The modern art museum. Van Gogh's Starry Night. Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Warhol, Pollock, Rothko. If you know modern art from textbooks, you know MoMA's collection.
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The fifth floor for the classic modernist collection — this is what you came for. The contemporary galleries on floors 2–4 rotate and vary in quality. The sculpture garden is excellent when weather permits. The design collection (chairs, posters, even a helicopter) is easy to overlook but worth seeking out.
Weekday mornings. MoMA is heavily visited — expect crowds on weekends. Friday evenings have free admission (4–8pm) but the crowds reflect that. The recent expansion (reopened 2019) improved flow but did not reduce visitor numbers.
Founded in 1929 as the first museum dedicated to modern art. The collection includes 200,000 works of modern and contemporary art. Renovated and expanded in 2019 by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Starry Night is on the fifth floor and always surrounded by crowds. Photography is allowed (no flash). One of the defining collections of 20th-century art — go even if you think you have museum fatigue.