Strange Things to See at NYC Museums for First-Time Travelers
For first-time travelers, NYC museums usually mean Monet, dinosaur bones, and glittering Broadway costumes. But if you look beyond the iconic collections, you’ll find a weirder side of the city’s museum scene — one filled with oddities, relics, and jaw-dropping surprises. Think haunted dolls from horror films, psychedelic color rooms, vials of preserved subway dust, and cheese sealed in resin. These are the strange things NYC museums are quietly showing off — and once you spot them, you’ll never look at a gallery the same way again.
We’ve rounded up 14 strange things NYC museums are hiding. Whether you’re a curious local or a first-time visitor, these exhibits are where New York gets wonderfully weird.
Strange Things NYC Museums Are Hiding: From Mirror Domes to Haunted Dolls
Hall des Lumières
Located inside a former bank in Tribeca, this museum transforms famous paintings into immersive digital experiences. Entire rooms shift with color and movement as works by Klimt, Chagall, and Van Gogh ripple across walls, ceilings, and floors. It feels like stepping inside a painting — but with lasers.
- Strangest thing: Klimt’s golden portraits projected floor-to-ceiling in a moving light show
- Address: 49 Chambers St, New York, NY 10007
- Website: www.halldeslumieres.com
- Contact:+1 332-242-8810
Color Factory
This is where art meets play. Each room in Color Factory explores a different emotion or memory through color — from a room that whispers stories about your favorite shade to a black-and-white space that actually confuses your eyes. Oh, and there’s a massive ball pit. You’ve been warned.
- Strangest thing: A completely colorless room that messes with your vision and mood
- Address: 251 Spring St, New York, NY 10013
- Website: www.colorfactory.co
- Contact: info@colorfactory.co
The Bone Museum
If you’ve ever wanted to see actual human skeletons used in medical history, here’s your chance. This offbeat Bushwick museum gives a raw, respectful look at how bones were used for education, research, and science in the 1800s. It’s quiet, detailed, and unlike any other exhibit in the city.
- Strangest thing: Real human skeletons from 19th-century medical collections
- Address: 255 McKibbin St Studio 0014, Brooklyn, NY 11206
- Website: https://www.thebonemuseum.org/
- Contact: info@thebonemuseum.com
Houdini Museum of New York
Tucked inside a Midtown magic shop, this little museum is a deep dive into the life of the world’s most famous escape artist. It’s filled with Houdini’s original props, tools, and personal effects — including the wooden coffin he escaped from during a live show in 1907. Still intact, still eerie.
- Strangest thing: Houdini’s original 1907 escape coffin, sealed shut with six-inch nails
- Address: 213 W 35th St, New York, NY 10001
- Website: https://www.houdinirevealed.com/
- Contact: info@houdinimuseumny.com
Mmuseumm
Possibly the smallest museum in the city — if not the world — Mmuseumm is located inside an old freight elevator in a Chinatown alley. Its collection? Wonderfully random: a moldy piece of cheese found in a folder, a shoe thrown at George W. Bush, and toothpaste from war zones. It’s open 24/7 through peepholes.
- Strangest thing: A moldy slice of cheese preserved in resin, discovered in a forgotten file folder
- Address: 4 Cortlandt Alley, New York, NY 10013
- Website: www.mmuseumm.com
- Contact: info@mmuseumm.com
Staten Island Museum
In a dramatic fossil gallery inside Snug Harbor, a full-size woolly mastodon appears mid-charge, bursting through a painted forest backdrop and crashing into the modern world. It’s big, furry, and totally unexpected. Bonus: the museum also features a fossil collection of local Ice Age creatures.
- Strangest thing: A giant mastodon replica bursting out of a gallery wall
- Address: 1000 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, NY 10301
- Website: www.statenislandmuseum.org
- Contact: (718) 727-1135
The City Reliquary
This museum in Williamsburg celebrates the ordinary objects that define NYC. Among the quirky collection: vintage seltzer bottles, old subway tokens, a Statue of Liberty pin collection, and a tiny bottle of actual NYC subway dust presented like a priceless relic.
- Strangest thing: A vial of subway rail dust preserved like a sacred artifact
- Address: 370 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211
- Website: www.cityreliquary.org
- Contact: (718) 782-4842
Museum of Broadway
Alongside Broadway costumes and set models, this museum holds a haunting surprise — the actual monkey music box from The Phantom of the Opera. The cymbal-clapping monkey is eerie enough, but knowing it sat in the Phantom’s lair for 35 years on stage makes it extra surreal.
- Strangest thing: The original music box monkey prop from The Phantom of the Opera
- Address: 145 W 45th St, New York, NY 10036
- Website: www.themuseumofbroadway.com
- Contact: (646) 975-5902
Museum of the Moving Image
This Queens museum dedicated to film and TV holds a horror fan’s dream (or nightmare): the actual animatronic Regan doll from The Exorcist, complete with a twisted neck and glassy eyes. Alongside it is the original vomit machine used during the infamous projectile scene. Yes, really.
- Strangest thing: The possessed doll from The Exorcist used in the head-spin scene
- Address: 36-01 35th Ave, Queens, NY 11106
- Website: https://movingimage.org/
- Contact: (718) 777-6888
Museum of Sex
Amid vintage erotica and historical oddities, one object always grabs attention: the Siège d’Amour, or “Love Chair,” built for King Edward VII. Designed for maximum comfort and minimal effort during royal threesomes, the chair is more architectural curiosity than furniture. It’s strange, scandalous, and undeniably unique.
- Strangest thing: A reinforced sex chair designed for British royalty
- Address: 233 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016
- Website: www.museumofsex.com
- Contact: (212) 689-6337
New York Transit Museum
You expect trains and tokens — not a full orange coverall that looks like a space suit. Worn by NYC subway graffiti cleaners in the 1980s, these suits were used to scrub down train cars. On display now, they look more ready for NASA than for the MTA.
- Strangest thing: A “Clean Car” subway worker’s suit that resembles a full-on astronaut suit
- Address: 99 Schermerhorn St, Brooklyn, NY 11201
- Website: www.nytransitmuseum.org
- Contact: (718) 694-1600
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Among the Met’s ancient Egyptian treasures is a board game called Hounds and Jackals, dating back nearly 4,000 years. With pegs shaped like dogs and jackals, it was believed to help guide souls through the afterlife. Basically, it’s a mystical board game — and it’s in surprisingly good condition.
- Strangest thing: A 3,800-year-old board game meant to help souls pass into the afterlife
- Address: 1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028
- Website: www.metmuseum.org
- Contact: (212) 535-7710
Museums in New York City aren’t just about fine art and history — they’re full of surprises for anyone curious enough to look deeper. From cursed movie props and mind-bending optical illusions to the everyday objects NYC has turned into iconic displays, the strange things NYC museums offer are part of what makes this city unforgettable. So if you’re a first-time traveler looking to explore the quirky, the odd, and the totally unexpected — trust us, you’re in the right place.
References