The Morgan Library & Museum

The Morgan Library & Museum is a major exhibition venue for fine art, literature, and music, one of New York's great historic sites, and a wonderful place to dine, shop, and attend a concert or film. Even if the outside of the building seems like not to inspire you, get ready to go inside... and fall in love with art.

I visited it today since on Fridays it's free (from 7pm to 9 pm), and I couldn't pick a better location for this Friday 13th: I was surrounded by manuscripts by Edgar Allan Poe, included the one with The black cat story, published in 1843.

This museum, which at the beginning was simply the private library of financier J. Pierpont Morgan- definitely very different from my own!- later was donated to the city as an artistic gift. True, a gift. Having the chance to see original drawings by Michelangelo, Monet and Picasso, as well as being able to see 3 Bibles printed by Johannes Gutenberg in 1455, is something really extraordinary, and even if I am not a big fan of paintings, I spent at least 10 minutes focused on the images in the Bible.

From drawings to music- there are sheet music handwritten by Beethoven and Mozart- to books. If you are not a bookaholic, you can't understand my orgasm(s) in front of letters  written by J.D. Salinger to an aspiring novelist, a copy of Frankenstein annotated by Mary Shelley, manuscripts by Twain, Steinbeck and Wilde, and an original edition of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol that’s displayed every yuletide. I was in Heaven, and I couldn't ask for anything more.

 Autograph letter to John Augustus Shea, requesting revisions to The Raven. February 4, 1845

 © The Morgan Museum

Oh well, I had the chance to be able to take pictures! Photos are not allowed inside the galleries of the museum, and the private guards check all your movements, so it's pretty hard to break the rule... but someone has to do it, right?

The Picture of Dorian Gray autograph manuscript, 1890.  

 © The Morgan Museum

I also learned that there is literary prize I didn't know about, the Man Booker Prize, awarded every year for the best original novel written in English. Those books, such as The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy (winner in 1997) and Life of Pi, by Yann Martel (winner in 2002).

Definitely a must place to visit for people who love art, literature and paitings. If you don't, it's never too late: go to vist the museum when it's free, and I'm pretty sure you will change your mind...

How to get there

By subway:
6 to 33d Street
4, 5, 6 or 7 to Grand Central
B, D, F, Q to 42d Street

By bus:
M2, M3, M4, Q32 to 36th Street

PATH to 33d Street


 

Hours

The Morgan Library & Museum and the Morgan Shop are open:
Tuesday through Thursday: 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Friday: 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Saturday: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The Morgan closes at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve and at 5 p.m. on New Year's Eve and the 4th of July.
Closed Monday, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day.

Admission

Adults: 18$
Children (13–16): 12$
Seniors (65 and over): 12$
Students (with current ID): 12$
Free to members and children 12 and under (must be accompanied by an adult)

Admission is FREE on Fridays from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.