New York City: Encyclopedia II - New York City - Cultural institutions

New York City - Cultural institutions

New York is a city of great museums with the Metropolitan Museum of Art's assemblage of historic art, the Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim Museum's 20th century collection, and the American Museum of Natural History and its Hayden Planetarium focusing on the sciences. There are also many smaller specialty museums, from El Museo del Barrio with a focus on Latin American cultures to the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design to the International Center of Photography and The Museum of Television and Radio. There is even a Museum of the City of New York. A number of the city's museums are located along the Museum Mile section of Fifth Avenue.

In addition to these museums, the city is also home to a vast array of spaces for opera, symphony, and dance performances. The largest of these is Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which is actually a complex of buildings housing 12 separate companies, including the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, the New York City Ballet, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. Other notable performance halls include Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

As the capital of independent American cinema, New York is home to a number of important film festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival, the New York Film Festival and the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

The central wing of the New York Public Library (pictured), is one of the most important research libraries in the world, as well as serving as an important exhibition space for various historic collections.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Cultural institutions", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki