By By Verla Roberts

It turns out that it doesn’t take a train ride into Manhattan to experiece art and history.

There are tons of different museums on Long Island. Some offer information about the island’s marine life, science, mathematics, Native American archeology and Long Island itself.

Besides informational museums, the island offers museums that are just on artwork and sculptures. The work spans from contemporary to early renaissance.

“I haven’t been to any of the museums here on the island,” Jeanette Galvan, a junior print journalism major, said. “Quite honestly I haven’t really looked into the museums on Long Island, but I’ve been to museums before.”

The Nassau County Museum of Art located in Roslyn Harbor isn’t your ordinary building. The structure used to be the estate of the Frick Family. The mansion was purchased by Henry Clay Frick, an industrialist that worked with Carnergie Steel, in 1919, as a wedding present to his son Childs Frick, a vertebrate palenontologist.

The land was originally owned by poet William Cullen Bryant. Childs and his wife, Frances, lived at the estate with their four children for almost 50 years. The original name of the estate was Clayton. Frick died in 1965 and four years later the estate was bought by Nassau County to turn the land into a museum. The Nassau County Museum of Art opened its doors in May 1989 as a non-profit association.

The museum is 145-acres of formal gardens and outdoor sculptures. It offers visitors historic architecture, a collection of flora rare to the Long Island, performances and first-rate fine art exhibitions. The Nassau County Museum of Art houses works of internationally acclaimed artists in the main building, a permanent collection of miniature rooms in Tee Ridder Miniatures Museum and educational programs for every age. Not to forget local talent, the museum holds special exhibitions for local artists. The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday; 11 a.m- 5 p.m. Cost of attendance is $4.00 – $7.00.

“The museum is amazing,” Kristen Lee, a junior secondary education math major, said. “It shows so much about art history and it gives Long Island a closer view rather than just looking online or in books.”

If you want to know a little more about African American artists, you don’t have that far to travel. The African American Museum in Hempstead is the place to go. The museum is dedicated to local and national African American artist. The museum offers permanent and non-permanent exhibits. It holds numerous community-based events such as celebrating the lives of historical figures like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Black History Month. The African American Museum received the 2005 Preservation Award from American Legacy magazine. It is only one of 10 museums to be honored for this prestigious award for the preservation of African American Art. The museum is open 10 a.m -5p.m from Tuesday-Sunday. Admission is free.

“I didn’t even know we had that many museums,” Chris Baker, a sophomore political science major, said. “And I’m from Long Island.”