No place can consider itself truly modern without a collection of fine art to inspire study of the subject and all attendant fields. That, at least, that was the philosophy by the New York State legislature when they allocated $500,000 and appointed a commission to oversee it “for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said City a Museum and Library of Art, of encouraging and developing the Study of the Fine Arts, and the application of Art to manufacture and natural life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and to that end of furnishing popular instruction and recreations.”

On this day, February 20, in 1872, two years after the Metropolitan was conceived, the building — located on Fifth Avenue, not the present location — opened its doors for the first time. Its collection was somewhat underwhelming – 130 paintings and a Roman sarcophagus – but that would change quickly.

The Fifth Avenue location was always intended to be temporary — a year before it opened, the Metropolitan acquired land on the east side of Central Park, where it stands now, and hired the well-known architect Calvert Vaux to design the permanent home. Vaux’s completed design was met with much disapproval, but the Met had no choice but to move into it. Still, within two decades a radical redesign built over Vaux’s building expanded the grounds of the Met and created the beaux-arts facade we see today.