NEW YORK, NY.- Now celebrating its 33rd year, the annual Museum Mile Festival takes place rain or shine on Tuesday, June 14, 2011, from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm. Over 1.5 million people have taken part in this annual celebration since its inception. Festival attendees can walk the Mile between 82nd Street and 105th Street while visiting nine of New York City’s finest cultural institutions open free to the public throughout the evening. In addition, several of the participating museums offer outdoor art activities for children.

The Museum Mile Festival’s opening ceremony takes place at 5:45 pm at Neue Galerie New York (Fifth Avenue at 86th Street). Traditionally, the Commissioner of Cultural Affairs and other city and state dignitaries open the Festival.

El Museo del Barrio; The Museum of the City of New York; The Jewish Museum; Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution; National Academy Museum & School; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Neue Galerie New York; Goethe-Institut New York/German Cultural Center; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art are the nine institutions participating in this highly successful collaboration. (The Goethe-Institut New York has moved to an interim location.) The Museum for African Art, opening soon on Fifth Avenue at 110th Street, is joining the Museum Mile Festival as its newest member.

Fifth Avenue is closed to traffic and becomes a strollers’ haven. Special exhibitions and works from permanent collections are on view inside the museums’ galleries and live music from jazz to Broadway tunes to string quartets is featured in front of several of the museums. Additional street entertainers perform along Fifth Avenue all evening. Festival attendees will be among the first to see El Museo’s Bienal: The (S) Files 2011, El Museo del Barrio’s biennial focusing on cutting edge street art, and The American Style: Colonial Revival and the Modern Metropolis, at The Museum of the City of New York, both opening on June 14. Other exhibitions on view include Joel Grey/A New York Life, a visual retrospective exploring the impact the artist and his adopted city have had on each other through rare artifacts related to his career and objects from his personal collections, at The Museum of the City of New York; Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore, focusing on the vision of two Jewish sisters, their extraordinary art collection, and their personal relationships with artists such as Matisse and Picasso, at The Jewish Museum; Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels, examining VC&A’s innovative use of materials, production methods, and interpretations of trends over a century of creativity, at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution; Vienna 1900: Style and Identity, examining the emergence of the modern concept of individual identity in turn-of-the-century Vienna as expressed in the art of the period, including paintings, drawings, sculpture, jewelry, furniture, music, and fashion, at Neue Galerie New York; and Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, celebrating the innovative work of the late fashion designer through 100 iconic examples from his prolific 19-year career, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Established in 1978 to increase public awareness of its member institutions and promote public support of the arts, the Museum Mile Festival serves as a model for similar events across the country. For further information, the public may call 212-606-2296