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Profile

The Museum of the City of New York (MCNY) houses permanent and special exhibitions exclusively related to the five boroughs, from their Dutch origins to the present day. The thematic permanent galleries are devoted to early fire-fighting techniques and their evolution; trade and the city's strategic role as the port of the New World; Broadway history and theater memorabilia; plus, historic children's toys and period rooms. Gracie Mansion housed the museum from its 1923 founding until 1932, when its current home was completed. Nearly a block long, Joseph H. Freedlander's Georgian-Colonial style brick building lies along serene, picturesque Museum Mile, across from the Conservatory Garden and just south of El Museo del Barrio. Inside, the main floor displays temporary exhibits such as "Magnum's New Yorkers" and "Gay Men's Health Crisis: 20 Years Fighting for People with HIV/AIDS." Visitors can pick up a handful of cookbooks from New York dining institutions—Rao's, Balthazar, Le Bernardin—along with subway paraphernalia and above average souvenirs in the museum shop. — Kate Appleton

A long corridor displays Madame Alexander dolls, electric train cars, a 1935 hobbyhorse, and a host of other toys, dolls, games and knick-knacks dating back to the early eighteenth century. There's also a collection of giant and finely crafted dollhouses, headlined by the Stettheimer Dollhouse. Modeled on the actual West 58th Street residence of the three prominent Stettheimer sisters, the dollhouse is full of Art Deco details, miniature works of art by friends such as Marcel Duchamp and Albert Gleizes, and its very own a mah jong room.

Period Rooms
The jaw-dropping fifth floor Rockefeller rooms overflow with mother-of-pearl inlay, ebonized cherry, maple, and walnut wood, marble, plush furnishings, and luxuries of every variety. Arrayed in shades of deep red, taupe, and black, the opulent, exotic master bedroom displays a canopied sleigh bed and a stained glass, jeweled screen archway that creates an intimate Turkish corner. The second floor rooms are primarily devoted to Dutch and English colonial interiors.

Weddings
The walls of the galleries are fortified by large Greek columns, and arched hallways connect the various galleries beset with oil paintings. The first and second floors (as well as the auditorium) are available for rent: $6,000 for the first floor, $4,500 for the second, $7,500 for both. Available only after five o’clock.