New York’s biggest block party, the Museum Mile Festival, is back next week on June 18 for its 46th edition and no invite is required to attend. Ostensibly, the event’s big draw is the fact that eight of the city’s iconic art institutions go admission-free starting at 6 p.m. and stay open until 9 p.m. But that doesn’t leave a lot of time to actually go museum hopping, so what brings New Yorkers out in droves is more likely the fact that a 23-block stretch of Fifth Avenue is closed to vehicle traffic for the duration of the festival.

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This year’s participating museums are the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Neue Galerie New York, the Guggenheim, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, The Jewish Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, El Museo del Barrio and the Africa Center. Attempting to visit them all is a fool’s goal. Eight institutions in three hours? Even at the briskest of clips, the math just doesn’t check out.

The Museum Mile Festival isn’t necessarily about seeing art. The event was established in 1978 to “increase public awareness of its member institutions and promote public support of the arts.” Shared culture is the order of the evening, whether that involves gazing in awe at Old Masters, enjoying live music, making your own art or simply strolling (or biking) down a carless Fifth Avenue with a few thousand of your neighbors. Most years, more than 50,000 people........

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