Museum of the Moving Image

Step through the doors and the noise of Queens falls away. The lobby is bright, white, and quiet. Above you, angular panels fold across the ceiling like paper. Somewhere deeper in the building, a screen flickers and a soundtrack hums. You are in Astoria, on 35th Avenue, standing inside a museum about everything that moves on a screen: film, television, animation, and video games.

Before it held a museum, this ground held a film factory. In the 1920s, Paramount Pictures ran a large studio complex here in Astoria. This was before Hollywood took over American filmmaking completely. Silent stars worked on these blocks. When sound arrived, the studio made talking pictures too. The Marx Brothers shot their early films here, including The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers. That loud, fast comedy came out of a neighbourhood better known today for Greek bakeries and cafés.

The studio's fortunes rose and fell. During the Second World War, the army took over the lot and made training and information films. For years after that, the old stages stood mostly quiet. Then, from the 1970s onward, the complex came back to life as Kaufman Astoria Studios. It is still a working studio today. Here is a detail many visitors miss — Sesame Street has been made at that studio, just steps from where you are standing.

The museum moved into one of the old studio buildings and opened in 1988. At first it carried the name American Museum of the Moving Image. The idea was simple and new. Most museums of the time treated film as art on a wall or as old reels in an archive. This museum asked a different question. How are moving images actually made? And how do they change the way we see the world?

In 2011, the museum reopened after a large expansion by Leeser Architecture. Look around the lobby again with that in mind. The architects wanted the building itself to feel like a camera or a screen. Clean white surfaces catch the light. Long sight lines pull your eye forward, the way a good shot pulls you into a scene. The space feels less like a palace of art and more like a studio, open and ready for work.

If you can, peek into the main theater. The walls are covered in soft panels of deep blue felt. They absorb sound, so dialogue lands clearly and music feels close. The colour also does a quiet job. It disappears when the lights go down, and only the screen remains. The museum runs a busy film programme here, from silent classics with live music to new releases and retrospectives.

The heart of the museum is its core exhibition, Behind the Screen. This is where you learn how the trick works. You will find old cameras, projectors, and early television sets. You will see makeup, masks, and costume pieces from real productions. There are merchandise and fan objects too, because the museum treats the audience as part of the story. Movies are not only made in studios. They are also made in our bedrooms, our toy boxes, and our memories.

Behind the Screen is hands-on, and that is the surprise for many adults. At some stations you can make a short stop-motion animation, one frame at a time. At others you can try sound effects, or record your own voice over a film scene, the way actors redo lines in a studio. You can even make a flip book of yourself. These small exercises show something important. Every smooth moment on screen is built from hundreds of tiny decisions.

The museum also takes video games seriously. Long before many institutions collected them, this museum treated games as part of moving image culture. In the galleries you may find playable arcade cabinets and home consoles from different decades. Families crowd around them, and so do grandparents who remember the originals. Listen for the beeps and the electronic music. Those sounds are part of the collection too.

One of the most loved spaces is the Jim Henson Exhibition, which opened in 2017. Henson was the creator of the Muppets, the puppet family that includes Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy. Here you can see original puppets up close, along with sketches, scripts, and film clips. You notice the stitching, the foam, the worn felt on a puppet's hands. Given the Sesame Street connection next door, this exhibition feels very much at home in Astoria.

Keep an eye out for a strange little room called Tut's Fever Movie Palace. It is an art installation by Red Grooms and Lysiane Luong. It imitates the over-the-top cinemas of the 1920s, when theatres were decorated like Egyptian temples or Spanish castles. Everything is painted, cartoonish, and a little crooked. Classic film serials play on its screen. Sit down for a few minutes. It is a playful reminder that going to the movies was once a grand event.

The museum also changes with the times. Temporary exhibitions often explore new media, digital art, and the screens we carry in our pockets. The collection is very large, and only part of it is on display at any moment. So the museum you visit today may feel different from the one a friend saw last year. That is fitting. Moving images never stand still, and neither does this building.

When you leave, walk slowly along the block. Look at the studio buildings nearby, where crews still unload equipment and build sets. Notice the ordinary life of Astoria around them — the delis, the buses, the people walking home. A hundred years of stories began on these streets. As you step back into the light of Queens, you may find yourself framing what you see, like a scene from a film you are only now beginning to watch.