Guggenheim Pay-What-You-Wish Saturdays
Sep 21, 2013 to Sep 21, 2015
Official Site
Entrance to The Guggenheim Museum is $22 for general admission, but on Saturdays from 5:45pm to 7:45pm you can pay what you wish. Don’t expect to show up at 5:45pm though and waltz right through the door. The line is long, really long. In fact, the last time I was here I was trying to get in to see the new Kandinsky exhibit and I showed up at 6pm. The line was all the way down 88th Street to Madison, around the block and half way up 89th Street. On that day I passed and grabbed some dinner. I figured my wait would have been at least an hour or more.
A few weeks later, I tried again. This time I came armed with a good book and showed up at 5:25pm. The line was only down to the corner of 88th and Madison. So I stayed, opened my book, and hoped it would move fast. It did and I was in the door by 6:10pm with at least an hour and a half to enjoy a few exhibits.
I would have to say that the best time to line up is around 5-5:30pm. Yes, you will have to wait 45 minutes to enter, but if you show up after 5:30 your chances of waiting an hour or longer are more likely and really how much time will you have to enjoy the exhibits? This doesn’t, however, stop people from coming right up until the last ticket is sold at 7:15pm. I guess a half hour for some, at a dollar in the door, is better than nothing.
Ongoing at the museum includes the new exhibit, Kandinsky in Paris,1934-1944 and A Long Awaited Tribute: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian House and Pavilion. The Thannhauser Collection is also worth seeing and one of my favorites here. In 1940 Justin Thannhauser, the son of a prominent German art dealer, came to the city and established himself as a private dealer, collecting a huge number of Impressionist and Post Impressionist paintings. In 1963 he gave many of them to the museum and they have been here ever since.
You make think that waiting 45 minutes to pay as you wish really isn’t worth an hour or so of museum time. If you do, think again. The Guggenheim is a small museum and each gallery takes only 20 to 30 minutes or so to get through.
Author: Andrea Muller
Guggenheim Museum
Museums
East 80s
1071 Fifth Avenue (at 89th St)
New York, NY 10128
(212) 423-3500
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All events and times are subject to change.
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