6. Frank O’Hara’s Museum of Modern Art

MoMA

1950s poet Frank O’Hara developed the New York School movement, and many of his poems directly reference the culture and character of the city. O’Hara spent time working at the Museum of Modern Art, where he wrote his “Lunch Poems” on his lunch break and befriended Jackson Pollack and Joni Mitchell, among others. “One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes – I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life,” wrote O’Hara in his poem “Meditations in an Emergency.” To embrace the aesthetics and lifestyle of this poet, try taking lunch to the MoMA and spend time observing the strangeness of the people and the metropolitan culture that float in and out of the doors.