In a city with some of the world's most famous museums, perhaps the least known but most impressive is the Hispanic Society of America in Washington Heights.
I went to this museum several years ago, and recently read a new article about an exhibition that it's putting on in London, the first of its kind (the museum itself is currently closed for extensive renovations).
Founded at the turn of the 20th century, the Hispanic Society is not really so much of a traditional "society" or organization but a museum and research library focusing on the arts, culture, and history of Spain, Portugal, Latin America, the Spanish East Indies, and Portuguese India. There are extensive and gorgeous historical paintings, along with books and other cultural artifacts rom these parts of the world. The building itself is a stunning, palatial, Beaux Arts stone masterpiece that is even more jaw-droppingly beautiful inside than out.
The reason, I'm sure, that this amazing museum is not better known is because it's located so far uptown and, let's face it, concentrates on peoples and parts of the world that White America and White NYC cares little about. But going there, and reading about this museum and the history it records, is a reminder that there is a whole other continent-spanning world (worlds, really), a whole other history, a whole other culturally-rich and fascinating immersive culture that most non-Hispanic peoples know nothing but can easily learn about.
And that's what's so great about NYC -- you can literally go somewhere and enter another world, learn another history, and get immersed in another culture that is so far from your own but that enriches your spirit and expands your world.
