Fee: Adults $30.00/Seniors/Students $17.00/Children $12.00/Members & Patrons and Children under 12 are free (prices do fluctuate). NY, NJ and CT students and NY residents Pay as you wish.
Museum Hours:
Hours: Open 7 days a week
March-October 10:00am-5:15pm
November-February 10:00am- 4:45pm
Closed Thanksgiving Day, December 25th and January 1st.
*Some galleries may be closed for construction or maintenance.
I went on the Spring Garden tour at the Cloisters Museum with a discussion on Spring plantings and the use of those plants during Medieval times. The museum studied what plants were used for religious and medical practices.
We started the discussion of the plantings out in the first Cloister by the Hudson River
The Tour of the Gardens at The Cloisters in the Spring 2026:
(From the Museum website)
The gardens of the Middle Ages included both real and ideal gardens. Poets and artists delighted in the depiction of fantasy gardens like the Garden of Love or of Paradise, but no real garden of the time remains to us. Historical records are rare and incomplete; the ninth-century plan for the monastery of St. Gall, with its carefully drawn and labeled garden beds, is unique. Archaeological excavations are yielding valuable new evidence, but we still know more about infirmary gardens of medicinal plants and aristocratic pleasure gardens than we do about humble kitchen plots of potherbs and vegetables (Met.org).
The gardens of the Museum, planted in reconstructed Romanesque and Gothic cloisters, evoke those that provided sustenance and spiritual refreshment within the medieval monastery. Designed as an integral feature of the Museum, the gardens have been a major attraction of The Cloisters since its opening in 1938, enhancing both the setting in which the Museum’s collection of medieval art is displayed and the visitor’s understanding of medieval life. The gardens are designed and maintained by a horticultural staff actively engaged in researching and developing the living collection (Met.org).
The plantings of the first Cloister we visited
We walked through the Cloister discussing how plantings were determined by medical and religious purposes
The flower beds in the Cloister
The view of the Hudson River was amazing
The flowers in bloom
Flowers in bloom
Flowers in bloom
Flowers in bloom
We moved the next Cloister looking over the medical plants and flowers
The Cloister in bloom
Walking around the Cloister
The plants around the sills of the Cloisters
Touring the Cloisters and admiring the flowers
Everything in bloom
We toured the last Cloister while the tour guide explained the plantings
The last Cloister we toured
The garden in full bloom
The growth of the hops growing on a trellis
The hops planting up close
The flowers in bloom in the Cloister
We ended the tour admiring the art in the Tapestry Room and having a discussion about the use of plants and flowers in Medieval art. The artists at that time thought of the natural world with awe and respect. They admired the beauty of the natural world where in some points was still feared,
‘The Hunt of the Unicorn’ tapestry discussion
I then visited the ‘Creatures of Myth and Imagination-European and the Americas’ exhibition.
This exhibition was an interesting look at mythical beasts of the era of great exploration from European to the Americas. It reminded me of the book “In Search of Ancient Astronauts” with many golden creatures that look like they are visitors from another planet, Ancient Gods to worship and one civilization’s outlook on the unknown. The artwork was a cross between mysticism and respect.
The exhibition sign for “Creatures of Myth and Imagination: Europe and the Americas”
Set in the evocative atmosphere of The Met Cloisters, Creatures of Myth and Imagination: Europe and the Americas sheds light on a selection of works created on either side of the Atlantic Ocean between 500 and 1500 CE. The exhibition’s exploration of hybrid creatures deepens our understanding of their apparent necessity among diverse peoples. In the Americas, a complex gold pendant by a Tairona artist of northern Colombia, depicting a confrontational figure with hands on hips, a crocodile-like head, and an enormous headdress, would have reflected and expressed the wearer’s status and power. In Europe, ferocious dragons such as the one depicted on a monumental fresco from the monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza, Spain, took center stage to convey a multiplicity of meanings both sacred and profane (Met.org).
The exhibition gallery
Unusual mythical creature
(From the museum website)
For as long as humans have told stories, we’ve imagined creatures that transcend the natural world. Fantastical beings combining the features of animals, humans, and even plants appear across cultures, emerging in the most ancient myths and enduring in contemporary epics. The widespread presence of these supernatural beings, possessing the power to transform and be transformed, reflects a global impulse to make sense of both known and unknown worlds. Visual artists have given form to these imaginary creatures, resulting in some of the most fearsome, beloved, and extraordinary works of art ever made (Met.org).
Small gold ancient Gods
Ritual Knives
Double pendants
Earth Deity
I took one last tour of the museum gardens before I left for the afternoon. On the balcony overlooking the Hudson River offered beautiful views and beautiful potted plants.
Walking out of the back Cloister
The back Cloister
The beautiful white flowers
The balcony overlooking the Hudson River
The potted plants by the doorway
The view of the Hudson River
Looking north up the Hudson River
The tour of the Gardens was amazing and the exhibition on the Pre-Columbian art interesting. It was a wonderful tour of the Cloisters.
Westwood Cemetery was established in 1861 as the Old Hook Cemetery. The earliest burial was in 1791. Westwood Cemetery is a non-sectarian cemetery and continues to offer final resting places that suit individual needs. Whether you are planning for the future or purchasing for an immediate need, we have a variety of options available within the 35 acre park.
The newest part of the Westwood Cemetery where the family burials start around 1840 to Present sits on the Kinderkamack Road side of the cemetery
The back of the cemetery sits on a buff overlooking the pond that is parallel to Old Hook Road
The original family members were buried in this section of the cemetery while their grandchildren and great grandchildren are interned in the front section.
The oldest section of the cemetery which sits next to Old Hook Road is the Hopper Family plot which dates back to before the Revolutionary War
The Blauvelt Family plot sits next to the Hopper Family plot
The oldest section of the cemetery by Old Post Road home to family members of the Post, Blauvelt, Voorhis and Hopper members
The Demarest family plot overlooking the pond from the buff
The Blauvelt and Bogart family plot
The DeBaun family plot by Old Hook Road
One of the original Demarest family plots
The Haring family plot overlooking the pond
The Ackerman family plot
The Eckerson family plot with members of the Hopper and Demarest families
This section of the cemetery contains the oldest tombstones in the cemetery so many have broken or crumbled away. The lawn in this section of the cemetery is also not as well maintained so there are overgrown bushes and trees hiding the tombstones so you really have to look.
Then I worked my way back to the front of the cemetery finding the graves of these people’s children and grandchildren by following the names and dates of these people’s family members.
One branch of the Demarest family is front and center in the front of the cemetery
Next to them are the DeBaun and Vanderbeck families
Another branch of the Demarest family is a few rows behind
The Kipp family have a rather large family plot
The Hopper & Banta families share this large twin family plot
The Bogart family has this large family plot
The Westervelt family is near them with many of their members of the family
The Demarest family had two large family plots in the middle of the cemetery
The family plot of the Demarests and the Harings
The Demarest and Van Bushkirk family plot
The large Blauvelt family plot
The DeWolfe family plot
The Voorhis family plot
The Terhune Bogart family plot
What I found fascinating about this cemetery was to see the progression of each of these families from parent to child to grandchild just by walking through it. The families branch out in all sections intermarrying with similar families and the buried next to them. From back to front here they rest.
In the months of March and May right before the Memorial Day holiday, many of the museums I belong to held their private ‘Members Night’, where they hold extra hours for members after the museums are closed to the public to come and see the exhibitions, listen to music, have something to eat and drink and listen to talks about the exhibitions. The funny part is that the museum’s are more crowded on these nights than when they are open to the public.
Walking inside the soaring dining space at the Morgan Library
The first set of ‘Members Nights’ I went to were on March 24th with my first stop at the Morgan Library. I was there to see the ‘Mozart’ exhibition again.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Treasures from the Mozarteum Foundation of Salzburg, an exhibition that traces the extraordinary life and enduring legacy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791). On view March 13th through May 31st, 2026, this two-gallery exhibition combines the Morgan’s significant holdings in Mozart manuscripts and first editions with remarkable objects, on view in the United States for the first time, from the Mozarteum Foundation of Salzburg. These include Mozart’s clavichord on which he composed The Magic Flute and his childhood violin, as well as famous portraits, letters, and personal objects of Mozart and his family (Morgan Library.com).
Touring the exhibition
Video on the exhibition:
The concert of Mozart as a child
The Magic Flute music and costumes
I happen to love ‘The Magic Flute’ and it was interesting to see the notes and some of the original costumes from the opera at the exhibition.
The costumes from the Magic Flute
After I toured the Mozart exhibition, I toured the rest of the museum that included the original part of the mansion.
The old Living Room
The ceiling outside the exhibition hall
The old Library and Rare book collection
The ceiling in the old Library
I then visited the exhibition of ancient Mesopotamia art scrolls. This was really interesting how this form of written art worked into the collection.
After touring the museum, I went to see what everyone was eating in the museum’s small restaurant was eating because it was getting crowded. The counter was filled with delicious looking desserts.
The sweet treats at the dessert bar at the Morgan Library
The selection of desserts at the Morgan Library the night of Member’s Night
I then visited their very interesting Gift Shop
Admiring the flowers at the Coat Check on the way out. I thought this was a nice touch.
All good things come to an end and I made my way up Fifth Avenue to the Museum of Modern Art for the second part of the evening
I could not believe that the museums arranged these ‘Members Nights’ on the same night. They would plan this three weeks late when the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I just had to enough time at one museum and see what I wanted to see and then go up the next.
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) at 11 West 53rd Street
Frida and Diego: The Last Dream celebrates Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera—two of Mexico’s most beloved icons of 20th-century art—in a first-of-its-kind collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera. Organized in conjunction with the Met’s new production of El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego, the presentation at MoMA features artworks by Kahlo and Rivera in an elaborate setting designed by Jon Bausor, the set and co-costume designer of the opera. For both the opera and installation, Bausor evokes the artists’ lives and artworks in his theatrical designs (MoMA.org).
Key participants in a movement to redefine Mexican culture and identity after the revolution of 1910–20—Rivera through monumental murals and Kahlo through intimate self-portraits—the artists were romantically involved from 1928 until Kahlo’s death in 1954. The fictional narrative of the opera El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego begins three years after Kahlo’s death and follows an aging Rivera as he summons the deceased Kahlo back to life on the Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday honoring passed loved ones. As the opera and installation design attest, the pair continue to have an enduring influence on artists across the visual and performing arts (MoMA.org).
Video on the exhibition:
The opening of the ‘Frida and Diego’ exhibition brought members out in droves
The description of the exhibition
The tree dominates the center of the exhibition
The signature piece from the exhibition
One of the dominate drawings
Looking over costume designs
Some of my favorite costume designs
Another great costume design
After touring the exhibition, I visited some of the other galleries and looked over other works of art that I admired in the past. I took a quick tour of the Modern Galleries before I left that evening.
The Jackson Pollack work
I loved this creative food service work
After touring the museum, I joined the rest of the crowd on the main floor for music.
The main lobby of the MoMA the night of Member’s Night
A few weeks later, the Metropolitan Museum of Art had planned their Member’s Night and then the Museum of Modern Art planned a Member’s Night the same night. So I planned another night of running back and forth between museums.
Member’s Night at the Museum of Modern Art
The schedule of events
There was a lot of activities happening that evening and I wondered around museum to see all of them. I started in the Museum Garden to hear the singers who were performing that evening.
The first performer was Lizzy Hilliard, who performed the guitar and was really enjoyable to hear. She is a very lively and engaging entertainer.
The crowds were outside enjoying the beautiful weather that evening
Lizzy Hilliard performing that evening in the garden
After the performance, I wondered around the museum to see some of the exhibitions and started on the first floor which was really active.
I love wondering through the lobby of the MoMA.
While most of the crowds were still listening to the entertainment in the garden, I went up to the Marcel Duchamp exhibition and toured the galleries again (I had been there the previous week and quickly walked the exhibition).
The Marcel Duchamp exhibition was the biggest retrospect of the artist’s work in years
Marcel Duchamp is organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Philadelphia Art Museum, with the generous collaboration of the Centre Pompidou. “Contemporary artworks often prompt viewers to ask, ‘Why is this art?’ It is virtually impossible to answer this question without referring to the work of Duchamp,” said Temkin. “More than any other modern artist, Duchamp challenged and transformed the very definition of an artwork.” Kuo added, “Duchamp’s influence is incalculable and his myriad contributions have established him as one of the most important figures in modern culture (MoMA.org).
Our exhibition will foreground the ways in which Duchamp upended conventional oppositions between hand and machine, original and copy, intention and chance, and matter and idea.” MoMA and PMA have a longstanding history with Duchamp’s work. MoMA was the first museum to acquire a work by Duchamp, in addition to including his work in early landmark exhibitions such as Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism (1936) and The Art of Assemblage (1961) (MoMA.org).
Video on the exhibition from the MoMA curator:
I joined the start of the walking tour with one of the docents at the MoMA at the beginning of the exhibition
The gallery was so crowded with people listening to the one docent that was describing the exhibition that I continued on my own. I had never seen much of this artist’s work in museums before and had heard about his piece of changing the look of the Mona Lisa. I really enjoyed seeing it up close.
The 1919 original “L.H.O.O.Q.” was on a card
The 1930 replica “L.H.O.O.Q.”
The information on the replica piece
I then moved on to other works that he was well known for especially his controversial urinal piece.
The work “Fountain” (I thought this was unusual)
The write up on the piece
The last piece that I saw in the exhibition before I left the museum for the Met was his spoke wheel piece.
The work “Bicycle Wheel”
I wondered around the museum for a bit after the tour of the exhibition and admired works in the Modern Wing.
I love Picasso’s Cubism works
After I finished touring the exhibition, I left the MoMA for The Met. The weather was beautiful and with it being light out until almost 8:30pm. It was a beautiful walk up Fifth Avenue with the trees and the flower beds in full bloom.
Arriving at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for “The Met After Hours”
The lobby and rotunda for the event seemed very quiet to me
The beautiful floral arrangements in the lobby area were fresh Cherry Blossoms
The Cherry Blossoms in the urns around the lobby
The American Wing where the Member’s Bar and entertainment was located
The Met seemed very quiet that night. Being the Tuesday after Memorial Day Weekend, I guess most members were getting back to work or still tired from the weekend. It had been a rainy mess the whole weekend and I could not see many people going away.
The bar and the entertainment in the American Wing were located that evening.
I had about two hours before the museum closed for the evening, so I wondered through some of the special exhibitions and started with the “Raphael-Sublime Poetry” exhibition on the second floor.
Raphael: Sublime Poetry is the first comprehensive exhibition on Raphael in the United States, bringing together more than 170 of the artist’s greatest masterpieces and rarely seen treasures to illuminate the brilliance of Raphael’s extraordinary creativity. The son of a painter and poet, Raphael engaged with the foremost writers and thinkers of his age in Rome, displaying a poetic sensibility that captivated his peers and generations that followed. Follow the full breadth of his life and career, from his origins in Urbino to his rise in Florence, where he began to emerge as a peer of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, to his final, prolific decade at the papal court in Rome (Met.org).
Dive into the artistic process of one of history’s most beloved and influential artists. A true titan of the Italian Renaissance, Raffaello di Giovanni Santi (1483–1520)—better known as Raphael—matched ambition with lyricism to create works with both intellectual heft and emotional depth, a necessary skill in the complex political landscape of Renaissance courts. In his short life of only 37 years, he achieved such profound success as a painter, designer, and architect that he was regarded as the pinnacle of artistic perfection for centuries after his death (Met.org).
Video on the exhibition with the MoMA:
Video on the exhibition with CBS This Morning:
The work admired as I was walking around the exhibition.
This was my favorite piece from the exhibition
The Raphael Exhibition I know was a big deal for the museum but it really was not my taste in art. As much as I admired the work, the whole exhibition did not ‘grab me”.
I was not as impressed with the art in the exhibition and took a quick tour of the works. I had seen the exhibition on a previous tour of the museum so I just wanted to walk around again to see the works that I missed.
I then went back to the first floor and spent more time at the Costume Art exhibition. There had been so much media on the exhibit that you could not get in without timed tickets but because it was quiet on Member’s Night, I just walked in.
The Costume Institute’s spring 2026 exhibition explores depictions of the dressed body across The Met’s vast collection, pairing garments with artworks to reveal the inherent relationship between clothing and the body (Met.org).
Focusing primarily on Western art from prehistory to the present, Costume Art presents connections between garments from The Costume Institute and objects from the Museum’s other collecting areas. Pairings between fashions and artworks will present a spectrum of connections and experiences: from the formal to the conceptual, the aesthetic to the political, the individual to the universal, the illustrative to the symbolic, and the playful to the profound. These pairings are organized into a series of thematic body types that reflect their pervasiveness and endurance through time and cultures (Met.org).
Video on the Costume Art exhibition:
Walking through the entrance of the exhibition
This gallery was newly created for this collection and I had display the pieces that stood out to me the most in the Costume Art exhibition.
One of the pieces I admired
Some of the Evening clothes I admired
Another piece I admired
I thought this was really unusual
I really enjoyed looking over the exhibition yet wondering how many people would actually wear some of these pieces out in public. It really asks the question “What is art?” Still, I loved the dress with all the human organs on it. Now that would stop everyone in mid conversation at a party.
All good things come to an end again and I left the Met as it was closing for the evening. It really is a pretty site at night looking down Fifth Avenue.
How beautiful the Upper East Side is at night
I was starved when I left the museum and knew not too many places outside the bars would be open this late at night. I remembered Asian 83 on East 83rd Street that still might be open for the evening and I was one of their last customers that night. The food is excellent at this little ‘hole in the wall’ on the Upper East Side.
Dinner at Asian 83, Beef and Broccoli with Fried Rice
I ordered a combination platter of Beef and Broccoli with Fried Rice and an Egg Roll with a Coke. Their prices are so reasonable and their portion sizes are very fair. It was a nice dinner before I left Manhattan that evening.
The Beef and Broccoli entree
Their Egg Rolls are excellent
Being a member of many museums, this is one of the perks about membership. You get to enjoy these wonderful evenings while supporting the museums which in this economy really helps. That’s why I have enjoyed supporting them for years. The donation benefits everyone.
Maple Grove Park Cemetery in Hackensack, New Jersey, is a historic burial ground originally established around 1850 by the Dutch Reformed Churches of New York City. Formerly known as the New York Cemetery, it is a significant local repository for both 19th-century history and rescued historical remains.
Originally founded to serve members of the True Reformed Dutch Church, the cemetery was previously referred to as the New York Cemetery on Plank Road. As older churches and their surrounding burial grounds in northern New Jersey were decommissioned, their headstones and remains were frequently relocated to Maple Grove
The historic front section of the cemetery in the front of the cemetery
I visited the Maple Grove Park Cemetery one afternoon in search of a Revolutionary War Veteran, Albert Voorhis. I did not find his particular tombstone but I did find his family plot and many of the ‘first families’ of Bergen County. These include families such as the Demarest’s, Haring’s, Voorhis, Ackerman’s, Christie’s, Hopper’s, Van Saun’s and Blauvelt’s.
The Demarest family plot
The front part of the cemetery is nicely landscaped with interesting family plots dotted all over the this part of the cemetery. These were the families that shaped this history of the County and other branches of their extended family are either buried in historic Reformed Church graveyards or are in small cemeteries that were part of the family farm that now sit in subdivisions of McMansions, neglected and forgotten.
The Demarest family plot
I found it interesting to note how big many of these families were and how all of these ‘first families’ married into one another, probably because of family stature or maybe to extend the length of the family farm. These interconnections shaped and developed how Bergen County developed over a three hundred year period.
The Demarest/Hopper family plot
The Westervelt Family plot
The extended Voorhis family plot
The Zabriskie family plot
The extended Terhune family plot
The DeBaun family
The Brinkerhoff family plot
The Van Winkle family plot
The Ackerman family plot
The Blawvelt (Blauvelt) family plot
The Van Saun family plot
Another Terhune family plot
The Vreeland family plot
The Quackenbush family plot
The Hopper family plot
The Hopper-DeWolfe family plot
The extended Christie family plot
The extended Lydecker family plot
The Van Valen family
Another branch of the extended Demarest family
This cemetery is an interesting look at the early history of not just Bergen County or New Jersey but of the United States. These extended families contributed so much not just in military activity but in business, religion and education that helped build this country.
This unique cemetery is more than just a place of rest but a place of history and of respect. These were the extended families who contributed so much to the progress of our country and how it was directed into the future.
Visiting a Museum: The Unique, Unusual, Obscure and Historical 