About the Museum
Battery Park is built on landfill that resulted from the excavation of Downtown skyscrapers, especially the original World Trade Center Towers. It is the perfect neighborhood for New York's Skyscraper Museum. The museum is part architecture and part history, celebrating the engineering marvels that dominate major urban skylines around the world. Using the changing profile of New York City--particularly Downtown Manhattan--as a point of reference, the museum examines how, why, and where these eye-catching edifices have sprouted.
What You Will See
The museum hosts both a detailed permanent installation and a gallery dedicated to rotating exhibitions. Starting with the Pyramids in Gaza, the museum showcases the long history of cultures and technologies used to build taller and taller buildings around the world. Particular attention is paid to the construction and influence of World Trade Center towers (the Skyscraper Museum was the first Downtown museum to reopen after the September 11th attacks). Rotating exhibits feature buildings and skylines from around the world, and more detailed examinations of New York's unique history of tall buildings.
Why You Should Go
Simply looking skyward in Downtown or Midtown Manhattan is its own kind of museum of skyscrapers. But this charming and informative museum delves deep into the history, present, and future of these superstructures. You will leave with a new appreciation not just for the skyline of New York City, but for the impressive buildings racing towards the sky in cities around the world.
