case, Chelsea has seen its star dimmed somewhat thanks to an invasion of starchitect-designed residential buildings, and rising rents that have driven many galleries to other parts of town. Still, if you want to see tons of contemporary art, Chelsea is the place to be. To help find your way around, check out our select list of the best Chelsea art galleries. RECOMMENDED: Full guide

Free and cheap tickets to NYC's best museums? It's possible! One of the benefits of living in or visiting New York City is all the incredible cultural institutions and museums are at your beck-and-call like The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, MoMA or the Guggenheim. They are among the finest in the world—there’s just one hitch: They’re often pricey to get into. Unlike cities such as London or Washington, D.C., New York isn’t big on publicly funded museums, which is too bad, especially if you actually live here and have to pay most of your wages on food and rent. Granted, there are senior and student discounts, and memberships that let you get in gratis if you’re willing to pay for the annual fee. There is one alternative, however: most museums offer free hours or days and pay-what-you-wish admission. You just have to know where and when they are. We’ve got the info you need in our guide to all the free museum days and cheap admission in NYC you should know about, whether you live here or are planning a visit. RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best museums in NYC

America, the beautiful—indeed. The USA has no shortage of things to do and attractions to visit—from quirky landmarks to bustling urban centers—but enjoying its many natural wonders is arguably the best way to explore this vast, diverse country.  American landscapes span nearly every type of climate—you'll find everything from sprawling deserts to towering forests to stunning coastlines and humbling mountain ranges. When it comes to our top choices, here are the sights not to miss, including lava-spotting at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, waterfall hikes in Yosemite National Park, and experiencing the mist of Niagara Falls.

Nowadays, you'll see almost everyone on the streets with their phones out, thinking they're professional photographers, trying to capture the perfect foodie pic or landmark landscape for their Insta'. No shade though, smartphone cameras are pretty good when it comes to photo quality, and many of us are talented enough to get a great shot - even if we use filters that fix everything (no judgment here).  NYC is a photographer's wet dream. Whether it’s iconic buildings, stunning city views, beautiful churches, pretty parks or even incredible dishes and cocktails at the best restaurants and best bars in the city, you can get great shots of them all to share on social media. But for those who want to learn how to really capture the best pics, here are the best photography classes in NYC to get you started. Lights, camera, action.  RECOMMENDED: Full guide to classes in NYC This article includes affiliate links. These links have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, click here.

There are very few cities with the amount of incredible art that NYC has to offer. New York has the single largest concentration of galleries anywhere for one thing, and for another, has some of the finest museums in the world. And it's no surprise that being surrounded by such artistic wonders will spark a few creatives among you.  We say, go for it and channel your inner artiste. Why spend all of your time just looking at works of art, or taking selfies with them, when you can discover your inner Picasso or Van Gogh? We have just the list you need to find the best art classes in NYC for every taste and technique, from painting and sculpture to ceramics and silk-screen printing. RECOMMENDED: Find more classes in NYCRECOMMENDED: Best drawing classes in NYCRECOMMENDED: Best painting classes in NYCRECOMMENDED: Best pottery classes in NYC This article includes affiliate links. These links have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, click here.

The Metropolitan Museum, MoMA, the Guggenheim—we all love these museums, sure, but let’s face it: Once you get to any one of them, you mostly stand around and look at things. And when you’re not doing that, you’re reading wall labels. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! But sometimes you might want something with a little more action, something a little more…interactive. Luckily, this is New York City, which has just about everything, including museums that allow you to involve yourself with the displays. At some places, this means taking exhibitions augmented with audio-visual interfaces; at other locations, it means finding yourself in a fully immersive installation with the latest digital technologies like VR. Either way, if you’re looking for ways to heighten your museum-going experience, we’ve got recommendations for you in our list of the best interactive museums in NYC.   RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best New York attractions

When it comes to art museums, New York City suffers from an embarrassment of riches, with some of the greatest institutions in the world located right here in Gotham. Among them: The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—the big three of NYC art museums. Each is an iconic destination that draws millions of visitors from all over the globe, and it’s easy to see why. The Metropolitan Museum, for example, houses 5,000 years of art, with everything from Ancient Egyptian and Greco-Roman treasures to Renaissance and Impressionist masterpieces. The Met even has fabulous holdings of modern and contemporary objects, though, admittedly, MoMA is the go-to place on that score with what is arguably the most comprehensive collection of 20th- and 21st-century art in the world. The Guggenheim is no slouch when showcasing modern artworks as well, especially its hoard of abstract paintings by Wassily Kandinsky. But the icing on the cake remains the Gugg’s nautilus-shaped home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. With its breathtaking interior rotunda, the Guggenheim is Wright’s only major building here, making it one of the most important structures in New York, if not the entire world. Yet as amazing as they are, The Met, the Modern and the Guggenheim represent only the tip of the iceberg, as NYC boasts dozens more art museums, spread across the Five Boroughs—including must-see destinations in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. They all have

Born in Málaga, Spain, Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) is undoubtedly one of the most famous artists ever and for good reason. His name is virtually synonymous with modern art, and it doesn’t hurt that he fits the commonly held image of the outlaw genius whose ambitions are matched by an appetite for living large. He was a champion womanizer and wasn’t hesitant about spending the money fame had brought him (by the late ’50s, he owned five villas in the south of France.) And yet there’s no denying the fact that he changed the course of art history with revolutionary innovations that include collage and, of course, Cubism, which broke the stranglehold of representational subject matter on art, and set the tempo for other 20th-century artists. He utterly transformed multiple mediums, making so many works that it’s hard to grasp his achievement. Still, that hasn’t stopped us from trying with this list of best Picasso paintings and sculptures, scored 1 through 10. Here are Picasso’s best works.  RECOMMENDED:🗿 The top sculpture artists of all time🎨 The best museums and galleries in the world⛰️ The most beautiful places in the world🗺 The world's most underrated travel destinations

NYC is a top destination for viewing visual art, from world class art museums—including The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—that display some of the best artists spanning centuries to mind-blowing outdoor art and sculpture. To catch a glimpse of the current and cutting edge in the art world, New York’s legendary art galleries are not to be missed. Though there are well over 1,000 art galleries in the city, they’re concentrated in areas like Chelsea and the Lower East Side, making it easy to get your fill by tackling these recommended art walks in NYC. The best art walks in NYC will take you to iconic galleries that showcase major artists as well as up-and-comers making their mark in the world of art and design. View works from the likes of Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Yayoi Kusama and Richard Serra as well as artists who are bound to be big names too. These galleries feature painting, sculpture and installations that are sure to impress. And while you may not be able to make a purchase, these galleries are free to visit. So lace up your shoes, get moving and check out these amazing NYC art walks.

Among NYC’s art museums, MoMA’s collection of 20th-century artworks is arguably unrivaled among other holdings, like those of The Metropolitan Museum Of Art or the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. MoMA, after all, has “Modern Art” right in its name, and beginning in 1929, it pioneered the acquisitions of masterpieces in Postimpressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and abstraction—not to mention Pop Art and works by leading contemporary artists. Though MoMA possesses works in all mediums, its horde of paintings takes center stage in its collection, as you can see in our list of the best paintings at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). RECOMMENDED: A full guide to the Museum of Modern Art

As it names suggests, The Drawing Center is devoted to exhibiting and promoting works on paper, both historical and contemporary. A Soho stalwart since its founding in 1977, The Drawing Center is as much a museum as it is a gallery, but its wooden floors and cast-iron columns are reminiscent of Soho’s glory days as a gallery district. Admission is free thanks to the Cy Twombly foundation. 

A new drive-in has opened in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, offering "killer views of Manhattan's skyline" along with popular movie classics. Skyline Drive-In operates on a site that’s been used for shooting Fendi and Converse ads as well as the opening credits of Saturday Night Live. All ages. 

This immersive-slash-interactive art installation-slash-experience is the creation of Meow Wolf, an arts and entertainment group founded in in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2008. Opened in 2016 with the support of Game of Thrones creator, George R.R. Martin, House of Eternal Return is described as a "multidimensional mystery house with secret passages, portals to magical worlds, and an expansive narrative amidst surreal, maximalist, and mesmerizing art exhibits." While the outside of house seems normal, the inside offers tons of psychedelic fun, beginning with an ordinary kitchen with an equally ordinary fridge. Open its door and step inside to a trippy tour that takes you through a series of rooms ranging from an alien-looking cavern to a dreamlike forest fit for faries and elves. There's also a learning center for kids, a bar and a venue for live music. House of Eternal Return is scheduled to be joined by similarly mind-blowing outposts in Las Vegas and Denver.

Elizabeth Dee, the feisty owner of this gallery, opened her space in 2002 in Chelsea with a roster of fiercely Conceptual artists devoted to "philosophical inquiry as a platform." In 2016 she relocated to a bigger space uptown in Harlem, continuing a trend of galleries moving into that neighborhood.    

Known for his outspokenness and dandyish attire, Markus Lüpertz is a member in good standing of the Neo-Expressionist movement that emerged in Germany during the mid-postwar era. Still, while he has exhibited here frequently, he’s not as well known on this side of the Atlantic as his contemporaries Georg Baselitz and Anselm Kiefer. Now 76, Lüpertz gained notoriety for a series of canvases that delved into Germany’s Nazi past, with images of helmets and officers’ uniforms. But he’s also had a long-held fascination for mythological and pastoral themes from classical antiquity, an interest indulged in this show of new paintings. On view are scenes of nudes, male and female, posing within unspoiled settings of trees, fields and streams. In a couple of cases, the subjects are obtrusively crowded by blown-up platters of grapes or intruded upon by colossal sculptural heads. Elsewhere, horse bodies couple with figures to form centaurs. All of these subjects are painted in a moody palette of earth colors applied with broad, rough strokes; in one piece, for instance, a bluish-hued rendition of Narcissus is laid over a schematic sketch of a skeleton. For all its rugged texture, Lüpertz’s work put me in mind of Nicolas Poussin’s finely grained 1637–38 masterpiece, Et in Arcadia ego. In it, shepherds pause in a sylvan grove to inspect the titular inscription on a stone block, a phrase that translates into, “Even in Arcadia, there am I.” The “I” is generally interpreted to mean Death, who

Dealer Amy Greenspon opened this space in 2010 with then partner Mitchell Algus, a dealer known for reviving the reputations of long-forgotten artists notable for their eccentric work. They subsequently parted company and Greenspon now runs the operation on her own, representing a stable of contemporary artists—Austé, E’wao Kagoshima and Emily Sundblad, to name a few—who display their own idiosyncrasies in a variety of ways.

José Freire relocated his gallery from Chelsea to this high-ceilinged Soho space in 2006, confirming that downtown is once again the place to be. The place showcases such hotshots as Web artist Cory Arcangel and photographer Ryan McGinley, and also represents more established artists, including minimalist installation-assemblagist Ross Knight. In 2014, the gallery expanded to Los Angeles.

Dealer Michele Maccarone founded her namesake gallery in 2001 after a stint as gallery director at Luhring Augustine. Considered to be both outspoken and an activist for artists, Maccarone has grown her business from a storefront location on Canal Street to 8,000 square feet of exhibition space split between two addresses in the same building on the corner of Greenwich and Morton Streets in the West Village; she has an even larger branch in Los Angeles. Her list of artists consist of a mix of such young and mid-career names as Carol Bove, Nate Lowman and Oscar Tuazon.

This gallery has always gone to the beat of its own drum, with a history going back more than 30 years to the heyday of the now-vanished East Village Gallery scene. After sojourns in Soho and Chelsea, the gallery landed on Franklin Street in Tribeca in 2013. But for all of its peregrinations, Postmasters has stuck to a program that doesn’t always go with the commercial flow. So-called net artists working online and political activists, make up part of a stable that includes veterans (David Diao; Wolfgang Staehle) and emerging artists (Nidaa Badwan; Austin Lee).

The history of this non-profit art center stretches back to the artist paradise that was late-’60s, early-’70s Soho, where cheap rents and abundant loft space permitted ambitious, experimental work freed from the money-making constraints of the art market. 112 Workshop/112 Greene Street as it was originally known was founded in 1970 by artists Jeffrey Lew and Gordon Matta-Clark and set the template for alternative spaces across the country. Renamed White Columns nine years later, the gallery remained in Soho at various addresses until rising rents forced a move to the West Village in the 1990s. It’s been at its current location near the border of MePA since 1998 and continues its long-established mission of showcasing cutting-edge art.

Partners Carolyn Alexander and Ted Bonin launched their venture in 1995 and in the more than 20 years since migrated from Soho to Chelsea and then to their current location on Walker Street in Tribeca. They present shows of such mid-career artists as John Ahearn, Willie Cole and Mona Hatoum.

Italian and modern are the operative words for this space specializing in exhibitions of important, historical works by members of Italy’s 20th-century avant-garde. Visits have to be scheduled in advance and there is a $10 admission, but what you receive in return is the chance to get up close and personal with masterpieces by such greats as De Chirico and Morandi.

Except for occasional spates of speeding and drag-racing, the streets of New York City have been pretty quiet during the pandemic, thanks to a corresponding drop in traffic. And even as people stayed home, Mayor De Blasio closed off 23 miles of NYC streets to automobiles. These developments have led designers and urban planners to start imagining a car-free future for NYC once the current crisis passes. In fact, there have been proposals put forth to turn the Brooklyn Bridge into something more akin to the High Line; now, architect Vishaan Chakrabarti and his firm, Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), has released plans to greatly reduce the number of individually-owned cars entering Manhattan, while refashioning streets to cede space to pedestrians and bikes. PAU calls the project “N.Y.C. (Not Your Car),” and it is nothing if not ambitious. Besides restricting private motor vehicles and curbside parking, the program would enlarge sidewalks, replace car lanes with two-way bike paths protected by concrete barriers, increase dedicated bus lanes, create a new greenway along FDR Drive that would connect to the one on the West Side Highway, and dedicate more room on the Manhattan Bridge to ride-shares, buses, pedestrians and bikers. Whether or not any of this becomes reality remains an open question, but in the meantime, you can check out how PAU envisions the city with fewer cars in these before and after images. Park Avenue, Upper East Side:   Photograph: Courtesy PAU

We're in day two of NYC's Phase 1 re-opening, and along with substantial changes in subway service, Mayor Bill De Blasio has just announced a major expansion of the city's busway program. The plan would create 20 more miles of car-free corridors in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, and though it falls far short of the MTA's call to add 60 more miles, the mayor told Streetsblog that it was "a major step." You may recall that back in July of 2018, when anger over the L train shutdown reached fever pitch, the mayor announced plans for an express busway along 14th Street as a way of accommodating some of the 275,000 straphangers that were being affected by the suspension of L train service. From 6am to 10pm daily, cars (though not trucks, emergency vehicles or for-hire vehicles picking up or dropping off passengers provided they took the next right turn) were banned from traveling along 14th Street between Third and Ninth Avenues. Lawsuits by nearby residents and block associations delayed implementation of the program, but when it was finally cleared the courts, an 18-month pilot program began in October of 2019. It proved to be an instance success: What had once been one of the city's slowest bus routes became one of its fastest. The mayor also said that he was making the 14th Street busway permanent and extending it to Avenue C. “As New Yorkers head back to work, they’ll be relying on the bus more than ever, and I’m proud to offer them faster and more reliable options,” he said.

Hummingbirds are nature's helicopters, buzzing and hovering around flowers in a way that seems impossible for an animal. But that is why we're fascinated with them. They're hard to find in the city, though if you hang a hummingbird feeder outside your window between late March and early April, you may attract some of them on their annual migration across the region. However, if you want to increase your chances of seeing one, we recommend making a weekend getaway to the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, NY. There, you'll find Pollinator Pavilion, an interactive outdoor art installation by artists Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood, which is described as a "fantastical architectural setting that offers miraculous moments in which individuals can encounter hummingbirds."   Photograph: Courtesy the artists   Pollinator Pavilion is a 21 ½-foot-high, painted wood, architectural confection draped with flowers, plants, and paintings by the artists. It's designed to attract hummingbirds, allowing you to meditate on their essential role a pollinators of flowers and plants. The structure itself resembles something out of the Victorian Era, which seems only appropriate: Cole, whose house and studio occupies the site, was one of the leading painters of the Hudson River School during that period. His work is in collection of The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, but he's probably best known to New Yorkers for "The Course of Empire" a series of paintings at the New-York Historical Socie

Just as New Yorkers were eagerly anticipating the city's Phase 3 reopening, the coronavirus has come roaring back in places like Texas, Florida and California—threatening to undo all the work involved in flattening the Covid curve in New York. The pandemic, it seems, hasn't gone anywhere—and, neither for that matter, has its larger impact on society. It's against this backdrop that the Public Art Fund is mounting its latest project, "Art on the Grid." The rather abstract-sounding title belies the timely nature of the show, which presents works by 50 emerging artist on bus shelters and LinkNYC kiosks throughout the Five Boroughs. Each installation will offer a different take on just how much everything has changed in four short months. According to the Public Art Fund (which recently unveiled a major public art initiative for the new Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport), "Art on the Grid" is conceived as a "direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic," as well as to the "parallel epidemic of systemic racism." The artists are touching on themes such as "healing and loss; community and isolation; intimacy and solitude; and the creation of a future that is more just, inclusive and equitable." This isn't the first time the Public Art Fund has used bus shelters, and "Art on the Grid" employs 500 of them, plus an additional 1,700 LinkNYC kiosks. Works by ten artists are already on view at 100 sites, while an additional 40 artworks on 400 bus shelters will be unveiled on July 27. The projec

Since NYC went into lockdown, it's been strange days for New York's art world, with gallery exhibits limited to online viewing rooms and museums confined to offering virtual tours. But now, with the prospect of the city slowly beginning to lift the quarantine, all of that may change. Indeed, you might say an upcoming exhibition slated for Queens's Socrates Sculpture Park is a harbinger of things to come. Remarkably, the outdoor art showcase in Long Island City has been opened all of this time, because, well, it's a park. However, Socrates was only showing works installed before the crisis. Now, it's is making up for lost time with a new exhibition series, under the rubric, "Monuments Now," that will take place over the summer and fall. It kicks of with a trio of artists—Jeffrey Gibson, Paul Ramírez Jonas and Xaviera Simmons—presenting large-scale objects that take the premise literally. Gibson's piece, for example, consists of 40ft x 40ft plywood ziggurat inspired by the pre-Columbian earthen mounds created by indigenous people in the Mississippi Valley during the 13th century. It will be covered in a skein of brightly-colored geometric patterns.   Jeffrey Gibson, 'Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House'Photograph: Courtesy Jeffrey Gibson/Socrates Sculpture Park/Scott Lynch   Ramírez Jonas, meanwhile, is creating a functional community grill in the form of towering obelisk.   Photograph: Courtesy the artist and Socrates Sculpture Park   Finally, Simmons's bo

One of the biggest names in street art, the French artist who goes by the initials JR, has been very busy of late, especially in the Borough Of Kings. He was the subject of a recent, major exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, and as part of that show, he created a massive outdoor photo-mural mounted on a tower of shipping containers stacked on top of each other like giant Jenga blocks. Titled The Chronicles of New York City, it depicted a cityscape filled with more than 1000 real New Yorkers (including Robert De Niro!) who posed for the artist in a mobile studio: A 53-foot-long trailer truck which tooled around NYC in the summer of 2018 looking for passersby willing to have their picture taken.   Photograph: Courtesy Brooklyn Museum/Marc Azoulay/JR-ART.NET           Now, a large detail of that same piece has been installed on the side of the 80 Hanson Arts building in Downtown Brooklyn's cultural district, and it comes with a special interactive feature: An augmented reality function that allows you to point your phone at any specific individual in the image and hear their back story by downloading a free app (JR murals).   Photograph: Courtesy Brooklyn Museum/Marc Azoulay/JR-ART.NET                  

Like New York City's major art museums, Dia Beacon in Dutchess County, long a favorite destination for weekend getaways, has been closed since the onset of the pandemic. Now, it's announced that it will be reopening on August 7. As you might expect, social distancing measures will be in place. Hours will be reduced, as will the number of visitors at one time; face masks and advanced reservations will be also required, along with time tickets (which you can purchase here starting August 3). In addition to its permanent collection and long-term exhibitions of works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter and Richard Serra, the contemporary art showcase located at the old Nabisco plant in Beacon, NY, is also featuring a sound installation by acclaimed Detroit-based techno DJ and producer Carl Craig.   Photograph: Bill Jacobson Studio, New York, courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York   Meanwhile, Dia's location in the Hamptons—a repurposed firehouse in Bridgehampton, NY—is already re-opened with a yearlong installation of new work by the Conceptual artist, writer and filmmaker Jill Magid. The show is open on Saturdays and Sundays, and face masks are required. Visitors are being restricted to eight at a time. Most popular on Time Out - The 9 best streets for outdoor dining in NYC this summer- 13 hidden patios, backyards and gardens for outdoor dining in NYC- The 50 best family movies to watch together- The Metropolitan Opera streams a different free production every night

While tourists may have flown the coop at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for obvious reason, one hardy soul has decided to drop in for an extended stay: A female brown duck has built her nest in a planter on the The Met's Cantor Rooftop Garden. Ordinarily a showcase for outdoor art installations by today's leading contemporary artists, the roof has now been repurposed as an anatine nursery. View this post on Instagram 📣 DUCK ALERT 📣 ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ There's a quacker on the #CantorRoof! This mama bird has decided that The Met's rooftop fits the bill for a prime nesting spot. 🦆 🐣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Met staff are keeping an eye on our feathered friend and have enlisted the help of @nycparks Urban Park Rangers to assist in transporting mama and her ducklings to the Central Park pond when they're ready to make a move.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ In the meantime, we're falling in love and searching for the perfect name for our sweet little lady. ⬇️ Drop your most egg-cellent name suggestions in the comments below. (Extra points if they're art-themed!) ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ [Image descriptions: A brown duck nests comfortably in a planter on The Met's roof. An alternate angle of the same duck nesting amidst bright green foliage.] A post shared by The Metropolitan Museum of Art (@metmuseum) on Jul 24, 2020 at 8:04am PDT A photo of the duck has been posted on The Met's Instagram account, along with a message speculating that the bird must have decided on The Met's roof as the place to lay her eggs because it "fits the bill." W

Have you ever considered boating down the Gowanus Canal? Yeah, that Gowanus Canal. Famed for its “black mayonnaise,” the waterway nicknamed lavender lake seems like an unlikely destination for such an expedition, and admittedly, the idea sounds as crazy as swimming there, but people have done it. (In fact, they’ve have done both.) If you’re so inclined, however, we’ve got good news: Untapped New York is now offering canoe tours of the canal. Sponsored in concert with The Gowanus Dredgers, a volunteer group dedicated to providing access to and education about the canal since 1999, the excursion is described as a “a secret, one of a kind, personal sunset cruise,” which will set sail for two excursions on August 13 and August 18 at 7pm. You’ll be outfitted with life vests that have been sanitized and isolated for at least 72 hours before use, and wearing masks and other social distancing measures will be required. A tour guide will narrate your journey, offering tidbits on Gowanus history and landmarks of interest. With the federal EPA now it the midst of a massive clean-up of the canal, it’s only a matter of time before its gritty industrial charms fade from memory. So, if you want to catch the Gowanus in all of its toxic glory, a canoe is waiting for you. Tickets are $35 for the one-and-a-half hour tour, and you can book them here. Most popular on Time Out - You can now get day passes for the gorgeous pool at the William Vale- Everything you need to know about Phase 4 reopeni

This spring, Frieze New York cancelled its annual art fair under the tent on Randalls Island due to the coronavirus, but it wasn't the only casualty: Its concurrent Frieze Sculpture at Rockefeller Center presentation ran afoul of the pandemic, too. But now that NYC is beginning to emerge from the Covid-19 crisis, Frieze's outdoor art showcase, which debuted in 2019 to much acclaim, is back on with an opening date of September 1. Six international artists—Ghada Amer, Beatriz Cortez, Andy Goldsworthy, Lena Henke, Camille Henrot and Thaddeus Mosley—will be featured in the show's second edition, which is being curated by Brett Littman, Director of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum in Long Island City. According to Littman, this year's exhibit is being inspired by "the site’s and the city’s natural materials of earth, rock, and plants,” an environmental theme meant to coincide with the show’s original opening date on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Works include a garden installation; a takeover of Rockefeller Center’s flagpoles by banners colored with earth gathered from each of the 50 states; and a series of bronzes cast from wooden sculptures sourced from salvaged timber. The show runs until October 2, and you can find preview images of some of the works below.   Ghada Amer, All Oppression Creates A State Of WarPhotograph: Courtesy the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York/Aspen, © Ghada Amer         Andy Goldsworthy, Red FlagsPhotograph: Courtesy the

As the saying goes, when one door closes another one opens, and such is the case with the brutalist architectural masterpiece formerly known as The Met Breuer (so named for its designer, Marcel Breuer). Back in June, The Metropolitan Museum Of Art announced that it was closing its contemporary and modern art satellite for good to make room for The Frick Collection—all part of a deal, necessitated by budget woes, that came out of the collapse of The Met's ambition to to establish a rival to MoMA and the Guggenheim by renting the former Madison Avenue address of The Whitney Museum Of American Art, opened in 1966. To mark the changing of the guard, The Frick (which is taking over the remainder of the lease while its Upper East Side home is being substantially expanded) just released the name of its new venue: Frick Madison. Though it sounds like an advertising firm, Frick Madison represents a new, if temporary, venture for an institution known for its renowned collection of Old Master paintings, sculpture and furnishings. It's also the first time in 85 years that it's left the confines of the Frick Mansion at 1 East 70th Street. The Frick Madison is planning to open to the public in early 2021 with an installation of collection highlights organized for the first time chronologically and geographically. Context is everything when it comes to mounting exhibitions, so it will be interesting to see how the museum's objects interact with the midcentury aesthetics of their new digs. M

Short of flying into the sun, few things are as hellish as a July heat wave in NYC, and now, one has set up over our area that's expected to continue through the end of this week—and even into the next. (These things can linger: a heat wave in 2016 lasted six days.) Highs will be above 90 degrees for much of that time, while daytime temps won't get any lower than the high 80s; thunderstorms will also be rocking the city. On top of that, the heat index will make it feel like it's well north of 100 degrees. The culprit is the jet stream, which is staying well north of much of the U.S. due to a double high pressure system: One pushing up tropical air from the south across a region from SoCal to the Plains states, and another over the Great Lakes spreading high temps into our area. To beat the heat in the meantime, here are some ways to keep cool: -Limit going outdoors, especially at midday. If you must, stay in the shade. Otherwise, remain inside with the AC on. If you don't have an air conditioner, go to one of the city's cooling centers; find one near you here, or call 311. (Pro Good Samaritan Tip: If you have elderly neighbors, check in on them, and suggest going to one if they lack AC.) -Stay hydrated, and don't wait to drink water until you are thirsty. Avoid alcohol, since it can lead to heat stroke by interfering with body's ability to regulate its core temperature. -Wear loose-fitting, lightweight clothes. Avoid donning dark colors while outdoors since they absorb sunlig