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A walking route through Upper East Side's art galleries

A 12-stop walking route through the art galleries of Upper East Side, ordered so you walk 1.3 mi instead of doubling back.

The most genteel of the routes, threading through townhouses and side streets off Madison Avenue. The galleries here deal largely in modern, postwar and secondary-market work, which means you will see more historically significant art and fewer surprises than downtown.

The route sits within a few blocks of Museum Mile, so it combines naturally with the Met, the Guggenheim, the Frick or the Neue Galerie. Doing both in a day makes for a long but coherent walk.

Getting to the start: 4/5/6 to 77th or 86th St, or Q to 72nd or 86th St.

Upper East Side has 17 galleries on our map. This route takes the 12 that sit closest together — the walkable core of the district — because a 17-stop walk is a list, not a route. The full Upper East Side directory has the rest.

Practical notes for this walk

Best time to go. Tuesday to Friday. Weekend hours are shorter here than downtown, and some spaces close Saturdays in summer.

Worth knowing. Several galleries here occupy townhouses and upper floors and operate partly by appointment. A call ahead is more useful in this district than any other.

Combine it with. Museum Mile is a few blocks west. The Met, the Guggenheim, the Frick and the Neue Galerie are all within reach of this route.

The route

  1. Opera Gallery New York — website ↗827 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10065, USA↓ 0.1 mi to the next stop — about 3 min on foot
  2. Kate Oh Gallery, LLC — website ↗50 E 72nd St, New York, NY 10021, USA↓ 0.1 mi to the next stop — about 2 min on foot
  3. Alexandre Gallery — website ↗25 E 73rd St, New York, NY 10021, USA↓ 0.2 mi to the next stop — about 5 min on foot
  4. White Cube New York — website ↗1002 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10075, USA↓ a few steps to the next stop — about 1 min on foot
  5. Gerald Peters Gallery — website ↗24 E 78th St, New York, NY 10075, USA↓ a few steps to the next stop — about 1 min on foot
  6. Acquavella Galleries — website ↗18 E 79th St, New York, NY 10075, USA↓ a few steps to the next stop — about 1 min on foot
  7. Skarstedt Gallery — website ↗20 E 79th St, New York, NY 10075, USA↓ a few steps to the next stop — about 1 min on foot
  8. Leila Heller Gallery — website ↗Ground Level, 22 E 80th St, New York, NY 10075, USA↓ a few steps to the next stop — about 1 min on foot
  9. Elkon Gallery — website ↗18 E 81st St Ste 2a, New York, NY 10028, USA↓ a few steps to the next stop — about 1 min on foot
  10. David Nolan Gallery — website ↗24 E 81st St 4th floor, New York, NY 10028, USA↓ 0.2 mi to the next stop — about 3 min on foot
  11. Questroyal Fine Art — website ↗903 Park Ave Third Floor, New York, NY 10075, USA↓ 0.4 mi to the next stop — about 9 min on foot
  12. Gallery 71 Inc — website ↗974 Lexington Avenue, NW corner of, E 71st St, New York, NY 10021, USA

How this route was built. We ordered these stops by their actual coordinates, using a nearest-neighbour path improved with a 2-opt pass, so the sequence is close to the shortest walk that visits every stop once. The walking times assume a steady city pace of about 4.5 km/h including traffic lights, and count only the walking — not the time you will spend inside.

Galleries close, move and change their hours. Check before you set out, and treat this as a suggested order rather than a schedule.

← See all of these on the interactive map