The Intimate New York Art Museum With A Collection That Tourists And Critics Rate Higher Than The Met

Just what is it that makes house museums so special? The Frick Collection on Manhattan’s East 70th Street is one of the most famous house museums in the world and reopened to great fanfare on April 17, 2025. After years of renovation, the building is now more accessible and offers new spaces to explore, including the Gilded Age mansion’s second floor rooms. And these updates might help set it apart from the iconic Metropolitan Museum of Art (“the Met”).

The Met, just 10 blocks and 14 minutes’ walk up 5th Avenue, is extremely close to The Frick, literally and aesthetically. You don’t even need to brave New York City’s chaotic subway system — both museums are on the edge of scenic Central Park, and both house fine art by the world’s greatest painters. Renaissance portraits by Holbein; Baroque-era works by Rembrandt and Velázquez; Enlightenment masterpieces by El Greco, Goya, and Vermeer; and impressionism by Monet can be found in both museums’ collections. Yet time and again people rave about how they prefer the Frick over the Met. “We have also been to the MET [a] couple of times but in my opinion the Frick is better,” writes Tripadvisor reviewer @MiguelCarlos395. User @jrr501 agrees, adding that it’s “much more digestible than the Met if your time is short.” Similarly, Tripexpert found that The Frick slightly outperformed its counterpart in expert reviews.

Henry Clay Frick, the self-made millionaire and coke and steel magnate, had his house on 5th Avenue built in 1913, where he hung his art collection that he’d been amassing since his 40s. He left his house, its lavish furniture, and his world-class art collection to the public upon his death. To oversee his wishes, his daughter Helen was the director of the museum until 1983; she died the following year at the age of 96.

The art collections may be similar at both museums, but the intimate environment of viewing masterpieces in the home of the person who lovingly collected them at The Frick Collection just feels different. During the renovation period of the 5th Avenue mansion, the paintings were displayed at the old Whitney, much to the dismay of some visitors, including Tripadvisor user @Trippsdad1983, who noted, “Part of the charm is the old building that houses the Frick.”

The New Yorker’s longstanding arts critic Peter Schjeldahl also called The Frick his favorite museum, jokingly stating, “Welcome to my house” to friends he’d tour around the collection. Sadly, he died in 2022 and didn’t get to see his beloved house museum reopen. But it’s this instant coziness of being in a home, feeling the presence of the collector — no matter how long ago they passed away — and having furniture and personal effects surrounding the art collection that makes the space so much more appealing than the “white cube” effect of larger art museums. And maybe, just maybe, you could imagine one day having a house like The Frick as your own. If you’re a fan of the architecture at The Frick Collection, why not take a trip to Rhode Island to visit the extravagant Gilded Age mansions in Newport?