This past week, I took a trip to an extremely overlooked museum. The Museum of the Moving Image is located in Astoria, Queens, in a building that once formerly was a part of the Kaufman Astoria Studios. Kaufman Astoria Studios is the biggest functioning film and television studio on the east coast, home to productions such as SNL, Orange Is The New Black and many more. The museum itself is connected to the Studios and has the sole purpose of displaying pieces from television, film and other forms of “moving images.”
I went to MOMI on a field trip for my Mass Media and National Identity course and thought it was so interesting. For starters, Queens is a place that many of us rarely take the chance to explore, so having an excuse to go was awesome. It is so cool to see different parts of the city that usually stand in Manhattan’s shadows. MOMI is in a super-modern building, with minimalistic interior design and unique space that is home to some of the most recognizable costumes and props in the history of the moving image.
MOMI boasts a large collection of movie and television props, costumes and technologies. Of the most notable, they had makeup used in Sex and The City 2, prosthetic limbs used in The Black Swan, and many costumes and prosthetics from Mrs. Doubtfire. It was awesome to see things that we are so used to seeing on screen in real life, and definitely worth the hour-long trekk on the subway to get there.