NYC Marathon recovery culture days

Get your Culture on with Free Days at New York’s Museums

As your muscles recover and the mercury plummets, this week is the perfect time to get your culture on with some easy strolling at museums. You know where to go for world-famous collections and touring exhibits; but did you know that New York City’s top museums have free days? Below are a few of our favorites.

The Museum of Modern Art is free for all visitors during UNIQLO Free Friday Nights, 4 to 8 p.m. The line for UNIQLO Free Friday tickets begins at the Museum’s 54 Street entrance, but to avoid long lines, visitors are strongly encouraged to arrive after 6 p.m. Your UNIQLO Free Friday Night ticket permits entry to all museum galleries and exhibitions. Among current exhibits: Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983; and Items: Is Fashion Modern?

Guggenheim offers pay-what-you-wish entry for all visitors every Saturday, from 5:45 to 7:45 p.m. A line forms at 5:15 p.m., and the last ticket is issued at 7:15 p.m. Every Friday and Saturday through December 16, the museum will screen films from a series curated by Ai Weiwei and Wang Fen, “Turn It On: China on Film, 2000–2017.” The series features 20 works by more than a dozen filmmakers, rarely seen documentaries from contemporary China; it accompanies the exhibition Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World.

The Frick Collection is free every first Friday of the month (except January and September) from 6 to 9 p.m. Every Wednesday from 2 to 6 p.m. is pay-what-you-wish. Currently on exhibit: Fired by Passion: Masterpieces of Du Paquier Porcelain from the Sullivan Collection; 
Veronese in Murano: Two Venetian Renaissance Masterpieces Restored; and Murillo: The Self-Portraits.

New Museum is pay-what-you-wish every Thursday evening, 7 to 9 p.m. The museum celebrates its 40^th anniversary this year, with an exhibit that reflects on the institution’s pursuit of groundbreaking art and ideas and its legacy of questioning the structures and functions of museums: Pursuing the Unpredictable: The New Museum 1977–2017.

Brooklyn Museum is free every first Saturday of the month (except September). Current exhibits include: Roots of “The Dinner Party”: History in the Making; Soulful Creatures: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt; and A Woman’s Afterlife: Gender Transformation in Ancient Egypt.