The Museum Mile Festival is a free open house block party, put on by the museums on Fifth Avenue’s Museum Mile. It’s on the second Tuesday in June.
Fifth Avenue closes to traffic. The Avenue fills with people and family-friendly street entertainment. You can visit the museums for free. It’s one of the highlights of summer in New York City.
Museum Mile Festival 2023
The 2023 Museum Mile Festival is Tuesday, June 13, 2023 from 6-9pm, rain or shine. It’s FREE!
#MMF2023
Museum Mile
Museum Mile is Fifth Avenue along Central Park from 82nd Street to 109th Street in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
It includes these museums:
- Metropolitan Museum of Art at 82nd St
- Neue Galerie New York at 86th St
- Guggenheim Museum at 89th St
- Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum at 91st St
- Jewish Museum at 92nd St
- Museum of the City of New York at 103rd St
- El Museo del Barrio at 104th St
- The Africa Center at 109th St
The Festival was Started to Develop New Museum Audiences
The festival was started in 1978 during a time in our history when support for the arts was declining. The festival brings together New Yorkers from all walks of life to enjoy the cultural riches of our city.
Why Museums are Important
Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist from Brooklyn with a Haitian – Puerto Rican heritage. His talent took him from a homeless kid in the Lower East Side to the first Black international art star in the 1980s.
In 2017, one of Basquiat’s paintings became the most expensive piece of art ever sold by an American artist, by a Black artist, and by a contemporary artist painted after 1980.
Basquiat’s mother took him to the museum when he was a little boy. He started dreaming of becoming an artist. That’s why museums are important.
See you at the Museum Mile Festival!