Museum Mile Festival

I don’t get the negative reviews here. The Museum Mile Festival ROCKS! According to their website, this festival was initiated during the 1970s financial crisis to increase support for the arts. Because of the success of the festival, the City of New York officially designated Fifth Avenue from 82^nd to 105^th streets as «Museum Mile.”­ You have access to nine museums: The Africa Center, El Museo del Barrio, the Museum of the City of New York, the Jewish Museum, Cooper Hewitt, the National Academy, the Guggenheim, the Met, and the Neue Gallery. There is also entertainment on the street. Yes, it’s crowded, and yes, it isn’t easy to see more than 4 – 5 out of 9 museums due to the long lines, especially at the Guggenheim. However, there are stalls, such as the one outside the Museo del Barrio, that hand out coupons for free admission at a future date. I need a good 4 – 5 hours to really explore museums, so I don’t expect to see all the museums during the festival. I just feel happy to be part of en effort to promote and protect the arts, and to see folks around me hungering to soak some more culture. Excellent!

It gets crowded, but it’s free — so what can you do? Lines can get very long, so it’s important to choose which museums you’re going to go to carefully. This means don’t bother with the ones that are regularly donation based or have frequent free hours. My recommendations are National Academy Museum (never has free hours, features innovative modern art from slightly less known artists) and Neue Galerie (only has free hours once a month for a few hours, features traditional to modern art with Austro-​Hungarian/​German focus). If you’re there super early, you can try lining up for the Guggenheim (since their weekly free hours also have long lines), but the line for this balloons after half an hour. There are usually interesting events going on along Fifth Avenue, so check those out too!

Lame! What festival the street is blocked off but there is NO festival. Zero food (except the usual pretzel guy and whoopie a yogurt cart in front of Guggenheim). All this is an enormous crowd trying to wait in lines for free to the museums. I mean literally all the kids had to do was chalk the sidewalks. Nothing happening.
This is Not any festival there is nothing going on we walked the entire thing the whole stretch hoping for food or entertainment ahh maybe clothing vendor?. The vendors of this city lost alot of money not being there, everyone was saying where is the food? LAME… Boring.

The line into the Guggenheim was horrendously long, but there was no line going into the Met. About ¹⁄₃ of the Met was open. The second floor required finding an obscure elevator, so it was less crowded than the first floor.
There were people breaking the rules all over the place, taking photos with flash (causing light damage to the art), and putting their hands on Egyptian sculptures (causing damage via oils in the skin).
It’s always nice getting into museums for free, so I enjoyed that aspect very much.

The Museum Mile festival is held every year, usually in June on the second Tuesday of the month. It stretches along 5^th Avenue between 82^nd and 105^th, which is roughly a mile. The street is closed off to cars, and a number of performers line the street entertaining the crowd. Kids can enjoy themselves at several of the activities like chalk drawings, face painting, balloons, magic etc.
As for the museums, 10 museums opened their doors to the public free of charge between 6 and 9 PM. The participating museums for 2013 included
Museum for African Art
El Museo del Barrio
Museum of the City of New York
The Jewish Museum
Cooper-​Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution —
National Academy Museum and School
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Neue Galerie New York
Goethe-​Institut New York /​German Cultural Center
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
If you are interested in just going to the museums, I would suggest going on a less crowded day. The lines to enter the museums can be pretty long. Yesterday, we didn’t face any queues to enter the Met although it was a little crowded once we got inside. I did see a long queue outside the Neue Galerie. Some of the exhibits at the Met were closed, we still had a great time exploring the museum.
Even if you don’t get into any museum, if you are in the neighborhood drop by to enjoy one of the largest block parties.

Love this Festival! I try to go every year. Get there early because some of the lines are crazy long! I wasn’t able to get into Guggenheim :(
Its also a street party with arts and crafts for kids, music, dancers, quotes written in chaulk throughout Fifth Ave… just a good old-​fashioned time. Great for date! Only held once a year, on the second Tuesday of June.

This is more about the party on the blocks of car-​free 5^th Avenue than it is about getting into a museum. the lines are horrendous, I suggest coming either a) very early or b) another day if you want to get into the museums themselves. Forget about visiting more than one.
That being said, it’s fun to see the crowds and the many people that show up to get into the museums — makes you proud and at the same time wonder about how many people would take advantage if it was free to the public (like the Smithsonian).

The Museum Mile Festival is one of my favorite festivals in New York, though it does tend to be ridiculously draining. The 9 museums along Fifth Ave. on the Upper East side all open their doors to the public for free! (I love free things). Music, drawing, and an excuse to wander through the fancy rooms and galleries of places like the National Academy Museum, Neue Galerie and the Goethe Institut, which may be more valuable for people like me who have membership to the Met/​Gugg and end up there at least once a week anyway.
For those who rarely venture above 14^th street, the Festival is a great excuse to play on the Upper East Side, and try that restaurant or café you’d read about on Unilocal but thought you’d never go to because it wasn’t in your ‘hood. An additional bonus: for non-​members, the week of the Festival is probably the only time that it’s ok not to pay the suggested donation at the Met.

Boy, am I glad I checked my e-​mail yesterday afternoon. Had it not been for the Weekly Unilocal of June 13^th, I would have forgotten all about «New York’s Biggest Block Party» held last night, because I had had other plans, which fell through.
This 28^th annual festival closes Fifth Ave. to traffic from 82^nd St. to 105^th St. to provide free access to museums along the Museum Mile, magic shows and other entertainment for children, live bands outside the museums. For instance, there was a great Rock ‘n Roll band, Soul Shakers, in front of the Museum of the City of New York; Metropolitan Klezmer outside the Jewish Museum; Los Ciegos del Barrio by El Museo del Barrio, etc.
We walked our feet off going from one end to the other and back again, stopping in eight museums, and walking through the Conservatory Gardens.
What a glorious night — the weather was just perfect. It was wonderful to join my fellow New Yorkers in this beautiful annual event. And no reservations necessary! Thank you, Unilocal