This museum was the HQ for New York’s customs offices until 1971. It was also ground zero for the Stamp Act Riots in 1765, as Fort Amsterdam, when U.S. and British soldiers used it as a stronghold. Read more.
Mysterious artifacts were found in the wall of a room where Poe’s young wife, Virginia, slept, and visitors can view the bed frame that she died on. Read more.
The C-3PO tape dispenser in the Behind the Screen exhibit was produced to promote The Empire Strikes Back; the company responsible also made mugs featuring the heads of other Star Wars characters. Read more.
Since 1985, Conceptual artist Adrian Piper has been collecting her hair and toenails in empty honey jars. Whenever she fills one, she adds it to a shelf on display at What Will Become of Me at MOMA.
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The 6/27 - 9/1 installation, "Robert Irwin: Scrim veil—Black rectangle—Natural light (1977)" was designed specifically for the Whitney’s light-filled fourth-floor gallery. Read more.
Hidden behind the wall at the first bay near the rotunda is a ceramic tile mural done by Joan Miró. The work was commissioned by museum trustee Harry F. Guggenheim in 1963 to honor his late wife. Read more.
Last year, to add more realism to the Hall of North American Mammals, curators added actual pronghorn freeze-dried doo-doo collected by park rangers at the real-life Elkhorn Ranch in Montana.
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The fifth floor contains at least 2,000 paintings, sculptures, furniture, and Native American and Spanish colonial artifacts Read more.
Among the miscellany kept in storage is a pair of fake eyelashes worn by Joan Crawford. The falsies were originally part of a group of more than 80 pairs, which were sold at auction after her death. Read more.
Look for the abandoned trolleys on the pier. The cars are actually from Boston and Norway, part of an effort by one man to bring back trolleys to Brooklyn. Find out more: Read more.
