The Noguchi Museum
A museum Isamu Noguchi built for his own work in a converted photo-engraving plant, arranged around an open sculpture garden — the calmest room in New York City.
- What it costs
- Modest admission with pay-what-you-wish on the first Sunday of the month. Check the current schedule before relying on it.
- Best in
- Spring, Summer, Fall
- Where
- 9-01 33rd Road, Long Island City, NY 11106
- Official site
- noguchi.org
The artist designed it
Noguchi bought a 1920s photo-engraving plant across the road from his studio and converted it himself, opening it in 1985 to show his own work exactly as he wanted it shown.
That's rare and it shows: the light, the sequence of rooms, the relationship between the stone pieces and the raw industrial walls are all deliberate. It is one of the very few museums that is itself a finished work by the artist in it.
The garden
An open-air sculpture garden at the center of the building, with basalt and granite pieces set among bamboo, birch and ivy.
It is quiet in a way almost nothing in New York is quiet. People sit in it for an hour. That is the correct use of the Noguchi Museum and there is a bench for it.
Combine it with the neighbors
Socrates Sculpture Park is a five-minute walk north — a free, outdoor, waterfront park showing large contemporary sculpture, on land that was an illegal dumping ground until artists cleared it in the 1980s.
The two together make a very good afternoon: one contemplative and interior, one open and windy with the skyline across the water. Both are in Astoria, both are cheap or free.
Getting there
The N or W to Broadway in Astoria, then a fifteen-minute walk west toward the river, or the Q104 bus. About 30 minutes from Midtown all in.
The F to 21st Street–Queensbridge is a similar walk from the south.
A weekend shuttle bus has historically run from Manhattan — check the museum's site.
Getting around once you're there
Step-free entrance and level access across the ground floor and the garden; there is a lift to the upper floor. The garden paths are gravel. Broadway station on the N/W is not accessible.