Wrapping up the report on my August 2026 trip to New York City, here are some photos from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I went on Friday evening, which I think is the minimum crowd time.
Walking in at 6 pm…
There’s a great Della Robbia exhibit through January 2027. If only the Optimus robots would be ready to recreate these for our house!
Regardless of your “gender expression”, you can pop into the “Women’s Restroom” and ponder how long it will be before Andrea Della Robbia is celebrated as a pioneering trailblazing female artist:
Public behavior has deteriorated in NYC to the point that the Met had the Gubbio Studiolo entirely closed off. This confined space of beautiful inlay work was previously simply open, then they put a guard next to it (10 years ago?). When I visited it was sealed off from the poorly-behaved masses who might damage the fragile work.
You don’t have to go to the costume area to see a wide variety of outfits. In the image below, a halal example of female modesty and a haram display of flesh (at the time that I took the photo, I didn’t notice the sword position).
If Elon would deliver on his robot promises, maybe we could keep our clothing in this armoire instead of in IKEA furniture:
The musical instruments section has been remodeled (and expanded?):
Second harpsichord from 1670 Italy. The harp was made 300 years later in West Africa. Note that Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown collected at least 3,600 musical instruments. If that isn’t a sign of mental illness, what would be?
Circling back to the core collection of the Met, is there any reason for Europeans to resist low-skill immigration? No. Visitors are informed that “Europe” has no real meaning, either geographically or culturally. A Muslim Indian immigrant to Europe is just as European as someone who can trace his lineage back to Charlemagne.
An immigrant from Nanjing could also be considered “European”, of course, but the museum has hatefully segregated these artworks from Nanjing (an amazing special exhibition in which 400-year-old works on paper look as though they were made yesterday):
How empty does the Met get at night? Almost quiet enough to appreciate the art! That said, if you want to see the entire museum you’ll need to arrive closer to 4 pm in order to finish by the 9 pm close.
Have you heard of BLADE flights (Helicopter flights around NYC to function as an alternative transit option)? Have you taken one? That would be an interesting trip report.
My time isn’t valuable enough for Blade! ($195 minimum) I guess I would take them if I happened to be right next to one of the heliports around Manhattan, but those aren’t in parts of town that are especially convenient. If you then need to spend 30 minutes in crosstown traffic to get to a hotel or a Midtown meeting, much of the time advantage is gone.
(The Metropolitan Museum provides a good example for how BLADE won’t save time. It would take about as long to get to a heliport from the Met as it would to get to LGA. Maybe the total trip length would begin to equalize for a journey to JFK.)