Noguchi | Modern museum in New York City

One of the best things about New York City are the pilgrimages to destinations far and wide, not just the destinations themselves.

To get to the Noguchi Museum from Manhattan, you’ll have to cross the East River. A ride on the Astoria ferry is a chance to behold the grand, haphazard design of the island, its man made crags and gulches.

A coffee walk through the Socrates Sculpture gallery – just two blocks from the museum – is romantic, too. Here, colossal designs mirror the city across the river.

The Noguchi itself isn’t housed among the city’s most expensive residences, nor is it situated within some magnificently-drafted achievement of modern architecture. It’s a simple industrial building, once a gas station pump and an auto repair shop. It is the same location where Isamu Noguchi created and dreamt up his artworks after the year 1974.

Try as we might to describe the power of a piece of his sculpture with the written word, it’s hard to encapsulate. Noguchi has a mastery of organic forms and calculated geometry, and he indulges creativity with countless mediums and styles.

The work is stunning.

Drawing from a life that placed young Isamu between Japan and many corners of the United States, Noguchi later drew from his experiences in Mexico, China, and among the marble of Italy. For his life though, he proudly identified as a “Hoosier,” having spent much of his childhood in La Porte, Indiana.

The legacy of Noguchi is celebrated in this quietly ethereal corner of not-quite-Astoria, not-quite-Long-Island-City.

His patriotism, his innovation, and yes, his genius, are ready for your eyes whenever you’re willing to cross the East River.