Dubbing themselves “New York City’s Biggest Block Party”, the Museum Mile Festival is coming on June 13th and it’s going to be pretty amazing. From 6 pm to 9 pm that evening, there will be free admittance to The MET, The Guggenheim, El Museo Del Barrio, Museum of the City of New York, The Jewish Museum, Cooper Hewitt Design Museum AND the Neue Gallery. That’s an insane amount of free culture right on one street to enjoy. Many of these museums also have special temporary exhibits in addition to their permanent ones; the Guggenheim has several running, including “Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim.”
But beyond that, there will be free salsa dancing lessons, live music, arts and crafts stations and drop-in-drawing opportunities.The festival is happening rain or shine and spans the length of 5th Avenue from 82nd Street to 105th Street. There will also be plenty of kids activities, ranging from art & education to playgrounds. The entire strip of 5th Avenue is closed to traffic and the opening ceremony will take place just before the official kick-off of the festival, at 5:45 pm in front of El Museo Del Barrio.
The first festival ever was held in 1978, so there’s some rich history here, not only inside the museums themselves! The total visitors since then has surpassed over one million since the festival first started.
Getting there is easy; just hop the 4/5/6 to 86th street, and then soak in some culture!