Remember me
Jane August has made it her mission to visit every museum in New York City and five years in, she’s still discovering new ones. What began as a pandemic-era way to leave the house has turned into a sprawling, spreadsheet-powered project that’s connected her to hidden institutions, museum professionals, and a growing community of fellow culture lovers. Known as “the museum girl” among her fans, August documents her explorations across multiple social channels, where she has amassed thousands of followers, and has even launched a podcast.
Atlas Obscura Executive Editor Emma Patti spoke with August about how the quest began, what’s surprised her most, and how to explore New York like a museum insider.
Atlas Obscura: How did this quest to visit every museum in New York City even begin?
Jane August: I was furloughed during the pandemic. I work in live music, bars, and venues, and suddenly all of that stopped. In the fall of 2020, some friends and I went to the Brooklyn Museum, because museums were really the only cultural spaces that had reopened.
By that winter, I was like, I need to leave my house. I need to do something this year. All the things I usually did—shows, parties, places where people gather—weren’t options. Museums were one of the only places you could go alone and still feel like you were doing something meaningful.
I thought, “There can’t be that many museums. Maybe I’ll visit them all and be done in a year or two.” That was five years ago.
AO: Were you surprised by how long it’s taken?
August: Completely. I originally thought there were maybe 150 or 160 museums in the city. I’m at about 150 visited now, so I should be done.
But museums keep appearing. Some come out of the woodwork and say, “We don’t really post online—we’re kind of a secret museum.” Others reopen, or I’m still trying to figure out if they even exist. I’m emailing board members and stalking LinkedIn trying to confirm whether a place is real or permanently closed. The spreadsheet keeps growing.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
AO: When you started, did you imagine this would turn into such a public project?
August: Not at all. Like everyone else in 2020, I was playing around on TikTok. I realized people liked New York City content, and I thought maybe some people would be interested in this project.
I didn’t expect it to become my identity. I didn’t expect to be introduced as “the museum girl,” or for museum-going to become part of my brand. That part really surprised me.
AO: Do you visit museums outside New York the same way?
August: Not on this scale. When I travel, I go to museums I want to see. I don’t feel obligated. That’s actually when I enjoy museums the most—when I’m not thinking about how I’ll document it or explain it to other people.
AO: After visiting so many museums, do you have favorites?
August: Picking favorites is hard when you’ve been to so many. But the ones I return to a lot include Poster House—it wasn’t even on my radar at first, and now I take everyone there.
I love the Museum of the City of New York and New-York Historical Society. I realized early on that I like history museums more than art museums. I just love learning things.
The Museum of the Moving Image is a favorite, especially for film and TV. I also love the Nicholas Roerich Museum, the Transit Museum, the Red Hook Pinball Museum, and the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum.
And then there are the big ones—the Guggenheim, the Whitney—where I now sometimes get to experience them when they’re empty or after hours. That still feels surreal.
The Maritime Industry Museum at Fort Schuyler
AO: Have any museums totally surprised you?
August: Definitely. The Maritime Industry Museum at Fort Schuyler was a big one. There were no photos online, and it took me over two hours to get there. I thought, “If this is one small room, I’m going to be devastated.”
But it was huge. We got lost inside. It’s in a fort and covers every nautical thing you can imagine. My parents work in the maritime industry, so it was especially meaningful.
I was also surprised by the New York Sign Museum, which is inside an operating sign shop, and by the Salvador Mundi Museum in Brooklyn. That one really made me think about what counts as a museum—it has a gift shop, a café, rotating exhibits, and events, just scaled way down. It’s almost conceptual art about museums themselves.
AO: How do you keep track of all this?
August: I have a very intense spreadsheet. I studied stage management in college, so spreadsheets are my love language.
It tracks every museum, when it’s open, the neighborhood, whether I’ve contacted them, when I visited, who I went with, whether I’ve posted the video yet. Some entries are marked in red because they’re still a mystery: “Do they exist? Find out.”
Jane August poses in front of the painting, “The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882,” by John Singer Sargent at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
AO: Do people send you tips now?
August: All the time. That’s how a lot of this has grown. Museum founders DM me, followers tell me about new openings, and organizations reach out when they start doing exhibitions.
Sometimes I also just find museums by dragging around Google Maps. I’ll be walking to work and realize, “Wait—that’s a museum I didn’t know existed.” Then it goes on the list.
AO: Has this connected you to the museum world in unexpected ways?
August: Absolutely. I’ve met so many people in museum marketing, social media, and public engagement, and they all seem to move between institutions. Suddenly I’m being invited to places because I know someone from somewhere else.
A lot of these people also have their own art practices or side projects, and I love being able to highlight that through my platform or my podcast.
AO: Speaking of which—how did your podcast come about?
August: I had a radio show in college, and I missed interviewing people. Through this museum project, I kept meeting fascinating people, but I only had a short window to tell their stories.
The podcast lets me expand beyond museums. I’ve had theater people, musicians, authors—people whose stories don’t fit neatly into one niche.
New York Chinese Scholar’s Garden in Staten Island, New York.
AO: Any tips for visiting museums?
August: I go in completely blind. I don’t research much beforehand, and I like being surprised. I wander.
My one consistent rule is: always go to the gift shop. I buy a postcard at every museum. I send one to my mom, and whoever I go with has to send one to me. If I go alone, I’ll mail one to myself.
Postcards are my way of documenting what I’ve seen. I have a giant box full of them.
AO: If someone had one day to explore museums in a single New York neighborhood, where should they go?
August: Prospect Park and Crown Heights are great—you’ve got the Brooklyn Museum, the Botanic Garden, and Lefferts Historic House.
The Lower East Side is another favorite. You can do the Tenement Museum, the International Center of Photography, and the new Automatic Photo Booth Museum, plus a bunch of smaller institutions nearby.
Lower Manhattan is underrated for museums, especially National Park Service sites—and you can get Junior Ranger badges at any age, which I love.
And Staten Island’s Snug Harbor is basically a museum campus with multiple institutions in one beautiful area.
Honestly, museums are everywhere in New York. Even after five years, I’m still finding new ones.
Jane also appeared on the Atlas Obscura podcast. Listen to her episode here.
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