Metropolitan Museum Steps

The grand, granite steps leading to The Metropolitan Museum of Art are a destination themselves: a place to meet, eat, talk, and watch both people and Fifth Avenue traffic.

Why It Works

The granite steps leading to The Metropolitan Museum of Art are a destination themselves - in a sense, separate from the museum. As architectural critic Paul Goldberger noted, "There are some stairs in the city - like those in front of The Metropolitan Museum of Art - that are arguably more important urban events than the buildings to which they lead."

"The museum's front steps are commonly used for guitar playing, peach-eating, orange-peeling, sun-bathing, poetry-reading, cigar-smoking, book-reading, newspaper-browsing, frankfurter-eating, soda-sipping, postcard-writing, scene-sketching, picture-taking, small-talking, studying, staring, debating, deep-thinking, waiting for Godot and two of the six stages of flirting," wrote McClandish Philips in The New York Times.

http://www.pps.org/great_public_spaces/one?public_place_id=58