The Cloisters
99 Margaret Corbin Dr
New York, NY
A hilltop monastery of stone rebuilt from real medieval cloisters shipped over from Europe, with gardens, tapestries, and long views down the Hudson.
The Cloisters is a museum of medieval European art built to feel like the thing it houses. Perched on a hill in Fort Tryon Park at the northern tip of Manhattan, it was assembled in the 1930s from parts of real French monasteries and chapels, whole cloisters, doorways, and chapel apses that were taken apart in Europe, shipped across the ocean, and rebuilt here stone by stone into a single, seamless whole.
Inside, the collection ranges from illuminated manuscripts and stained glass to sculpture and the celebrated Unicorn Tapestries, seven woven hangings that are among the great treasures of medieval art. Outside, walled gardens planted with medieval herbs and flowers open onto long views of the Hudson, so the whole place blurs the line between museum and monastery.
What Guests Love
- Real medieval cloisters and chapels reassembled stone by stone from Europe
- The famous Unicorn Tapestries hanging in their own hushed gallery
- Walled gardens planted with the herbs and flowers of the Middle Ages
- Long, open views down the Hudson from the park's high overlooks
Worth Knowing
- It is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, so one ticket covers both on the same day
- The gardens are at their fullest in the warm months, though the museum is worthwhile year round
- It sits at the far north end of Manhattan; the subway and a short walk through the park get you there
- The setting is quiet and contemplative, a gentler pace than the main museum downtown
Details
New York, NY
Learn about The Cloisters
How a monastery came to Manhattan
The heart of the Cloisters grew from the collection of an American sculptor, George Grey Barnard, who had spent years in France gathering fragments of medieval buildings and art, sometimes rescuing carved stone from farmyards and ruined abbeys. In the early twentieth century he brought much of it to New York and opened it to the public.
In the 1920s John D. Rockefeller Jr. bought Barnard's collection and gave it, along with land for Fort Tryon Park, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He funded a new building to hold it, and the museum opened in 1938. To protect the western view, Rockefeller even bought the land across the Hudson in New Jersey and gave it as parkland, so the cliffs opposite would stay green forever.
A building made of real medieval parts
The museum is not a copy of a monastery so much as a new whole built from genuine old pieces. Sections of cloisters from several French abbeys form the museum's inner courtyards, complete with their original columns and carved capitals, and chapels, doorways, and an apse were rebuilt inside to create rooms that feel centuries old.
The architects wove these salvaged elements together with new stonework so skillfully that visitors often cannot tell where the medieval fabric ends and the modern building begins. The result is a space that carries the hush and proportion of a real monastery, a rare thing to find in the middle of a modern American city.
The Unicorn Tapestries and the collection
The museum's most famous holdings are the Unicorn Tapestries, a set of seven richly woven hangings depicting the hunt and capture of a unicorn, made around 1500 and dense with flowers, animals, and symbolism that scholars still debate. They hang in their own quiet gallery and are among the finest surviving tapestries in the world.
Around them the collection spans the medieval centuries: illuminated prayer books, jeweled reliquaries, ivories, stained glass glowing in the windows, and stone and wood sculpture of saints and kings. Together they trace the art and faith of Europe from the fall of Rome to the edge of the Renaissance.
The gardens, the park, and the seasons
The walled gardens are part of the experience, planted from the plant lists of medieval texts with herbs, vegetables, and flowers a monk might have grown for medicine, food, or symbolism. In the warm months they fill with bloom and scent, turning the courtyards into living exhibits.
The surrounding Fort Tryon Park adds meadows, a noted heather garden, and overlooks with sweeping views down the Hudson. Spring and summer show the gardens at their best, fall lights the park with color, and even winter has its appeal, when the bare gardens and stone walls make the interior galleries feel all the warmer.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near New York
Fort Tryon Park
Surrounding the museum
A hilltop park with meadows, a heather garden, and overlooks above the Hudson, designed by the son of Central Park's landscape architect.
Dyckman Farmhouse
About 1 mile
The last remaining Dutch colonial farmhouse in Manhattan, a rare survival from the island's rural past.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
About 8 miles south
The Cloisters' parent museum on Fifth Avenue, one of the great encyclopedic art museums in the world.