A Complete Guide to What to Do In New York Over 4th of July Weekend
- c/o digitaltrends.com
Rain Room at MOMA (and Alternatives for When You Don’t Want to Wait On Line for Four and a Half Hours)
So I’m a member at MOMA, and you should be too. Actually, you should, if possible, spring for memberships at whatever museums you can. If you have any inclination at all toward going to museums, a membership will almost immediately start saving you money and let you benefit from all sorts of perks, like early admission. Which, the Rain Room! I have been pretty excited to go to the Rain Room because I love the rain, but don’t always love to get wet. Sometimes I do, but not always. Anyway, the Rain Room is kind of the perfect summer museum activity, or so it would seem, because it combines water with being in the dark with feelings of god-like powers because, even though rain is coming down, you are not getting wet. How exactly is that different from just walking through a storm with an umbrella? I don’t know! It just is. Unfortunately, as I have found out twice now, even if you’re a member at MOMA and can take advantage of early admission, the line for the Rain Room is still FOUR AND A HALF HOURS LONG when you arrive at EIGHT THIRTY ON A SUNDAY MORNING. Sorry for all the caps, but it is really hard for me to get out of bed that early on a weekend, and I felt really defeated after confronting that line. But I recovered by walking up to the Museum of Natural History and going to my all-time favorite place there, the Hall of Gems and Minerals. The entire area is lined in deep brown, velvety material, so you feel like you’re in a jewelry box. It’s also never as crowded with grubby kids as my other favorite area—the Hall of Ocean Life—always is, although that’s obviously still worth a visit, because standing under the blue whale and contemplating your own insignificance is a very powerful and important thing to do. Plus, look at the polar bear diorama below. Amazing, right? And any museum with suggested donation is alright with me.
Museum of Modern Art; 11 W 53rd Street
American Museum of Natural History; Central Park West at 79th Street
- Kristin Iversen
- grrrrr