Commune with Buddha sans tourists at the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art. (Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art)
Holy exhibit, Batman! Have him all to yourself at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. (Gary Dunaier)
New York City has about 8 million people, and sometimes it seems like they’re all in the exact same place. Restaurants have hourlong waits and streets are jammed. And then there’s the city’s cultural institutions, often more packed than an elevator at 5 p.m. on a Friday. In its last fiscal year, the Met recorded its highest attendance in 40 years, with 5.58 million visitors. Nearly 3 million hit MoMA last year.
Want a more intimate museum experience — where you can breathe? Try some of the city’s lesser-known museums, which have attendances in the low thousands. Here are five off-the-radar spots to visit on a weekend.
Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (594 Broadway, Suite 401; 212-254-3511)
Visitors per year: 11,000
Founded in 2002, it’s dedicated to that most populist and often dismissed art form, comic books. You’ll find original art from greats both current and out of the Golden Age. The exhibits tend to highlight the indie side of comics, but the museum still indulges mainstream tastes often enough to make fanboys swoon. Currently, Batman art is taking center stage, as well an exhibit on Michael Uslan, one of the world’s foremost Batman experts and executive producer of this summer’s “The Dark Knight Rises.”
History: Lawyer Lawrence Klein, a comic collector, came up with the idea while sitting in Starbucks, realizing there was nothing like it in New York.
Trivia: The museum hopes to move to a bigger home, and architectural firms recently offered outlandish designs. One entry, by Erick Kristanto, features a building made of stacked, rounded pods meant to evoke comic speech bubbles.
Admission: $6, children 10 and under free
The Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art (338 Lighthouse Ave., Staten Island; 718-987-3500)
Visitors per year: 5,000
Dedicated to showcasing Tibetan and other Asian art, the location looks nothing like NYC — and that’s a good thing. The complex sits atop a hill to resemble a Far East monastery. The surrounding landscape is dotted with plants, fish ponds and meditation areas, further adding to the vibe. The museum displays a rotating group of some 125 works, including Buddha statues, furniture and ritual objects.
History: Born in 1887, Jacques Marchais was a former child actress, socialite and art dealer interested in Tibet for spiritual reasons. She amassed one of the earliest collections of the country’s art in America, despite never visiting Tibet. She founded the museum in 1947.
Trivia: The Dalai Lama visited in 1991 and remarked that the museum’s landscape reminded him of home. Yep, Staten Island = Tibet.
Admission: $6
The Merchant’s House Museum (29 E. Fourth St.; 212-777-1089)
Visitors per year: 8,500
In this perfectly preserved three-story row house from the mid-1800s, the interior remains as it was back when the wealthy merchant Seabury Treadwell and his family lived there more than 150 years ago. Youngest daughter Gertrude, who resided there her entire life, from 1840 to 1933, kept the house exactly has it had always been, preserving period furniture, fabrics and clothing. Check out the newly reopened servants’ quarters.
History: The brick townhouse, built in 1832 in the late-Federal architectural style, became a museum in 1936 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
Trivia: Many claim to have spotted the ghost of Gertrude Treadwell at the house, considered to be one of NYC’s most haunted places.
Admission: $10, children under 12 free SculptureCenter (44-19 Purves St., Long Island City, Queens; 718-361-1750)
Visitors per year: 8,500
Showcasing experimental and modern forms of sculpture, the museum has no permanent collection, and the exhibits rotate. Most works trend toward the avant garde, and on April 22, the space will reopen with a retrospective of the late Bill Bollinger, an artist who broke onto the scene in the ’60s. Bollinger’s stark pieces were often made of prefabricated hardware supplies, such as sawhorses, oil drums and cyclone fence.
History: The museum dates to 1928, when it was called the Clay Club. It changed its name in 1950, and three years later, for its 25th anniversary, exhibited works by Alexander Calder, Louise Nevelson, and Isamu Noguchi. It moved from Manhattan to Queens in 2001.
Trivia: The museum’s space was built in 1907, and was originally meant to be used as a trolley repair shop.
Admission: $5
The Brooklyn Historical Society (128 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn Heights, 718-222-4111)
Visitors per year: 27,000
The museum showcases “Inventing Brooklyn,” an exhibit tracing the evolution of the borough from its Native American roots to its current roost as one of the hippest places in America. Catch the exhibit on the beloved Brooklyn Dodgers (through April 1).
History: Founded in 1863 as the Long Island Historical Society, the space housed commercial tenants and operated as a library for much of the 20th century. In 1989, the building’s ground floor was renovated and Brooklyn-centric memorabilia displayed, including the original set from “The Honeymooners.”
Trivia: During World War I, the landmarked building served as the Red Cross headquarters.
Admission: $6, children under 12 free