The Morbid Anatomy Museum is a nonprofit exhibition space that is dedicated, in the words of co-founder Joanna Ebenstein, to “the things that fall through the cracks.” Its purpose is to provide a home for lectures, presentations, and an intellectual salon that brings together artists, writers, curators, and passionate amateurs.
Since opening last June, The Morbid Anatomy Museum has hosted tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world. It’s been the subject of articles in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal, and has been described as an “indispensable new institution” by the Financial Times.
Morbid Anatomy Museum illustration via Facebook.
Morbid Anatomy Museum via Facebook
The museum building includes rotating exhibits, a lecture and event space, a café, and a store. By focusing on forgotten or neglected histories, the museum’s exhibits hope to shine a light on themes that include nature, death and society, anatomy, medicine, arcane media, and curiosity.
Morbid Anatomy Museum | by Stinapreda via Wikipedia
The details: The exhibition space and library are open from 12:00—6:00 p.m., every day except Tuesday. Admission to the exhibition and library is $8. Seniors and students pay $6, and children 12 and under enter for free. The museum store is open from 12:00 to 8:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 12:00 to 6:00 p.m. on Sunday.
Housewares | Carolina S. via Yelp
Food: The Morbid Anatomy café is open from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, and 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Sunday.
How to get there: The museum is located at 424 Third Ave, at the corner of 7th Street [GMAP]. It is two blocks away from the 4th Avenue 9th Street stop for F, G, and R riders. The B37 bus that runs from the Barclays Center to Bay Ridge along Third Avenue stops nearby too. Drivers can save on parking by booking with Parkwhiz and using the code word MORBID2 at checkout.
Morbid Anatomy Museum via Facebook
What to do there: The current temporary exhibition is “House of Wax: Anatomical, Pathological, and Ethnographical Waxworks from Castan’s Panopticum.” It’s curated by Ryan Mathew Cohn of TV’s “Oddities,” with introductory text by Dr. Peter M. McIsaac, Professor of German and Museum Studies at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Past exhibitions have included “The Art of Mourning, Collector’s Cabinet, Do The Spirits Return?: From Dark Arts to Sleight of Hand in Early 20th Century Stage,” “Magic,” and “Opus Hypnagogia: Sacred Spaces of the Visionary and Vernacular.” To learn more about the museum’s exhibitions, click here.
Anthropomorphic mouse taxidermy | Morbid Anatomy Museum via Facebook
Lectures and Events: Lectures at the museum are fascinating and diverse, from subjects such as “Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class, One or Two Headed with Divya Anantharaman” on November 21 to “Dial P for Pagan: Madeline Schwartzman’s Campus of Curiosities Shown on 16mm Film!” on December 2. A full schedule of lectures and events is available here.
Library | Nadia Z. via Yelp
Library: The Morbid Anatomy Library was founded in 2008 and is a research library and collection that contains thousands of books, photographs, artworks, pieces of ephemera, and artifacts. Items include material from medical museums, anatomical art, works related to collectors and collecting, cabinets of curiosity, the history of medicine, death, natural history, arcane media, and curiosities broadly considered. Researchers can use the library free of charge.
When you leave: Consider a trip to the Old Stone House, a 1933 reconstruction of the Vechte-Cortelyou House, which was constructed in 1699 and played a pivotal role in the Revolutionary War Battle of Long Island. Pick up a sweet or savory pie at Four and Twenty Blackbirds. Or have a drink (and maybe take in a show) at The Bell House.