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Writer's pictureNora Wesson

The Museum is Closed on Wednesdays: The Steps at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Updated: Mar 13, 2023


Water jets from the Met's fountain
The left fountain at The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Nora Wesson

The water of one of the fountains in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art slaps as it falls. It’s not a natural sound, rather manmade and synchronized. Twenty or thirty jet-streams of water climb high into the air, meeting each other in a symphony of droplets and spray.


It smells like chlorine.


Metal barriers block a section of the plaza where one overzealous jet-stream overshoots the fountain’s edge and lands with a splat on the pavement. A lone, skinny traffic cone sits next to the spectacle, seemingly forgotten.


It’s Wednesday and the museum is closed, so only a handful of people perch on the steep front steps that have decorated NYC postcards for generations. A second fountain drops water onto unsuspecting tourists, but their protests are drowned out by the angry whoosh of a helicopter heard long before it is seen.


It flies east.


A woman dressed for a party, draped in blue satin that moves like waves on the ocean, walks past. Adorned in gold jewelry, she flips her silky black hair and speaks to her companion with a smile, her words too quick to decipher. Perhaps she speaks another language.


She laughs.


The sky is gray-blue, the air heavy, as if holding back the floodgates for as long as it can. A bus stops at a light in front of the museum, its body halfway into the crosswalk. The traffic on Fifth Avenue is light, unrushed except for one silver car frantically honking.


Two white-shirted security guards stand in the early evening sun at the museum’s entrance, their conversation just barely audible. They lean on the railings, tired, perhaps from a long day.


A young boy sits on the steps with his mother. He too, seems tired, sighing as he looks around curiously. They play patty-cake, then he runs up and down the steps, prompting his mother to follow. He races, she walks. He stops every so often, waiting for her to catch up.


The crisp air is suddenly interrupted with gasoline and cigarette smoke, their sources unknown. The steps are nearly empty; even the pigeons that so often climb them looking for crumbs from New York street pretzels have gone elsewhere to eat. Three deserted hot dog carts are lined up near the curb, instead of the 10 or more usually serving the crowds.


A few tourists take selfies by the fountains, their backgrounds still and quiet. The masses give the museum entrance character. Without them, the steps are just a pile of gray stone.


The blue in the sky is almost gone. It’s going to rain soon.


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