The Alice Austen House Museum on Staten Island recalls the world of an exceptional woman, photographer Alice Austen. Austen's quaint, Victorian cottage-style home, with a magnificent view of New York Harbor, displays prints from the large glass negative collection of her work that depict turn-of-the-century American life. The original house, one of the City's oldest, dates back to the 1690s. Once part of a farm near the scenic Narrows, the property was bought in 1844 by John H. Austen, Alice's grandfather. Austen expanded the small, one-and-a-half-story farmhouse, named it "Clear Comfort" and gave it a romantic Gothic Revival facelift that included steeply peaked dormer windows and flourishes of "gingerbread" wood trim. The parlor is restored to look as it did in the 1890s with an arrangement of ornate period furniture, rugs, Delft fireplace tiles and Oriental vases. Alice Austen was born nearby at Woodbine Cottage in 1866. After her father abandoned the family, she and her mother moved into her grandparents' home. Alice continued to live in the house until 1945. Taught by her uncle, Austen took up photography with a passion, shooting more than 7,000 pictures that captured a quieter Staten Island, as well as a growing, bustling New York City.

Since its founding in 1973, Yeshiva University Museum’s changing exhibits have celebrated the culturally diverse intellectual and artistic achievements of 3,000 years of Jewish experience. The Museum provides a window into Jewish culture around the world and throughout history through its acclaimed multi-disciplinary exhibitions and award-winning publications. By educating audiences of all ages with dynamic interpretations of Jewish life, past and present, along with wide-ranging cultural offerings and programs, the Museum attracts young and old, Jewish and non-Jewish audiences. YUM shares a new state-of-the-art facility with four partners, three of whom are renowned research and archival institutions focusing on specific aspects of Jewish history and culture: YIVO, the American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardic Federation, and the Leo Baeck Institute. The Museum has four galleries, an exhibition arcade, an outdoor sculpture garden, a docent lounge, and a children’s workshop room, in addition to its own suite of offices. The Museum has access to a 250 seat, handicapped-accessible auditorium with a state-of-the- art AV projection room, various smaller meeting rooms, a lunchroom and a kosher café. Yeshiva University Museum presents exhibitions with an interdisciplinary focus that reflect the diversity of the Museum’s collection of more than 8,000 artifacts. “Our primary focus is the interpretation of Jewish history from a multi-disciplinary perspective, and we produce two types of exhibitions, usually shown concurrently,” explains director Sylvia A. Herskowitz. “One exhibit examines a Jewish community or historic event; the other features emerging or established contemporary artists working on Jewish themes.” Occasionally, the Museum presents traveling exhibitions. As a resource for scholarly research, Yeshiva University Museum’s exhibitions provide unique opportunities for artists, historians, collectors, and ethnographers to examine, compare, and research objects, ideas, and techniques. Its contemporary art shows offer the public the opportunity to survey art being created by living Jewish artists throughout the world. Yeshiva University Museum’s programs are designed to expand the intellectual and creative imagination of its diverse audiences. They include family craft workshops, lectures, films, concerts, and multilingual exhibition tours in English, Hebrew, Spanish, Russian, and Yiddish.

One of New York City's less well known museums, The Bronx Museum of the Arts was founded in 1971 to serve the diverse community of the Bronx and the Metropolitan area. The Museum's PERMANENT COLLECTION, established in 1986, consists of over 700 twentieth-century and contemporary works of art in all media (e.g., paintings, photographs, prints, mixed media, and sculpture) by artists of African, Asian, and Latin American ancestry. Guided by the Museum's mission--to serve the ethnically-diverse populations of the Bronx and to stimulate community participation primarily through the visual arts--the permanent collection reflects the Museum's surrounding communities and constituents, comprised primarily of African American and Latino populations, as well as a growing number of Asian-American communities in the metropolitan area.

The Irish Hunger Memorial (or Irish Famine Memorial), the creation of artist Brian Tolle, landscape artist Gail Wittwer-Laird, and 1100 Architect, is devoted to raising public awareness of the events that led to the "Great Irish Famine and Migration" of 1845-1852. It serves as a reminder to millions of New Yorkers and Americans who proudly trace their heritage to Ireland, of those who were forced to emigrate during one of the most heartbreaking tragedies in the history of the world. "The Great Hunger" began in 1845 when a blight destroyed the Irish potato crop, depriving Ireland of its staple food. By 1847 millions were starving and dying. Between 1847 and 1852 hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrated to New York where they arrived at South Street Seaport and Castle Clinton. Today, almost 800,000 New York City residents trace their ancestry to Ireland. The Irish Hunger Memorial (which takes its name from the Irish term for the famine of 1845-52, "An Gorta Mor," The Great Hunger) stands on a half-acre site at the corner of Vesey Street and North End Avenue in Battery Park City, between the Embassy Suites Hotel and the Hudson River. The 96' x 170' Memorial, which contains stones from each of Ireland's 32 counties, is elevated on a limestone plinth. Along the base are bands of texts separated by layers of imported Kilkenny limestone. The limestone is more than 300 million years old and contains fossils from the ancient Irish seabed. The text, which combines the history of the Great Famine with contemporary reports on world hunger, is cast as shadow onto illuminated frosted glass panels. From its eastern approach the Memorial appears as a sloping landscape with a pathway inviting visitors to walk upward past a ruined fieldstone cottage and stone walls toward a pilgrim's standing stone. At the western end of the Memorial, 25 feet above the pavement, a cantilevered overlook offers views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, emblems of America's welcome to the Irish and to all immigrant people. From the western or river end, the visitor approaches the Memorial through a formal ceremonial entrance that recalls the court cairn or graves of the Irish Neolithic period that are found in the Irish northwest. The ramped passageway ends inside the ruined fieldstone cottage that was brought to New York from the townland of Carradoogan near Attymass, County Mayo. The size of the cultivated area of the Memorial, one-quarter of an acre, is significant. In 1847, Sir William Gregory proposed an additional clause to the Irish Poor Law stipulating that no person occupying land of more than one-quarter acre was eligible for any relief. This law had a devastating effect and contributed to the suffering. The unroofed abandoned cottage reminds the visitor of the stark choice between survival and holding home and hearth. Nearly two miles of text have been installed in illuminated bands that wrap around the base of the Memorial. The text includes some 110 quotations, including autobiographies, letters, oral traditions, parliamentary reports, poems, recipes, songs and statistics. Backlit text panels are installed behind frosted glass sections that appear to the visitor as shadows. At night the light will function as a beacon to those on the river. The texts merge past and present accounts of famine and can be updated to respond to new hunger crises. The audio installation in the passage provides another dimension to the Memorial as living site. The audio will be a medium for contemporary writers and musicians who have responded to the meaning of the Great Irish Famine and the challenge of hunger in the world today. The audio will capture the response of visitors to the Memorial, and will provide updated information about famine sites and conditions worldwide.