Staying Fit
New museums pop up all the time, often dedicated to increasingly niche topics. After you’ve been to the big ones — like New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Washington, D.C.’s Smithsonian Institute facilities or Chicago’s Field Museum — you can start to explore your specific interests in history and culture. Here are five interesting new American museums for 2022 and ’23.
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Courtesy Museum of Broadway
Museum of Broadway, New York
The appeal: The first permanent museum to celebrate the Great White Way
The collection: The four-story museum will feature interactive experiences that explore how shows get made, as well as Broadway history.
Opens: Nov. 15
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Bob Dylan Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma
The appeal: A three-story multimedia venue dedicated to the work of the legendary songwriter and Nobel Prize winner, located in the same city as the Woody Guthrie Center
The collection: More than 100,000 pieces of Dylan memorabilia — including handwritten manuscripts, unreleased concert recordings, liner notes, correspondence and musical instruments. You can also watch clips of Dylan documentaries and performances, and hear the earliest known recording of his classic “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.”
Opened: May
International African American Museum, Charleston, South Carolina
The appeal: This long-awaited venue will tell the untold stories of the African American journey at a powerfully symbolic site: Gadsden’s Wharf, where an estimated 100,000 enslaved Africans landed during the height of the American slave trade.
The collection: Through artifacts, digital presentations and live performances, visitors will learn about the spread of African American culture and influence, as well as the struggles for justice and equality. Visitors can also trace their genealogy.
Opens: Jan. 21
Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco
The appeal: This free museum will have no permanent holdings. Instead, the focus will be on temporary exhibits, with about half showcasing the work of emerging California-based artists and the rest featuring more-established local and international artists.
The collection: There is no collection, but the museum, in a former warehouse, can accommodate large-scale installations, such as the inaugural piece “This Burning World,” an immersive exhibit and video work by Choctaw-Cherokee artist Jeffrey Gibson.
Opened: Oct. 1
National Museum of Military Vehicles, Dubois, Wyoming
The appeal: The largest private collection of military vehicles in the U.S.
The collection: More than 500 restored tanks, Jeeps, trucks, motorcycles, landing craft and other vehicles, dating from 1897 to the present. The museum also features 200 historically significant firearms — including the musket that fired the first shot in the Revolutionary War’s Battle of Bunker Hill.
Opened: May
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