Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York

November 1929: the stock market has just fallen through the floor, and most of New York is clutching its wallet. Meanwhile, Abby Rockefeller and her two art-loving co-conspirators, Lillie Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan, take one look at the chaos and think, “Perfect time to open a museum...” And so, inside the Heckscher Building at 750 Fifth Avenue, the Museum of Modern Art (or MoMA, for short) threw open its doors—America’s first institution devoted entirely to Modern Art and European Modernism.

Bold? Absolutely. Sensible? Hmm, debatable. Visionary? Without question. Within a decade, the museum hopped addresses three times before finally settling down.

By 1939, MoMA staked its permanent home on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, where it built its reputation as one of the most influential modern art museums on the planet. From the start, it championed the art of its time, collecting the bold, the experimental, and the occasionally eyebrow-raising.

Today, MoMA’s holdings stretch across architecture, design, painting, sculpture, prints, photography, film, and just about every creative medium you can plug in, flip through, or hang on a wall. Its library alone boasts more than 300,000 books, over 1,000 periodicals, and 40,000 pieces of ephemera—essentially everything artists have ever scribbled, mailed, stapled, or hastily tossed into history.

The museum organizes all this creative energy into six major departments: Architecture and Design, Drawings and Prints, Film, Media and Performance, Painting and Sculpture, and Photography. In total, MoMA oversees more than 150,000 works, 22,000 films, and pieces by more than 13,000 artists. And yes, the roster reads like the ultimate art-world roll call: Matisse, Picasso, Duchamp, Magritte, O’Keeffe, Hopper, Pollock, Warhol, Lichtenstein, and many more.

The building itself is a sleek modernist landmark. Step through the lobby, and you’ll spot the beloved Sculpture Garden—a serene pocket of trees, reflecting pools, and thought-provoking shapes. Above, staircases and elevators carry you into a maze of galleries. When you need a pause, there are cafés; when you want a film, there’s a theater rolling screenings most days.

MoMA is open daily, but here’s the city’s favorite pro tip: admission is free on Fridays after 5:30 p.m. To take advantage of it, just follow the crowds of excited New Yorkers who suddenly “remembered” they love modern art...