Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 5th Avenue | Central Park

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The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1880

    March 30

    President Hayes dedicates the Met's first building in Central Park

    Chartered in 1870, the Metropolitan Museum of Art first showed its collection on Fifth Avenue near 54th Street and then on West 14th Street. Its own Victorian Gothic building, designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould and begun in 1874, opened on March 30, 1880, with President Rutherford B. Hayes presiding. Richard Morris Hunt's Fifth Avenue front followed in 1902.

    Source: Village Preservation

  2. 1894

    The Met finishes rebuilding Calvert Vaux's original building

    Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould's High Victorian Gothic building, finished in 1880, draws quick criticism, with the Met's own president calling the project a mistake and critics dubbing it a dated mausoleum. Between 1888 and 1894 the museum reconstructs and enlarges the structure, the first of several expansions that gradually wrap the original building in later wings.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1902

    Richard Howland Hunt completes the Met's Beaux-Arts facade

    After his father Richard Morris Hunt's death, Richard Howland Hunt finishes the museum's limestone Fifth Avenue facade along with the Great Hall and its sweeping staircase. Sculptor Karl Bitter carves the facade's figures, giving the Met the grand entrance still used today.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1917

    The Egyptian hippopotamus statuette later nicknamed William enters the Met's collection

    In 1917 the Met acquired an ancient Egyptian hippopotamus statuette, now the museum's unofficial mascot, nicknamed William. The Met says that virtually all of its 26,000 ancient Egyptian objects are now on display, which makes it the largest collection of Egyptian art outside Cairo.

    Source: Internet Archive

  5. 1924

    The Old Assay Office's marble facade is re-erected in the Met's American Wing

    The Federal-style marble facade of the Assay Office, designed by Martin E. Thompson, had stood on Wall Street from 1824 until 1912. I. N. Phelps Stokes saved it from destruction. Taken apart in 1915, it sat in storage on the museum's grounds for nine years before being rebuilt in 1924 as part of the American Wing, where the landmark report counts it among the building's units.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  6. 1954

    The Grace Rainey Rogers concert hall opens and launches a long-running concert series

    The Met opened its Grace Rainey Rogers concert hall in 1954 and began a concert series there, adding art lectures in 1956. The Concerts & Lectures program grew to about 200 events each season and presented performers such as Marian Anderson, Nina Simone, Artur Rubinstein and Yo-Yo Ma. William Kolodney directed it until 1968, followed by Hilde Limondjian from 1969 to 2010.

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 1969

    Artists picket the Met's Harlem on My Mind show for leaving out Harlem painters

    The Met's 1969 special exhibition Harlem on My Mind drew protest because it did not display work by Harlem's own artists. The museum answered that it meant to present the neighborhood itself as the artwork. Picketing the show were artists including Norman Lewis, Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, Roy DeCarava and Alice Neel.

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 1971

    A Roche Dinkeloo master plan for the Met is approved in 1971 and runs until 1991

    In 1971 the Met approved a comprehensive plan by the architects Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, which was finished in 1991. Additions under the plan include the Robert Lehman Wing (1975), the Sackler Wing for the Temple of Dendur (1978), the American Wing (1980), the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing (1982), the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing (1987) and the Henry R. Kravis Wing (1991).

    Source: Internet Archive

  9. 1978

    September 27

    The Temple of Dendur opens in the new Sackler Wing

    Egypt gave the Temple of Dendur to the United States in 1965 for its help saving monuments from the Aswan High Dam, and in 1967 President Lyndon Johnson awarded it to the Met over rival bids. Its 661 sandstone blocks reached New York by freighter in 1968, and the temple opened on September 27, 1978, in a glass wing by Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo.

    Source: Wikipedia

  10. 1987

    The Cantor Roof Garden opens above the museum's galleries

    The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden opens to the public atop the museum's south wing, giving visitors an open-air space for sculpture exhibitions with views over Central Park. It becomes a seasonal fixture, open only in warmer months.

    Source: Wikipedia

  11. 2020

    March 13

    The Met closes for its first long shutdown and attendance falls from 6.5 million to 1.1 million

    The COVID-19 pandemic led the museum to its first long-term shutdown, beginning March 13, 2020. It reopened gradually in stages, and by 2021 visitors could come five days a week with reduced hours and masks. Attendance fell from 6,479,548 in 2019 to 1,124,759 in 2020, and in 2021 the Met drew about 1,958,000 visitors.

    Source: Wikipedia

  12. 2021

    May

    The Met installs a plaque on its Fifth Avenue facade honoring the Lenape homeland

    In May 2021 the museum put up a plaque on its Fifth Avenue front recognizing Lenapehoking, the homeland of the Lenape peoples, which includes Manhattan. The Met's land acknowledgment says the museum stands in a place that has long served as a meeting and trading ground for many Native nations, whose people still live and work on the island.

    Source: Internet Archive

  13. 2021

    Agnes Hsu-Tang and Oscar Tang pledge $125 million for a new wing

    The philanthropists commit $125 million toward a new wing for modern and contemporary art at the museum's Fifth Avenue building, a gift that later grows to $500 million. Named the Tang Wing, the project is planned for completion around 2030.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 15 buildings with stories in Central Park