The Friends of the Hoboken Public Library is a volunteer group dedicated to helping the library provide a wide range of services and programs to the Hoboken community. For several years the Friends have sponsored a program that provides free passes to some of the area’s most exciting museums.
The American Museum of Natural History, with its amazing dioramas of lions and tigers and bears and gazelles and dinosaur skeletons, is the most popular of these free passes but it is not the only one. Families can discover what life is like aboard a giant aircraft carrier by visiting the Intrepid Museum docked in the Hudson River. And while winter may not seem like the ideal time to visit a botanical garden, the magnificent glass hothouses and the tranquil Japanese gardens at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden are a treat at any time of the year.
Another of the free passes admits you to the Frick Museum, once the home of Henry Clay Frick. View the life style of the rich and famous of America’s Gilded Age along with one of the world’s great private art collections. And speaking of art, how about a visit to the Guggenheim Museum, where the art does not hang in square rooms but rather on the walls of a giant spiral that you can travel from top to bottom or bottom to top. This icon of New York architecture was among the last buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, one of America’s most famous architects.
Other passes provided by the Friends to the Hoboken community include the interactive Children’s Museum and the New York Historical Society, one of the country’s oldest museums.
How to obtain a pass
Passes are available to library patrons at the front desk on a first come first served basis and may not be reserved in advance.
Though passes cover general admission, some museums have additional fees for special exhibits. Passes may be signed out 48 hours in advance and must be returned 48 hours after using them. Museum of Natural History vouchers are single use and need not be returned but there is a $5 per day fine for late return and a $20 charge for loss of all other passes. Though this charge does not cover the cost of a replacement pass, the Friends hope it will encourage users to be mindful of library policies that allow for maximum use of them.
The Friends invite Hobokenites to use these passes to expand their experiences and widen their horizons by taking themselves and their families to one of these wonderful museums.