El Museo del Barrio Provides Free Family Activities
Submitted by Raven Snook on
We finish up our series of posts on East Harlem with a look at El Museo del Barrio, the northernmost institution on Museum Mile (at least until the Africa Center opens). Founded in 1969 by NYC-born artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz, who recognized a need for a museum dedicated to Latino culture and art, El Museo moved to its current location in the Heckscher Building in 1978 and underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation in 2009. The museum's permanent collection features more than 6,500 objects that span eight centuries of Latin American, Caribbean and Latino art, and it mounts temporary exhibits, too. However, with only two galleries, the museum isn't able to showcase that much work at once.
But what El Museo lacks in space, it makes up for in rich family programming like FREE monthly family festivals, and popular annual cultural celebrations like Day of the Dead and the Three Kings Day Parade. And since it's located one block north of the Museum of the City of New York and across the street from Central Park, a visit here can turn into an enriching day-long itinerary.
