I decided to go to Whitney Museum of American Art for the museum visit assignment. The museum focuses on twentieth century and contemporary American art (“About the Whitney”). The museum was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. It was opened the following year on West Eight street in Greenwich Village (Schjeldahl, 2015). I found out about this museum from a classmate of mine a few semesters ago. She had a PowerPoint presentation about the Whitney Museum for one of the hospitality management classes. I got very interested after watching her presentation. I did not get a chance to visit the museum though. This museum was also mentioned a couple of times in Urban Tourism class too, the reason why I decided to come here.
Just like other popular museums in the city, the general admission for adults is $25, $18 for seniors and students. Visitors who are 18 and under get to go inside for free (About the Whitney”). When I went to the counter, I showed my CUNY ID to the staff. I was also readying my credit card to pay for the student admission. I was surprised when the employee handed me the ticket without asking me to pay. I asked her if I have to pay, she then told me that CUNY students get to visit the museum for free. I feel like $25 has been the standard fee for museums in New York. Because of that, I think that the price is reasonable.
The closest subway station is the 14thStreet station that has A, C, and E train lines (“About the Whitney”). I took the C train to go to the museum. After getting out of the subway, I have to walk for about ten more minutes before arriving to the museum. While doing some research about the Whitney museum, I found out that the building was new. From Madison Avenue, the museum moved to Downtown in the meatpacking district in 2015 (Schjeldahl, 2015). This explains why the building looks so clean and new. The architect who designed the new building, that cost $4422 million (Weiss, 2016), was Renzo Piano (Schjeldahl, 2015). I really like the location of the place. There are a lot of restaurants and shopping stores in the area. Chelsea Market is also a few blocks away. The building is also placed near the waterfront. The High Line is also overlooking. For some reason, the building reminds me of a shopping mall. The staffs working in the museum were very polite and accommodating. I was greeted nicely, and I felt very welcomed. The interior of the new building is modern, which matches the contemporary arts that the museum is showcasing. I also noticed that there are restrooms almost most of the floors.
Based on Lois Weiss’ article, the museum has about 340,000 numbers of visitors annually. However, Adam Weinberg, Whitney’s director, said that they were hoping that the new museum would double this number (2016). During my visit, I noticed that there were a lot of millennials visiting the museum. Probably fifty percent of the guests were millennials, and the other half was a mixture of baby boomers ad Generation X. I also did not notice a lot of kids inside. There was probably only about five of them.
There are five galleries in the museum, but the gallery on the fifth floor is close. The first gallery that I saw was the one on the third floor called “Flash.” This is a photography collection by Harold Edgerton. In sixth floor, some photographs, paintings, and other art forms regarding the history of protest are being displayed that made me feel gloomy because of the tragedy that happened and is happening in the country.
All this museum is very educational. I enjoyed my visit in the museum. I would not be surprise if becomes more popular in the future and that the number of annual visitors would be doubled or tripled.
Works Cited
About the Whitney. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://whitney.org/About
Schjeldahl, P. (2015, June 19). The Whitney’s Downtown Move. Retrieved from. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/27/new-york-odyssey
Weiss, L. (2016, August 29). Whitney Museum drowning in water bills: Report. Retrieved from https://nypost.com/2016/08/29/whitney-museum-drowning-in-water-bills-report/
