The Skyscraper Museum

Great free and informative museum in downtown Manhattan. Although it is free, reservations online are required in advanced for entry. (As of July 2023)

Although small, it is free and contains lots of information on the concepts, structures and building process of many skyscrapers all over the world. It takes you through the history of skycrapers and looks into a few future projects.

I believe this may be more interesting to those who like engineering and want to know the "why" and "how" behind many of these incredible structures.

It is conveniently located in downtown Manhattan, nearby the Freedom Tower, Jewish Museum, Battery Park and Statue of Liberty Ferry areas...so can easily be worked into a site-filled itinery while exporing that area. I was able to see and read almost everything within an hour. So, it shouldn't take up too much time out of your day.

Staff there was nice and informative.

Free entry. Tiny museum, if you love skyscrapers and the history of the largest skyscrapers in nyc this is a great 1-2 hour activity.

Loads of info on the twin towns and info on the largest skyscrapers in the world.

Really charming, and free, museum right across the street from where you board to ferry to the statue of liberty. If you have about 30 min to spend I would recommend stopping in. You do need to reserve a ticket ahead of time from their website but I did this 15 minutes before the time I selected and had no issue getting a ticket (only 5 people including myself were there for that timeslot). There are some gems here such as architectural elements salvaged from historic skyscrapers and the proposal model for the twin towers.

My Son wanted to check this little museum out when we visited New York. Cool to see all the before works of some of the tallest buildings in NY ! 🏗️🏬

As an engineer I really liked the place. It is a very small but well-crafted museum. It doesn’t have information about the newer ultramodern engineered buildings in midtown but still has a lot of information about the history behind the many nyc skyscrapers. I will probably visit it again.

Very informative. It’s a small museum and the skyscraper are mostly NY buildings. There is an exhibition showing other iconic buildings around the world but most information is about NY.
The bookstore is very lovely.
I will say most of it is informative and there are a few things actually see, it is mainly reading but I enjoyed it very much!
FYI it is like a decent room of items so not a lot of things to look at, I will say you can finish examining all the exhibits within an hour.

A must-see. This museum gives you a real insight into the skyline and the changes over the centuries of lower Manhattan. If you are really into architecture, engineering, and the history of skyscrapers, check this wonderful museum out.

Great place to visit if you have a fascination for skyscrapers and/or architecture however not really geared for more casual visitors since the exhibit is relatively small but VERY info-dense with a lot of reading involved if you want to really grasp what you’re looking at. For those who don’t want to do much reading like little kids the building models are cool to look at but there’s only about a dozen of them. I thought it would be bigger but it’s actually a fairly small museum with only one floor of exhibits plus the book store. I thought I’d be there for a good while but I was done in about an hour even with taking my time reading a lot of the posted info. Can’t complain about the admission price though since it’s only 5 bucks - and at the time of my visit actually free apparently due to sponsorship. It’s also conveniently located near Battery Park and the Staten Island and Liberty ferry terminals. Fitting too that it’s in New York - the spiritual home of the skyscraper.