Check out the Museum of the City of New York's Newest Exhibition: New York at Its Core

EAST HARLEM, NY — A new exhibit dedicated to the city we love opened Friday at the Museum of the City of New York. In one cohesive experience, "New York at Its Core" teaches museumgoers what made New York the city it is. The 8,000-square-foot permanent exhibition explores the city's 400-year evolution, dating back to 1609 and spanning into the future.

The museum dumped a lot of time, effort and money into putting together "New York at Its Core," — specifically $10 million over a planning period of five years. Curators wanted to capture what exactly made New York become a "global capital like no other" and a "subject of fascination" all over the world, according to the museum website. The curators identified four themes as the foundation of the city—money, density, diversity and creativity— and shaped the exhibition around them.

The exhibition features a collection of hundreds of thousand of items and occupies the entire first floor of the museum. It consists of three multi-media galleries that explore how New York City went from a Dutch village to the city it is today, and considers the city's future in our changing world.

The first part of New York at Its Core is called "Port City" from 1609-1898. Starting with Henry Hudson's voyage into New York Bay, visitors will "meet" New Yorkers from this time period, like Alexander Hamilton, anarchist Emma Goldman, and Chinatown pioneer Wong Chin Foo.

Next, visitors will find "World City," focusing on 1898-2012. Visitors will see objects from the Great Depression, the fiscal and urban crises of the postwar era, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and much more that "ultimately affirmed the creativity and resilience of the residents of a teeming metropolis that had become the most influential city in the world," the website says.

The third part of the exhibit allows visitors to take a look at what's to come for New York at the "Future City" interactive space. Visitors will explore five central challenges that New York will endure in coming generations: Making a Living, Living Together, Housing a Growing Population, Living with Nature, and Getting Around. Guests can virtually interact with these issues by using engaging visuals and even design a street, a building, and a park.

Museum of the City of New York is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Click here to purchase tickets online.

Photo by Aurelien Guichard/Flickr