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New Yorkers are about to lose one of their favorite skyline perches—and no, it’s not another rooftop bar, it’s The Met’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden. The museum has just opened its 2025 roof garden commission and when it closes on October 19, the terrace will go dark for nearly five years.
The swan song belongs to Cincinnati-born artist Jennie C. Jones, who has filled the rooftop with Ensemble, a trio of monumental sculptures modeled on string instruments. Think a trapezoidal zither reclining like a bass trap, a wind-played Aeolian harp standing tall against the skyline and a doubled one-string leaning in two directions as if in conversation with itself. Their taut lines and maroon-red planes look ready to be plucked, but the only “performer” is the breeze.
Jones has long treated sound as sculptural material, weaving Black avant-garde music and minimalist form into paintings, audio works and installations. Here, she makes the city itself part of the score: Gusts activate the harp, while the others sit in charged silence, holding the tension between potential and release. It’s as much about listening with your imagination as with your ears.
Since 2013, The Met has handed the keys to its rooftop each spring, producing some of the museum’s buzziest contemporary commissions. Past years brought everything from Afrofuturist temples to schoolyard-doodle-inspired sculptures. But that tradition is about to hit pause.
Why? The museum is breaking ground on the $500 million Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing, a five-story expansion designed by Mexican architect Frida Escobedo. Slated to open in 2030, the new wing will house modern and contemporary art in 126,000 square feet of galleries, plus 18,500 square feet of terraces overlooking Central Park. The Cantor Roof Garden itself will be relocated and expanded—from 7,500 to 10,000 square feet—on the wing’s fourth floor.
That means no more rooftop reveals until the new wing opens, which, for regulars who mark the seasons by the first rooftop selfie, is a long intermission.
Grab your friends, time your visit for a golden-hour Friday or Saturday (when the museum stays open until 9 pm) and let the wind play Jones’s strings while you still can. After October 19, you’ll have to wait until 2030 for the next act.