The annual Museum Mile Festival takes place the second Tuesday in June from 6-9pm. In the past two decades, well over one million people have taken part in this annual celebration. Festival attendees can walk the Mile from 82nd Street to 104th Street and visit nine of New York City’s finest cultural institutions open free that evening to the public. Several of the participating museums will offer outdoor art activities for children. This year’s opening ceremony will be hosted by Paul Thompson, the new director of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution,and will take place at 5:45pm in their Garden at 91st Sreet. Fifth Avenue will be closed to traffic and become a strollers’ haven. Special exhibitions and works from permanent collections will be on view inside the institutions and live music from jazz to Broadway tunes to string quartets will be featured in front of each museum. Additional street entertainers will perform along Fifth Avenue all evening. Established in 1978 to increase public awareness of its member institutions and promote public support of the arts, the festival has served as a model for similar events across the country. For further information, the public may call at 212-606-2296 or check:
www.museummile.org.
These are the museums along Museum Mile :
ElMuseo del Barrio at 104th Street
Museumof the City of New York at 103rd Street
InternationalCenter of Photography at 94th Street
JewishMuseum at 92nd Street
Cooper-HewittNational Museum of Design at 91st Street
NationalAcademy Museum and School of Fine Arts at 89th Street
SolomonR. Guggenheim Museum at 88th Street
MetropolitanMuseum of Art from 82-86 Street
GoetheHouse German Cultural Center at 82nd Street