If you’re visiting Manhattan for the first time you’ll have a lot of choices for museums to check out.
The most common ones to go and see are the museums downtown like the MoMa, the Guggenheim, and the Metropolitan museum of art.
One of the least known museums in the city is close to my neighborhood of Inwood in Manhattan, its called the Cloisters. Since it isn’t near the others it’s hardly ever visited by tourist on their first trip to New York.
The Cloisters were built on Fort Tyron park in northern Manhattan in the early 1930’s by the philanthropist and business man John D. Rockefeller, Junior.
It’s constructed from the ruins of several French monasteries. It has one of the best collections of Medieval art from the 12th to 15th centuries.
A video from the Met and a few photos of some famous pieces are shown below:
The Cloisters Museum and Gardens: Behind the Scenes with the Director
The Seven Flemish tapestries showing the hunt of the unicorn
Robert Campin’s Mérode altarpiece
The Romanesque altar cross known as the Cloisters Cross or Bury St. Edmunds Cross
When ever I go to the museum I enjoy visiting it’s gardens. On a sunny spring day you can walk through them and see a great variety of plants and flowers that would have been planted in european monasteries during the middle ages.
The museum even has a coffee shop so you can sit with friends and enjoy the scenery while having a snack. I’d recommend going to this museum for anyone that would like to see a unique part of Manhattan.
I hope you’ve gained a little bit of insider knowledge about this amazing site in New York City.
I’d love to know more about any interesting places in your home city so definitely leave a note!
And be sure to check out my online English lessons page when you have a free moment.