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The Neue Galerie

The Neue Galerie

Recommended to pre-book tickets in advance online a couple days ahead. Same-day tickets are sold if capacity allows, but due to the museum's small size, there may be a queue waiting outside the door.

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Neue Galerie New York: Everything You Need to Know Before You Visit

Updated November 2026

The Neue Galerie is a small, jewel-box museum of early 20th-century Austrian and German art and design, set in a 1914 Beaux-Arts mansion on Fifth Avenue's Museum Mile and home to Gustav Klimt's gilded Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, the painting better known as the Woman in Gold. It reopened on November 12, 2026 after a summer-long restoration with a 25th anniversary exhibition that fills the whole building, and it is due to merge with The Met in 2028, when it will be renamed The Met Ronald S. Lauder Neue Galerie. With a strict no-under-12s rule, a ban on photography in the galleries and a limited capacity that creates queues outside on busy days, knowing how tickets, timing and the famous café work before you go will save you a wasted trip up Fifth Avenue.

At a Glance

How Early to Book:

A day or two ahead is enough to get a timed-entry ticket; weekend slots occasionally sell out.

Tickets Released:

Tickets

Released:

About 2 months in advance.

Best Times to Visit:

Right at the 10am opening on weekdays will have the smallest crowds. The museum will usually be packed on rainy days.

Ticket price:

$28 for adults.

Where to Book:

Do You Need to Book Neue Galerie Tickets in Advance?

Advance booking is not strictly required. Walk-ins are welcome and same-day tickets are sold at the museum, but the building is small and entry is metered, so a queue outside on the street is common at weekends, over the holidays and in the first weeks of a new exhibition. A limited number of timed tickets are released online through the official website, neuegalerie.org. A timed ticket holds your preferred time slot but does not guarantee expedited entry, so you may still wait briefly at the door when it is busy.

How far ahead to book: On a weekday morning, you can usually just turn up. For weekends, the Thanksgiving to New Year period, and the opening weeks of a new show, book a timed slot a few days to a week ahead. Tickets are currently on sale for visits up to January 11, 2027. Tickets from January 13, 2027 onwards, when "Austrian Masterworks from the Neue Galerie" and the Klimt Gallery return, are not yet on sale.

Ticket prices:

  • General admission: $28

  • Seniors (65 and over): $18

  • Students and educators (with valid ID): $15

  • Visitors with disabilities: $15

  • Ages 12 to 16: $15, and must be accompanied by an adult

  • Children under 12: not admitted to the galleries during regular hours

  • Infants carried in a front carrier or sling: free

Prices are fixed and there is no pay-what-you-wish option, so First Fridays are the only free general-admission slot.

Free entry: On First Fridays, admission is free from 5pm to 8pm on select Fridays, usually the first of the month. There are no reservations: entry is first come, first served, and you should expect to queue outside. Admission is also free every day for members, active and retired US military (plus military families with a dependent card), SNAP/EBT cardholders plus up to three guests, and ICOM and AAM cardholders.

City passes: The Neue Galerie is not included in the New York Pass, the Go City Explorer Pass or CityPASS, and it does not accept other museum membership schemes beyond AAM and ICOM cards. A ticket to The Met does not cover it either: the two museums remain separate until the merger completes in 2028.

The under-12 rule: This catches out more families than anything else. Children under 12 cannot enter the galleries during regular hours, with no exceptions beyond babies carried in a front carrier or sling. The rule exists because much of the decorative art is displayed without cases or barriers. Younger children are welcome in Café Sabarsky and the shops, and the museum runs occasional Family Mornings that give them access to the galleries.

Groups: Groups of eight or more must book group tickets online in advance.

Neue Galerie Opening Hours and Entry Information

Museum: Monday and Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm. Closed every Tuesday. Final entry to the galleries is at 5:30pm.

Design Shop and Book Store: Same hours as the museum.

Café Sabarsky: Monday, 9am to 6pm; Wednesday to Sunday, 9am to 9pm. Closed Tuesday. Hours change on Cabaret nights and private event dates.

Holiday closures: The museum, shops and café are closed on Thanksgiving (Thursday, November 26, 2026), Christmas Day and New Year's Day, and close early at 3pm on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. They are also closed on Independence Day. All other public holidays follow regular hours.

First Fridays: On select Fridays (usually the first of the month), the galleries stay open late with free entry from 5pm to 8pm.

Exhibition calendar: The "25th Anniversary Exhibition: Masterworks from the Neue Galerie" runs from November 12, 2026 to January 11, 2027. "Austrian Masterworks from the Neue Galerie", including the Klimt Gallery, follows from January 13, 2027, and a new special exhibition, "1910: Portrait of a Year", opens on February 18, 2027.

Address: 1048 Fifth Avenue (southeast corner of East 86th Street), New York, NY 10028.

Plenty of older guidebooks and map listings still show the museum's previous Thursday-to-Monday, 11am opening pattern. Ignore them: the museum now opens at 10am and is open on Wednesdays, which makes it a useful option on the one day of the week The Met is closed.

What is the Best Way to Get to the Neue Galerie?

By subway: The closest station is 86th Street on the 4, 5 and 6 lines at Lexington Avenue. From there it is a walk of about 10 minutes west along 86th Street, past Park and Madison Avenues, to Fifth Avenue. The Q train's 86th Street station on Second Avenue is about 15 minutes' walk. If you are staying on the Upper West Side, the B and C stop at 86th Street on Central Park West, but that leaves you on the wrong side of the park.

By bus: The M86 Select Bus Service runs crosstown along 86th Street and stops right by the museum at Fifth Avenue, which makes it the quickest link from the Upper West Side and the American Museum of Natural History. The M1, M2, M3 and M4 run north up Madison Avenue and south down Fifth Avenue, with stops at 86th Street.

On foot: The Neue Galerie is about five minutes' walk north of The Met along Fifth Avenue, and three minutes south of the Guggenheim. From the B and C at Central Park West, the walk across the park, skirting the south end of the Reservoir, takes around 20 minutes and is a lovely way to arrive in good weather.

By car: There is no museum parking, and driving to Museum Mile is rarely worth the hassle. Several commercial garages operate on the surrounding side streets if you need one.

Tip: If you are coming from the West Side, take the M86 rather than the subway. The crosstown bus drops you a few steps from the door, whereas the subway route involves either a change of lines or a long walk across the park.

How Much Time Should I Spend at the Neue Galerie?

Most visitors spend about an hour in the galleries, and 60 to 90 minutes is right for a thorough look with the free digital guide. The 25th Anniversary Exhibition fills every gallery in the building, so allow the full 90 minutes while it is on. It is possible to dash in, see the Klimt and leave in 20 minutes, but at $28 that is poor value, and the decorative arts are half the point.

With Café Sabarsky: Add 45 minutes to an hour for coffee and cake, or longer for lunch, plus any wait for a table. A gallery visit followed by lunch at the café easily fills two and a half hours.

Combined with The Met: The two museums are five minutes apart. A realistic plan is the Neue Galerie at 10am, lunch nearby, then an afternoon at The Met, which is enough for a full and satisfying day on Museum Mile.

The Neue Galerie features numerous paintings by painter Gustav Klimt, including Forester’s House in Weissenbach II, pitcured here, which he painted in 1914 during a summer stay in Austria.

What is the Best Time to Visit the Neue Galerie?

Best time of day: The 10am opening on a weekday is the quietest moment, and the Klimt is easiest to see in the first half hour. The last hour before closing is the next best option, but remember that final gallery entry is at 5:30pm. Late morning to mid-afternoon at weekends is the busiest period, with queues outside the door.

Best days: Weekdays are noticeably calmer than weekends, and weekday mornings are the easiest time of all. The museum is closed every Tuesday.

Best season: January to March, once the holiday crowds have gone, is the quietest stretch of the year, although the return of the Klimt Gallery on January 13 and the opening of "1910: Portrait of a Year" on February 18, 2027 will bring their own bursts of interest. The period from Thanksgiving to New Year, which this year coincides with the reopening and the anniversary exhibition, is likely to be the busiest.

First Fridays: Free entry from 5pm to 8pm is a real saving, but expect a queue outside and fuller galleries. It is a lively evening rather than a contemplative one, so go on a regular day if quiet time with the Klimt matters more to you than the $28.

Rainy days: Museum Mile fills up whenever the weather turns, and a small museum like this one feels the difference quickly. On a wet weekend, book a timed slot or arrive at opening.

What is Inside the Neue Galerie?

The museum occupies the William Starr Miller House, completed in 1914 by Carrère & Hastings, the firm behind the New York Public Library. Modelled on the 17th-century Place des Vosges in Paris, it was later home to society hostess Grace Vanderbilt (Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt III) and then the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, before Ronald S. Lauder and the art dealer Serge Sabarsky bought it in 1994 and opened the museum in November 2001. The art is shown across two exhibition floors, with the shops and Café Sabarsky on the ground floor and Café Fledermaus on the lower level. Part of the pleasure is the house itself: the wood-panelled rooms, the grand staircase and the domestic scale make it feel more like visiting a collector's home than a public museum.

The 25th Anniversary Exhibition (until January 11, 2027): For the reopening, every gallery in the building has been given over to highlights from the permanent collection, with paintings, drawings, furniture and metalwork displayed together in the spirit of the Viennese Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. Key works include:

  • Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907): The museum's star, covered in its own section below.

  • Egon Schiele, Town among Greenery (The Old City III) (1917): A late, unusually calm townscape from an artist better known for his raw, angular figures.

  • Gabriele Münter, In the Garden in Murnau (1911), and Vasily Kandinsky, Black Form (1923): Two works by founders of the Blue Rider group, tracing the jump from Münter's bold Bavarian colour to Kandinsky's later abstraction.

  • Josef Hoffmann's tobacco case (1912): A small Wiener Werkstätte case in gold set with gemstones, easy to walk past and worth stopping for.

  • Marianne Brandt's tea infuser (1927): A Bauhaus metalwork design that still looks startlingly modern a century on.

What comes next: From January 13, 2027, the second floor returns to "Austrian Masterworks from the Neue Galerie", the museum's core display of Klimt, Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka and Wiener Werkstätte design, built around the Klimt Gallery. The special exhibition "1910: Portrait of a Year" opens on February 18, 2027.

Don't miss: The decorative arts. Most visitors head straight for the Klimt and skim the silver, glass and furniture, but these pieces are what make the Neue Galerie different from the modern art wings of larger museums, and they are shown at close range, often without glass.

Neue Galerie Klimt: Seeing the Woman in Gold

Klimt painted Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I in 1907 for Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a Viennese sugar industrialist, and it is the high point of his "golden phase", worked in oil, gold and silver on canvas. The painting was seized by the Nazis after 1938 and hung for decades in Vienna's Belvedere, until Adele's niece, Maria Altmann, won it back after a legal fight that went to the US Supreme Court and ended with an Austrian arbitration panel ruling in her favour in 2006. Ronald Lauder bought it that same year for a reported $135 million, and it has been the centrepiece of the Neue Galerie ever since. The 2015 film Woman in Gold, with Helen Mirren as Altmann, tells the story and brings in a steady stream of visitors who come for this one painting.

Where to find it: During the 25th Anniversary Exhibition, through January 11, 2027, the portrait is one of the headline works in the building-wide installation. From January 13, 2027, it returns to the Klimt Gallery on the second floor as part of "Austrian Masterworks from the Neue Galerie", hung alongside other paintings and drawings by Klimt.

How to see it well: The gold and silver leaf changes as you move, so take a few steps to either side rather than only viewing it head-on. The painting draws a small crowd for most of the day, so either go to it first when the doors open at 10am or save it for the last half hour before closing, when the galleries thin out.

Is it moving to The Met? Under the merger plan, The Met will take ownership of the Neue Galerie's collection and building in 2028, but the stated aim is to keep the Neue Galerie running as a distinct museum in its Fifth Avenue mansion under the new name, The Met Ronald S. Lauder Neue Galerie.

Café Sabarsky at the Neue Galerie

Café Sabarsky, on the ground floor, is a faithful recreation of a turn-of-the-century Viennese coffee house, and for many New Yorkers it is as much of a draw as the art. The room is furnished with period pieces: Josef Hoffmann light fixtures, Adolf Loos furniture and banquettes upholstered in a 1912 Otto Wagner fabric. There is often live piano in the evenings.

Opening hours: Monday, 9am to 6pm; Wednesday to Sunday, 9am to 9pm. Closed Tuesday.

Do you need a reservation? Breakfast and lunch are walk-in only, seated on a first-come, first-served basis. Dinner can be booked on Resy, and after 4pm walk-ins are seated only as tables allow. If you only want dessert and a drink, you can walk in at any time. You don't need a museum ticket to eat here, but diners go through the same security check at the entrance.

The wait: At weekends and lunchtimes, the queue for a table often runs 30 minutes to an hour. Arrive at 9am when the doors open, come on a weekday, or aim for mid-afternoon. If the line is long, ask about Café Fledermaus on the lower level, which serves the same menu on select days with a much shorter wait, though in a plainer, more modern room.

What to order: The savoury dishes are stronger than the café's dessert reputation might suggest. The goulash, the Wiener schnitzel and the Weisswurst with a pretzel are all reliable choices. For something sweet, the Klimttorte (chocolate and hazelnut) and the classic Sachertorte are the signatures, and an Einspänner coffee topped with whipped cream is the traditional pairing. It isn't cheap: coffee and cake for two can easily come to more than $50 once tax and tip are added.

Cabaret at Café Sabarsky: On select evenings, the café hosts cabaret nights celebrating German and Austrian theatre from the 1890s to the 1930s, with a three-course dinner at 7pm followed by a performance at 9pm. Tickets are sold in advance and tend to go quickly, with museum members getting priority.

The Neue Galerie Shop: Design Shop and Book Store

The Design Shop and Book Store are on the ground floor and keep the same hours as the museum, including the Tuesday closure. The stock is chosen with the same eye as the galleries, and many products are developed exclusively for the museum, with a strong focus on Viennese and German design of the period, plus one of the best selections of books on Austrian and German modernism in the city. The pocket guide published for the anniversary, Neue Galerie New York: The Museum and Its Collection, costs $25 and makes a better souvenir than most.

You don't need a gallery ticket to browse, and children of any age are welcome, so the shop works well for anyone in your group who isn't going into the museum. Everything is also sold online, seven days a week.

Guided Tours and Audio Guides

Free digital guide: The museum's audio tour is free on the Bloomberg Connects app and is narrated by the director, Renée Price, with commentary on key works in the collection. Download it before you arrive and bring your own headphones. Printed scripts are available at the Admissions Desk if you would rather read than listen.

Private guided tours: There are no drop-in public tours, but you can book a private, docent-led tour of about an hour covering the highlights of whatever is on view. Tours must be booked at least three weeks ahead and carry a flat docent fee (listed at $250 for a regular-hours tour of up to 10 people) on top of admission for each person. Tours outside public opening hours are also available at a higher fee.

Is a guide worth it here? I'd download the digital guide without hesitation. The wall labels are brief, and much of the collection, the decorative arts in particular, only clicks once you understand the ideas of the Vienna Secession and the Wiener Werkstätte behind it. A private tour makes most sense for a group of art lovers who can split the fee.

Is the Neue Galerie Worth Visiting?

For the right visitor, yes, without question. If you love Klimt, Schiele, Vienna around 1900 or early modern design, the Neue Galerie is one of the most rewarding hours you can spend in New York. Seeing the Woman in Gold in a former Fifth Avenue mansion, at close range and without the crush of a major museum, is a different experience from fighting for a view at The Met or MoMA. The intimacy is the point: it feels like being let into a private collection rather than processed through a public one.

That said, it is worth going in with your eyes open. At $28, this is one of the more expensive museum tickets in the city relative to its size, and a visitor with only a casual interest in art can be through the galleries in half an hour and feel short-changed. The painting itself can feel smaller and less dazzling than the posters suggest, though you can get closer to it than you would expect. Security is strict: water bottles are emptied at the door, staff enforce the no-photos rule firmly, and the guards can come across as brusque. None of that spoils the art, but it can sour the first impression if you are not expecting it.

Art lovers and Klimt fans: This is a must. I'd rank it with the Frick as the most rewarding of Manhattan's smaller museums.

First-time visitors on a tight schedule: If you only have a day for museums and no particular interest in Austrian or German art, I'd spend your time and money at The Met instead and come back on a future trip.

Families: With children under 12, the galleries are simply off-limits. Families with teenagers who have seen the film or studied Klimt at school will get a lot out of it.

Food lovers: Café Sabarsky is worth a visit in its own right, and on a cold winter morning, coffee and cake there followed by an hour upstairs is about as civilised as New York gets.

My honest verdict: go if the collection speaks to you, arrive early if you want a table at the café, and don't treat it as a quick box-ticking stop between bigger museums. It rewards slowing down.

Where Should I Eat Near the Neue Galerie?

Inside the museum:

Café Sabarsky and its lower-level sibling Café Fledermaus are the obvious choice, and they are covered in detail above. If the queue is too long or the prices feel steep, the streets around 86th Street have plenty of good alternatives.

A short walk away:

Butterfield Market (1150 Madison Avenue, about 2 minutes' walk) is an upscale Upper East Side deli and market, ideal for sandwiches, salads or a quick coffee. Its swirled frozen yoghurt has a following, and service is faster if you order inside.

Lexington Candy Shop (1226 Lexington Avenue at 83rd Street, about 8 minutes) is a retro luncheonette that has been serving the neighbourhood since 1925. It's cheap and cheerful: I'd go for a Coke float and a slice of apple pie. It's small and a queue builds quickly at lunch, so go before noon if you can.

Schaller's Stube Sausage Bar (1652 Second Avenue at 86th Street, about 15 minutes) is the walk-up window of Schaller & Weber, the German butcher that has been on the Upper East Side since 1937. It is a fun, budget-friendly way to stay on the Germanic theme after a morning of Viennese art, with house-made sausages served at picnic tables.

Heidelberg (1648 Second Avenue, a few doors down) has been serving schnitzel, sausages and beer in glass boots since 1939 and is one of the last survivors of Yorkville's German past. It's mid-priced, unpretentious and a good choice for a hearty dinner after the café has closed.

Sant Ambroeus (1000 Madison Avenue, about 12 minutes south) is the polished Milanese café of choice on the Upper East Side, good for an elegant lunch, pastries or an espresso at the bar. My pick here is the Principessa cake.

Marcel (945 Madison Avenue, in the Breuer Building, about 15 minutes south) is the upscale option, and the steak haché is the dish to order. Reservations open 28 days ahead, and some bar seats are kept for walk-ins.

A word of warning: Madison Avenue cafés between 80th and 86th Streets tend to charge a premium for location rather than quality. If you are on a budget, head east towards Lexington and Second Avenues, where prices drop noticeably.

What Else is There to Do Near the Neue Galerie?

On Museum Mile:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is five minutes' walk south at 82nd Street and the obvious pairing. Remember that The Met is closed on Wednesdays and the Neue Galerie on Tuesdays, so plan the two for a day when both are open.

The Guggenheim sits three minutes north, between 88th and 89th Streets, and Frank Lloyd Wright's spiral is worth seeing even if you only have time for the building. Timed tickets are sold online and are worth buying ahead for weekends.

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum occupies Andrew Carnegie's mansion at 2 East 91st Street, about seven minutes' walk away, and opens daily from 10am to 6pm. It is the natural follow-on if the Neue Galerie's decorative arts were your favourite part, and its garden is a pleasant place to sit.

In the park:

Central Park and the Reservoir are a couple of minutes from the door. The 1.58-mile path around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir gives some of the best skyline views in the park and makes an easy post-museum walk.

A short ride away:

The Frick Collection is another Carrère & Hastings mansion completed in 1914, at 70th Street and Fifth Avenue, about 20 minutes' walk south or a short ride on the M1 to M4 buses. Seeing the two houses on the same day is a satisfying contrast between Gilded Age New York and fin-de-siècle Vienna.

The American Museum of Natural History is directly across the park on the M86 crosstown bus. If you are travelling with children under 12, who can't enter the Neue Galerie's galleries, it is the obvious place for one adult to take them while the other visits.

Rules, Bags, and Security

Bags: Each visitor may bring one bag no larger than 13 x 17 x 4 inches into the galleries, and bags must stay closed while you are inside. Anything bigger, including luggage, larger backpacks, shopping bags and large purses, goes to the free coat check on the lobby level, which takes items up to 21 x 16 x 10 inches. Bags are screened on arrival.

Not allowed in the galleries: Large umbrellas, strollers, liquids, wrapped gift packages and weapons. Water bottles can be left at coat check, and food must stay inside your bag.

Photography: Photography is not permitted anywhere in the galleries. Personal photos are allowed on the ground floor and the lower level only.

Phones: Talking on a mobile phone is not allowed in the galleries or the lobby.

Children: Children under 12 are not admitted to the galleries during regular hours, and visitors aged 12 to 16 must be accompanied by an adult. Infants are allowed in if carried in a front carrier or sling. Children of any age are welcome in Café Sabarsky and the shops.

Shirts and shoes: Both are required to enter the museum, shops and cafés.

Touching: Much of the decorative art, including furniture, silver and glass, is displayed without cases or barriers. Keep a respectful distance and do not touch artworks, frames, bases or cases. Staff and security are attentive and can ask visitors who ignore the rules to leave.

Accessibility at the Neue Galerie

All four levels of the building are wheelchair accessible, with a lift serving every floor. Wheelchairs are available to borrow at the museum, though a companion is needed to push them. Visitors with disabilities pay the reduced $15 admission rate.

Strollers are not allowed in the galleries, so infants need to be carried in a front carrier or sling. Printed scripts of the free audio guide are available at the Admissions Desk on request for visitors who prefer not to use headphones. The museum's Visitor Services team can make arrangements in advance for visitors who need specific accommodations.

Final Tips for Visiting the Neue Galerie

  • Book a timed slot for weekends and the holidays, and just walk up on a weekday morning. A timed ticket holds your slot but doesn't let you skip the queue entirely, so allow a few minutes for the security check.

  • Plan around the under-12 rule before you set out. If you are travelling with younger children, split up: one adult visits while the other takes the children to Café Sabarsky or across the park to the American Museum of Natural History on the M86.

  • Leave your water bottle at the hotel. No liquids are allowed in the galleries, and full bottles may be emptied at security. Coat check will hold an empty one.

  • Keep your phone in your pocket upstairs. Photography is banned in the galleries and the rule is enforced. If you want a picture of the Woman in Gold, the life-size reproduction that has long hung on the lower level, where photography is allowed, is where most of the photos you see online were taken.

  • Download the free Bloomberg Connects guide before you arrive, and bring headphones. It turns a pretty but puzzling room of silver and furniture into something that makes sense.

  • Get to Café Sabarsky at 9am, or head downstairs. The queue builds fast from mid-morning at weekends, and Café Fledermaus on the lower level serves the same menu with a far shorter wait when it is open.

  • Remember the Tuesday and Wednesday trap. The Neue Galerie is closed on Tuesdays and The Met on Wednesdays, so if you want both on one day, go on a Monday or between Thursday and Sunday.

  • Pair it with The Met, then reward yourself with cake. Do the Neue Galerie at 10am while it's quiet, spend the afternoon at The Met, and walk back up Fifth Avenue for an Einspänner and a slice of Klimttorte before Café Sabarsky closes.

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