New York Historical Society

Founded in 1804, this was New York's first museum, and its granite building on Central Park West dates to 1908, designed by York and Sawyer in a Roman Eclectic style. The collection includes one of the world's largest groups of Tiffany lamps and glasswork, all 435 of Audubon's preparatory watercolors for The Birds of America, and the camp bed George Washington used at Valley Forge. A Center for Women's History, the first inside a major museum, sits beside a dedicated children's history museum. The institution shortened its name to New York Historical in 2024.